SUSAN HAACK
401
thinking about the remarkable ingenuity of the triple-jointed poisoned
arrows with which they hunt their game, I am set to wondering in a
new way about what the social or intellectual conditions were that led
to the rise of modern science in seventeenth-century Europe. But it
doesn't follow, and neither is it true, that Bushman myths about the
origin of the world or the causes of the seasons, and so forth, are on a
par with the best scientific theorizing.
Rather than consider all four forms of counter-culturalism, allow me
to turn my attention, now, directly to philosophical counter-culturalism.
Further disambiguation is still needed, since the "privilege" that is being
denied may be ethical, aesthetic, epistemological, or all three. Of these, I
shall consider only the third, henceforth dubbed
epistemological counter–
culturalism .
"Western culture," the thought is, has been largely the work
of white, heterosexual men, and consequently gives an undeserved
authority to
their
ways of knowing or seeing things, and serves
their
interests. The first phrase hints that there are black or female or
homosexual "ways of knowing," an idea which seems to me not only
false, but of the essence of racism or sexism; the second marks the
connection with radical philosophies which deny the possibility of
separating knowledge and power, inquiry and advocacy.
The point of epistemological counter-culturalism is to "contest" the
[allegedly] undeserved [alleged] epistemic "privilege" of white males.
Thus, Wahneema Lubiano tells us that "strong multiculturalism" is "not
about the liberal tolerance of difference, but about the contestation of
differences"; Mike Cole urges that multiculturalism "must push against
the forces of oppression, be they centered on race, class, gender or all
three"; and Naomi Scheman suggests that "a useful umbrella under
which to shelter diverse projects [of "feminist epistemology"] would be
that of 'anti-masculinism' by analogy with anti-racism," a link which, she
continues, "points to the necessity for any feminist epistemology to be
simultaneously committed to challenging the other sorts of bias that may
be found within the dominant practices of acquiring, justifYing, and ac–
counting for knowledge."
Epistemological counter-culturalism rests on misconceptions about
knowledge, society, power, and objectivity. These are, most importantly:
first, that epistemic standards, standards of good evidence, justified belief,
bona fide
knowledge, are culture- or community-bound; and, second,
that inquiry is inevitably disguisedly political. The first of these is
dispiritingly skeptical in tendency, and the second is outright scary: if all
inquiry really were political, there would be no difference between
knowledge and propaganda, between inquiry and rhetorical bullying.
