Abstract
Feminist epistemology is a form of liberatory epistemology, and as such is focused on the role of knowledge production in the generation and maintenance of oppression and the effects of oppression on the production of and possibilities for knowledge. I argue that as part of this project, feminists need to take up the question: with whom do we share knowledge, and with whom should we share knowledge? To answer this, we must examine how knowledge-sharing norms function, particularly in contexts of oppression. Knowledge-sharing norms capture the expectations within a community or relationship concerning what knowledge ought to be voiced and thus shared across particular parties, and what knowledge either ought not, or need not be shared. I argue that, surprisingly, from the perspective of a liberatory epistemology, we cannot assume that increased knowledge sharing is always a good thing, but rather must assess the function and value of knowledge sharing and particular knowledge-sharing norms within localized contexts. Nevertheless, criteria for such assessments can be outlined, in accordance with the goals of a liberatory epistemology.
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- 1.
One of the major sponsors of such microcredit programs has been the Grameen bank. http://www.grameen-info.org/grameen/gtelecom/.
- 2.
By noting the importance of literacy for knowledge accessibility, I do not mean to deny that there are also important forms of knowing which do not require literacy.
- 3.
Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act grants employees the right ‘to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection’(Basic Guide to the National Labor Relations Act 1997). This right prevents an employer from banning the sharing of salary information amongst workers. I thank Dave Saldana for drawing my attention to these connections with and details of the Act.
- 4.
My use of the term liberatory epistemology should not be understood as having any connection to the liberation theology movement. Nor should it be understood in any sense of one group working to secure the liberation of another. Rather, many feminist epistemologists, including myself, have adopted the term ‘liberatory epistemology’ simply to make clear first that feminist epistemologies are concerned with oppression in all its guises (not only those pertaining to ‘women’) and its links to knowledge, and second that these epistemologies aim towards positive social change.
- 5.
In a different context, Helen Longino makes a similar point regarding how feminists ought to select from amongst theoretical virtues guiding inquiry. She claims that a bottom line requirement for feminist theoretical virtues is that they be capable of revealing gender. The choice of feminist theoretical virtues means that ‘inquiry guided by these virtues is more likely to reveal it [gender] or less likely to preserve its invisibility than the traditional virtues’ (1997, 50).
- 6.
Recognizing the falsehood of a claim isn’t the only way we might be led to reject a claim of ‘knowledge.’ We might take a belief to be well supported, at least well enough to call it knowledge, and then later be faced with countervailing evidence that also needs to be accounted for. Faced with such countervailing evidence, our confidence in the original belief and its overall support may be shaken, and we may no longer be willing to call it knowledge or claim ‘I know this’, even if we still maintain some doxastic commitment to the claim and haven’t quite given it up.
- 7.
There will also be additional norms of responsible knowing that come into play: how sure do we expect people to be when they claim knowledge?
- 8.
See Daukas (this volume) for further discussion of trustworthy knowers in joint epistemic projects.
- 9.
I thank Ann Garry and Carla Fehr for offering these plausible explanations.
- 10.
Wigand’s story was popularized in the 1999 movie The Insider.
- 11.
I discuss cases of whistleblowers and their role in revealing breaches of trust between scientific and lay communities extensively in ‘Scientific and Lay Communities: Earning Epistemic Trust through Knowledge Sharing’ (Grasswick 2010).
- 12.
Of course, because it is an educational setting, there are further epistemic implications of fostering this particular institutional culture. Presumably one argument for developing an institutional culture of close faculty-student relations is that the students will learn better within such a community.
- 13.
Although I do not discuss it here, my reasoning has similarities with naturalized approaches to epistemology, suggesting that epistemological principles need to be derived from our actual practices rather than put forth as abstract and ideal principles without concern for whether or not they can be instantiated in our practices.
- 14.
In the case of anonymous review, of course, the practice is employed across many academic disciplines, not just science.
- 15.
I thank Phyllis Rooney for making this connection to Valian’s work.
- 16.
Regardless of the security interests of the United States’ population which such laws may or may not serve, these conditions are certainly not conducive to many other liberatory goals of segments of the population who are affected by the laws.
- 17.
Hundleby acknowledges the direct political value of such oppositional secrets, though what she is interested in exploring is the epistemological justification for holding them.
- 18.
As a result of new insights derived from consciousness-raising groups, ‘speak-outs’ were often organized by feminists to publicly break the silence surrounding the oppression of women. Such stories are recounted in Susan Brownmiller’s In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution (1990), as cited in Miranda Fricker’s Epistemic Injustice (2007, 150).
- 19.
I thank Phyllis Rooney for directing me to Townley’s work and seeing the connections with the themes of this paper.
- 20.
Less germane to my discussion here but nevertheless important are the details of what makes it an injustice. Fricker specifies that although in a sense all suffer the cognitive disadvantage of the absence of these hermeneutical resources, the one whose experience is misunderstood is unduly burdened when the misunderstanding represents a significant area of their social experience (2007, 154).
- 21.
As Sarah Hoagland points out, good intentions on behalf of the relatively privileged aren’t enough. Speaking of the position of the relatively privileged within the feminist community, she writes: ‘even when we seek in friendship the openings and unexpected connections that situated knowledges make possible, we can be dangerous. To whom are we addressing ourselves, to whom are we offering information, and why?’ (2001, 138).
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Acknowledgments
This paper has benefited from the comments of audiences who heard early versions at the CSWIP (Canadian Society for Women in Philosophy) annual conference in Edmonton, Alberta (October 2007), the Society for Analytical Feminism Conference in Lexington Kentucky (April 2008), and a Middlebury College Life of the Mind lecture (April 2008). I am especially indebted to Carla Fehr and Phyllis Rooney who read drafts of this paper in detail. Others who have offered helpful comments include Lorraine Code, Nancy Daukas, Ann Garry, Sandra Harding, Victor Nuovo, Dave Saldana, Susan Sherwin, Alexis Shotwell and Ilya Storm.
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Grasswick, H.E. (2011). Liberatory Epistemology and the Sharing of Knowledge: Querying the Norms. In: Grasswick, H. (eds) Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6835-5_12
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