Ameliorative Inquiry in Epistemology

In David Bordonaba Plou, Víctor Fernández Castro & José Ramón Torices (eds.), The Political Turn in Analytic Philosophy: Reflections on Social Injustice and Oppression. Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 151-172 (2022)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Recently, some work in feminist epistemology has received more uptake from mainstream western analytic epistemology than it had in the past. There has been recognition of the importance of topics like epistemic injustice, standpoint epistemology, and epistemologies of ignorance, for instance. But these discussions are often seen as orthogonal to core epistemic theorizing - they have not received uptake as fundamental contestations of the ways we understand epistemic value, or core normative epistemic concepts. I suggest that one reasons for this is the perception that insofar as feminist theorizing is responsive to moral and political concerns, it is not doing epistemology because it is not theorizing about epistemic value. This assumes a specific kind of epistemic value monism - a view whose popularity, I argue, derives at least partly from features of the methodologies that are popular in mainstream epistemology. I show that by using a different type of methodology - ameliorative inquiry - we see that there is a principled reason to doubt epistemic value monism. We can thus understand feminist theorizing in ways that are richer, more accurate, and that contribute to our understanding of the ways in which our practical, moral, and epistemic agency are intertwined.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 101,505

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Richard Rorty and Epistemic Normativity.Eric T. Kerr & J. Adam Carter - 2016 - Social Epistemology 30 (1):3-24.
The (virtue) epistemology of political ignorance.Cameron Boult - 2021 - American Philosophical Quarterly 58 (3):217-232.
On the Virtues and Plausibility of Feminist Epistemologies.Pieranna Garavaso & Nicla Vassallo - 2003 - Epistemologia, Rivista Italiana di Filosofia Della Scienza (1):99-131.
Gender and Feminist Epistemology.Nancy Daukas - 2016 - In Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Kimberley Brownlee & David Coady (eds.), A Companion to Applied Philosophy. Malden, MA: Wiley. pp. 61–75.
A "purist" feminist epistemology?Emily Tilton - 2023 - Dissertation, University of British Columbia
Harms and Wrongs in Epistemic Practice.Simon Barker, Charlie Crerar & Trystan S. Goetze - 2018 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 84:1-21.
Knowing with.Heather Rabenberg - 2024 - Ratio 37 (2-3):112-122.

Analytics

Added to PP
2022-03-19

Downloads
48 (#459,642)

6 months
9 (#492,507)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Emily Colleen McWilliams
Duke Kunshan University

Citations of this work

Feminist metaphysics.Sally Haslanger & Ásta Kristjana Sveinsdóttir - 2008;2011 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references