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The Mahābhārata explores the plausibility of care-based epistemology in a comparative key. Investigating the epistemic virtue of care-giving, the work weaves together insights from care ethics, virtue epistemology and a particular reading of the Mahābhārata which, left to themselves, do not appear compatible with one another. Drawing on these traditions, the work goes on to provide a feminist vision of search for truth that is consistent with both ethical relations and interventions for justice

While feminist epistemologists have made important contributions to the deconstruction of the traditional representationalist model, some elements of the Cartesian legacy remain. For example, relativism continues to play a role in the underdetermination thesis used by Longino and Keller. Both argue that because scientific theories are underdetermined by evidence, theory choice must be relative to interpretive frameworks. Utilizing Davidson's philosophy of language, I offer a nonrepresentationalist alternative to suggest how relativism can be more fully avoided.

In this work I provide a detailed description of Sandra Harding's feminist standpoint theory, which represents one of the three traditional approaches to feminist epistemology. I start by presenting the two main theses of the theory: the situated knowledge thesis and the thesis of epistemic privilege. In order to do that I extensively talk about the concept of partial perspectives and the concept of social location. Then, after the two main theses, I present Harding's strong objectivity proposal and, related to it, the interrelation between, on one hand, the scientific and epistemological norm of objectivity and, on the other hand, the social and political norm of diversity. In the discussion section I try to introduce some arguments regarding the importance of considering the concepts presented previously, in the context of very abstract disciplines such as the physical sciences. To that end, I consider two dimensions of the problem: firstly, the culture and social organization of science; secondly, the knowledge-producing practices of science. Both dimensions contribute to the way scientific knowledge is produced and thus to scientific knowledge itself. It is in this sense that I assert that the social location of knowers can affect the content of science. ; En este trabajo se proporciona una descripción detallada de la teoría del punto de vista de Sandra Harding, la cual representa uno de los tres enfoques tradicionales de la epistemología feminista. Empezaré introduciendo las perspectivas parciales y el concepto de la "social location", que me servirán para presentan las dos tesis principales de la teoría: la tesis del conocimiento situado y la tesis del privilegio epistémico. Luego presentaré el programa para una objetividad fuerte de Harding, y la interrelación entre objetividad —norma científica y epistemológica— y diversidad —norma social y política—. En la discusión se introducirán argumentos a favor de la importancia de considerar los conceptos presentados anteriormente dentro del contexto de las disciplinas abstractas como la física. Con ese fin, se considerarán dos dimensiones del problema: por un lado, la organización cultural y social de la ciencia y, por otro lado, las prácticas de producción de conocimiento. ; Departamento de Filosofía (Filosofía, Lógica y Filosofía de la Ciencia, Teoría e Historia de la Educación, Filosofía Moral, Estética y Teoría de las Artes) ; Máster en Lógica y Filosofía de la Ciencia

In this essay, I discuss political legitimacy from a feminist perspective, analysing the experience of women political activists in Egypt. Building on Linda Alcoff's work on memory, testimony and decolonizing epistemology, my analysis focusses on two intertwined issues: women's political representation and the public debate about sexual harassment. Data collected by Egyptian feminist organizations reveal that, after one century of women's political participation and 60 years after universal suffrage, the gender gap remains wide. Furthermore, both feminist and human rights organizations denounce that authoritarian regimes use sexual harassment to intimidate democratic activists. Although the right to equal political participation has been a main concern for the Egyptian feminists since 1923, the achievement of universal suffrage in 1956 did not provide a viable solution to the gender gap in Egypt, and women are still fighting to find a way out from the binary co-optation/exclusion. Significantly, as I discuss in this essay, women political activists are the main targets of harassment. In addition, women in general and discourses about sexual violence and sexual morality remain highly controversial in Egypt.

