SUSAN HAACK
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counts as relevant. Suppose you and I are working on the same cross–
word puzzle. You think, given your solution to 7 across, that the fact
that a solution to 2 down ends in an "E" is evidence in its favor; I, given
my solution to 7 across, that the fact that it ends in an "S" is evidence in
its favor. There is no real relativity of standards; we are both trying to fit
the entry to its clue and to other relevant entries. Compare the case
where you and I are both on an appointments committee; you think this
candidate should be ruled out on the grounds that his handwriting indi–
cates he is not to be trusted; I think graphology is bunk and scoff at
your "evidence." Once again, there is no real relativity of standards, only
disagreement in background beliefs.
A distinction is called for here which parallels a hitherto-unremarked
ambiguity in the counter-culturalists' talk of "privilege." Epistemological
counter-culturalism may be straightforwardly relativist, maintaining that
epistemic standards are not only community-bound, but also conven–
tional, so that there is no sense to the question, whether these or those
are better; or tribalist, maintaining that epistemic standards are commu–
nity-bound, but that "ours" are best. Epistemological counter- cu lturalists
of the former, relativist, stripe are committed to the claim that
no
stan–
dards, those of "Western culture" included, are privileged; those of the
latter, tribalist, stripe are committed to the claim that
their,
non-"West–
ern," standards are privileged.
Implicit in what has been said thus far, but needing to be made ex–
plicit, is the thought that an adequate epistemology will require a logical
dimension (in its account of relations of evidential support); a personal
dimension (in its recognition that you and I may believe the same thing,
and yet I be justified and you unjustified, and that empirical justification
depends ultimately on the subject's experience); and a dimension focused
on human nature (in its recognition that our notion of the evidence of
the senses presupposes that, for all normal human beings, the senses are a
source of information about the world).
One source of the second epistemological counter-culturalist thesis,
that knowledge is inherently political, has been the perception that in–
quiry is in some epistemologically important sense social. And in a sense,
indeed, it is. Each of us, as a knowing subject, is pervasively dependent
on others; and scientific inquiry has been as successful as it has in part be–
cause of its social character, of the cooperative and competitive engage–
ment of many persons, both within and across generations. So, yes, let
me add that an adequate epistemology will also require a social dimen–
sion (but, also, that none of "black" or "female" or "homosexual" can
plausibly be supposed to identify an epistemic community).
