SUSAN HAACK
557
there is no such connection between feminism and epistemology as the
rubric "feminist epistemology" requires.
Perhaps you think that only someone of extreme right-wing political
views could possibly be less than enthusiastic about feminist epistemology.
If so, you are mistaken. The only thing extreme about my political views
is my dislike of extremes; and my reasons for thinking feminist epistemol–
ogy misconceived are, in any case, not political but epistemological.
The last fifteen years or so have seen a major shift within feminist
philosophy: from a modest style which stressed the common humanity of
women and men, focused on justice and opportunity, and was concerned
primarily with issues in social and political theory; to an ambitious, im–
perialist feminism which stresses the "woman's point of view," and claims
revolutionary significance for all areas of philosophy, epistemology in–
cluded. So, yes, the pun in my title is intentional; my feminism is of the
older-fashioned, modest stripe. But 1 shall take issue, here, only with the
imperialist ambitions of the new feminism with respect to the theory of
knowledge specifically.
Perhaps you think that only someone confined too long to the ar–
cana of contemporary philosophical analysis would care whether there is
such a thing as feminist epistemology.
If
so, you are again mistaken.
"Feminist epistemology" is a significant part of the rationale both of a
fashionable kind of intellectual apartheid of the sexes and of the fashion–
able demand that inquiry be "politically correct." So if, as
r
believe, it is
a mistake to suppose there is such a thing, it is a very consequential mis–
take.
Understandably reluctant to devote their time to a largely unreward–
ing body of literature, or understandably unwilling
to
take the risk that,
if they criticize it, they will be perceived to be against women, my col–
leagues in the epistemological mainstream mostly hope that, if they ig–
nore it, feminist epistemology will go away. I fear they overestimate the
power of good ideas to drive out bad, and underestimate the power of
the institutionalization of feminist epistemology, of the extent to which
reputations and careers now depend on its legitimacy.
The rubric "feminist epistemology" is incongruous on its face, in
somewhat the way of, say "Republican epistemology." And the puzzle–
ment this incongruity prompts is rather aggravated than mitigated by the
bewildering diversity of epistemological ideas described as "feminist."
Editor's Note: "Knowledge and Propaganda: Reflections of an Old Feminist"
is a slightly modified and abridged version of a paper delivered at the American
Philosophical Association in December 1992 and published in
Reaso/l Papers, 18,
Fall 1993, as part of a symposium on the present state of feminism. The reader is
!
referred to that publication for full footnotes and references.
{
