Philosophy 290-6

Feminist epistemology is committed to starting from the socially situated standpoints of the oppressed, exploited, or marginalized and to treating such standpoints as epistemically privileged. This seminar will cover two broad areas of interest to feminist epistemologists. First, we will examine the tenets of standpoint theory, asking how a standpoint is to be identified and why we are to think that some standpoints have epistemic privilege over others. In particular, we will discuss the Marxist roots of standpoint theory, Black feminist thought, intersectionality, as well as feminist conceptions of objectivity and its relation to values. Second, we will discuss issues at the intersection of epistemology and ethics, specifically different ways of failing others as knowers. Our menu of topics will include epistemic injustice and related concepts, epistemologies of ignorance, and virtue epistemology.