Abstract

In this book, which is as much about postmodern continental philosophy as about analytic epistemology, Alcoff argues that epistemology is in need of a reorientation away from foundationalism and metaphysical realism toward coherentism and what Alcoff calls “immanent” realism. Alcoff begins, in the book’s introduction, by making an initial case for coherentism and against dismissing epistemology altogether. She considers it a valuable postmodernist insight that philosophical theorizing reflects social, gender, and ethnic hierarchies, and thus is driven by unacknowledged elements such as desire and power. Alcoff suggests, however, that it would be a mistake for philosophers to be content with simply exposing the hidden role such forces play. Epistemology as a philosophical discipline answers to important questions and concerns. But, Alcoff urges, it must transform itself if it is to preserve the postmodernist lessons. Such a transformation, if accomplished, would end the autonomy of epistemology, for it would tear down the traditional boundaries between the philosophical and the political, the normative and the sociological.