The article represents critical reasoning about the emergence and development of feminist epistemology from 1980s until nowadays. Feminist epistemology started in part as a critique of traditional epistemology and dualisms underlying traditional epistemological projects. On the other side, feminist epistemologies do not represent merely a critique but they develop alternative theories to masculinistic theories of knowledge. Feminist epistemologies are based on the insight into the relationship between knowledge and power and they claim that there are not epistemological inquiries that are not at the same time political. The relationship between knowledge and politics can be seen in the case of the most developed feminist epistemological theories - standpoint theories that have different forms and variants. The article shows the field of feminist epistemology as highly dynamic, as a field where internal critiques of different approaches to epistemological problems have been already developed. As an example of this internal debate, the article examines critiques of standpoint theories developed within the framework of so called feminist postmodernism. ; Tekst predstavlja kritičko razmatranje nastanka i razvoja feminističke epistemologije od 1980-ih godina do današnjih dana. Feministička epistemologija nastaje jednim delom kao kritika tradicionalne epistemologije i dualizama koji su u osnovi tradicionalnih epistemoloških projekata. Sa druge strane, feminističke epistemologije se ne zadržavaju samo na nivou puke kritike već razvijaju i alternativne teorije maskulinističkim teorijama saznanja. Feminističke epistemologije počivaju na uverenju o vezi između znanja i moći i tvrde da ne postoje epistemološka razmatranja koja nisu istovremeno i politička. Veza između znanja i politike može se videti na primeru najrazvijenijih feminističkih epistemoloških teorija - standpoint teorija koje imaju različite oblike i varijante. Tekst pokazuje područje feminističke epistemologije kao izuzetno dinamično, kao područje u kome su već razvijene takozvane unutrašnje kritike različitih pristupa saznajnoj problematici. Kao primer unutrašnjeg spora, tekst razmatra pristup takozvanog feminističkog postmodernizma u čijem okviru su razvijene kritike standpoint teorija.

AbstractFeminist epistemology aims to propose epistemic reasons for increasing the representation of women or socially subordinated people in science. This is typically done—albeit often only implicitly—by positing a causal mechanism through which the representation of sociodemographic minorities exerts a positive effect on scientific advancement. Two types of causal theories can be identified. The "epistemic diversity thesis" presents a causal path from sociodemographic diversity to scientific progress mediated by epistemic diversity. The "thesis of epistemic advantage" proposes a causal path from social subjugation to capacity for inquiry. The latter theory is defined with substantial ambiguity in the existing literature, and I present an explicit causal reformulation that disambiguates it. The epistemic diversity thesis focuses on the effect of group composition on collective epistemic performance and is largely silent about what kind of characteristics lead to individual epistemic excellence. On the other hand, the thesis of epistemic advantage seeks to identify sociodemographic background conditions that make certain epistemic agents strictly better knowers or inquirers than others and pays little attention to the synergistic effects of diverse group composition. Such a difference in the causal structure reflects the diverging political characteristics of the two theories.

Feminist standpoint theory is an important tool of many a feminist activist. It provides us with the epistemological justification to take women's experiences seriously – not as an obstacle to "objectivity", but as a form of epistemic privilege. This paper takes postmodern and intersectional critiques of feminist standpoint theory as a critical point of departure to re-examine the debate around the relevance of the signifier "women" in feminist epistemology. Its aim is two-fold: first, it seeks to shed new light on these criticisms by using the lived experiences of mixed-race women as an innovative lens through which to examine the issue of fragmentation in feminist epistemology. Specifically, it will use the unique situation of mixed-race women to explore the underlying logic of fragmentation implicit in these criticisms – both in the sense of depicting a fundamentally fragmented society structured by complex and overlapping social categories, as well as a fragmented individual forever torn between contradictory pulsations. Second, the paper then goes on to problematise this splitting of the feminist project, and attempts to sketch a politically viable strategy for feminist epistemology which counters the danger of fragmentation inherent in postmodernism and intersectional feminism without giving in to the temptation of essentialism. Notably, it will argue that the notion of "women" retains its usefulness for a feminist agenda, and can incorporate a greater attentiveness to diversity, if it is conceptualised not ontologically, but rather, as a strategic and historically specific point of departure for politics. In this context, I will propose an understanding of the notion of "women" in the sense of a Wittgensteinian "family resemblance concept" – that is, a concept whose boundaries are fluid and whose elements are linked to each other in a variety of overlapping, criss-crossing ways.