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Hermeneutics of science and multi-gendered science education

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Abstract

In this paper, I consider the relevance of the view of cognitive existentialism to a multi-gendered picture of science education. I am opposing both the search for a particular feminist standpoint epistemology and the reduction of philosophy of science to cultural studies of scientific practices as championed by supporters of postmodern political feminism. In drawing on the theory of gender plurality and the conception of dynamic objectivity, the paper suggests a way of treating the nexus between the construction of gender within the interrelatedness of scientific practices and the constitution of particular objects of inquiry. At stake is the notion of characteristic hermeneutic situation which proves to be helpful in designing a multi-gendered pedagogy as well.

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Notes

  1. On the main programs in the postwar hermeneutic philosophy of science, see Heelan (1983, 1997a, b, 1998), Eger (1992), Crease (1995), Kockelmans (1993, 1997), McGuire and Tuchanska (2000), Toulmin (2002), and Ginev (2006).

  2. On the discussion of this claim see, Harding (1991, p 125).

  3. On another metaepistemological thesis, the “standpoint epistemologies call for recognition of a historical or sociological or cultural relativism—but not for a judgmental or epistemological relativism” (Harding 1991, p 142).

  4. Feminist standpoint epistemology is not the only doctrine stating that epistemology can be enriched in terms of the feminist evaluation. The comparison of two nice overviews—Harding and Hintikka (1983) and Rooney (2005)—provide the opportunity to singling out the main tendencies in “feminist epistemology” for a period of more than 20 years. Despite the diversification of tendencies, however, Pinnick is right that “whole rationale for the feminist fundamental project remains (after 20 years, plus) wholly unsubstantiated” (Pinnick 2005, p 114).

  5. See, in particular, Flax (1990).

  6. Joseph Rouse (1996, pp 246–255), a prominent advocate of a “postmodern philosophy of science,” stresses two ways in which feminist scholarship should transcend epistemology. First, this scholarship takes up a participatory stance toward scientific practices (rather than trying to assess scientific knowledge as a totality), and second, it dissolves any sharp conceptual distinction between epistemic and political criticism. Yet Rouse is aware that by placing the philosophy of science within the realm of social and political inquiry rather than its traditional home within the context of justification would imply the same mistake that one commits when one restricts science to epistemology.

  7. On the “politics of postmodern philosophy of science,” see Joseph Rouse (1996).

  8. See, in particular, Haraway (1994).

  9. Elsewhere I outlined a critique of the politics of postmodern philosophy of science. See Ginev (2005).

  10. For the champions of hermeneutic philosophy of science, the types of scientific research are particular modes of being-in-the-world, each of them predicated on an “everydayness” of routine practices. In every type of scientific research, a constitution of a particular type of objects of inquiry (say, the objects distinguished by nonlinear dynamic behaviour that is far from equilibrium according to mathematical criteria) takes place. An “everydayness” is characterized by iterative configurations of research practices to which anticipations, expectations, and orientations in the constitution of objects of inquiry correspond. This hermeneutic picture of scientific research does not presuppose any underlying cognitive essence of science. At the same time, it offers a global perspective on science as modes of being-in-the-world.

  11. On this formulation and its discussion see, Butler (1990, pp 25–32). This contextual-constructivist perspective on gender is immune against the objection the sexed (natural) bodies of the human beings are forgotten. In the cultural existence of the human beings, their sexed bodies are always already cultural artefacts. See in this regard also Butler (1993).

  12. That there are already always epistemic subjects in human existence is not evidence of an invariant essence (that of epistemic relation) but of iterative configurations of discursive practices taking place in contexts in which subjects aiming at objective knowledge are identifiable.

  13. See Keller (1980, 1985, pp 29–46).

  14. Keller works out her arguments for the sex/gender–knowledge associations on a much deeper level than those feminist theories which are preoccupied with stressing that the impersonality of the epistemic subjects makes possible the value-neutral notion of scientific truth. Interestingly enough, Toril Moi extends Keller’s feminist criticism of subject–object dichotomy through entangling Keller’s project of a feminist philosophy of the natural science in French feminist discourse. In so doing, Toril Moi approaches a unique feminist philosophical thinking: She bridges the gap between the Anglo-American philosophy of science and the psychoanalytically oriented Continental philosophy. See, in particular, Moi (1989). For a valuable accounts of the distinction between Anglo-American and French philosophical feminism, see Brennan (1989).

  15. Appropriate examples in this regard are Frity Lipmann’s seminal papers from the late 1940s about the mechanisms of peptide bond formation and the utilization of phosphate bond energy, and Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod’s papers from the early 1960s about the genetic regulatory the synthesis of protein.

  16. Keller (1985, p 136) adduces a typical narrative of a gender construction in scientific research: “I liked to follow the workings of another mind through these minute, testing investigations to see a relentless observer get hold of Nature and squeeze her until the sweat broke out all over her and her sphincters loosened.”

  17. For some classical works, see, in particular, Kuhn (1979), Bradie (1984), and Feher (1988; Harré 1996).

  18. See, for example, Finocchiaro (1980), Lakoff and Johnson (1980), and Schuster and Yeo (1986).

  19. See on this claim Ginev (1999).

  20. For this dialogue, see in particular Ginev (1995).

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Acknowledgement

I am deeply grateful to Cassandra Pinnick for her critical comment on the initial version of this paper.

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Correspondence to Dimitri Jordan Ginev.

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Ginev, D.J. Hermeneutics of science and multi-gendered science education. Sci & Educ 17, 1139–1156 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-006-9068-0

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