Abstract
I introduce a contextualist theory of epistemic justification in order to defend Helen Longino’s contextual empiricism against three criticisms. The critics claim that contextual empiricism (1) implies dogmatism with respect to standards of argumentation, (2) lacks naturalistic justification, and (3) implies relativism with respect to moral and social values. I argue that the three criticisms fail. If we understand contextual empiricism as a contextualist theory of epistemic justification, standards of argumentation do not need to be adopted dogmatically, Longino’s social account of objectivity is justified in virtue of advancing epistemic responsibility, and her account of objectivity does not imply that any moral and social values are acceptable in scientific debates.
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Notes
- 1.
In The Fate of Knowledge (2002), Longino suggests that critical contextual empiricism is an even more appropriate term for her theory than mere contextual empiricism because it emphasizes the social aspect in contextual empiricism (208).
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By contextual values Longino means value judgments concerning what is morally acceptable or praiseworthy, or what is a desirable social order (1990, 4). By constitutive values she means values that are generated from an understanding of the goals of science (1990, 4). So whereas such values as truth, consistency, and explanatory power are constitutive values in science, moral and social values such as equality and justice are contextual values in science. In her essay ‘Gender, Politics, and the Theoretical Virtues’ (1995), Longino suggests that the distinction between constitutive and contextual values is not as clear-cut as she had assumed in Science as Social Knowledge (1990).
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Philip Kitcher (1994) argues that Longino’s contextual empiricism collapses into relativism with respect to truth because Longino identifies truth with consensus belief in communities that follow certain types of procedures (1994, 132, note 26). As K. Brad Wray points out, Kitcher’s criticism is based on the mistaken premise that Longino identifies truth with consensus belief in a community (Wray 1999, 545). This premise is false because Longino does not accept the view that knowledge entails truth (1990, 93). In Longino’s view, acceptance of a theory or a hypothesis involves a belief in its empirical adequacy (1990, 94).
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In a more recent paper Solomon (2006) cites evidence in support of the claim that the practice of rational deliberation recommended by Longino does not always lead to epistemic success. Irving Janis’s work suggests that a group that deliberates with the aim of reaching a consensus is vulnerable to the so called ‘groupthink’ phenomenon (Solomon 2006, 31). Such a phenomenon takes place when peer pressure and pressure from those in authority leads dissenting individuals to change their minds or not to share their knowledge of contrary evidence. As a result, the outcome of group deliberation is biased in the sense that it does not reflect all the information that individual group members have. I would argue that even if there is such a phenomenon as ‘groupthink’ it is less likely to take place in scientific communities than in research teams because scientific communities are socially more dispersed than research teams. Insofar as equality of intellectual authority is respected scientific communities, as Longino recommends it be, scientific communities are unlikely to be subject to ‘groupthink.’ Ideally, such communities are open to outside criticism. As Alison Wylie (2006) argues, evidence of the ‘groupthink’ phenomenon does not support the hypothesis that the aggregation of opinion is epistemically superior to rational deliberation. It shows merely that under certain circumstances rational deliberation may fail (2006, 44).
- 8.
Williams stresses that both conceptions of epistemic justification, justification as epistemic responsibility and as having adequate grounds, are necessary elements in an adequate theory of knowledge (2001, 23).
- 9.
For example, the standard of consistency can be given a justification on the grounds that it is derived from the epistemic value of truth.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Heidi Grasswick for detailed comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. A version of the manuscript was presented in the Second Conference of the Society for Analytical Feminism at the University of Kentucky in 2008. I wish to thank Sharon Crasnow, Nancy Daukas, Phyllis Rooney, and Miriam Solomon for their critical feedback.
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Rolin, K. (2011). Contextualism in Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. In: Grasswick, H. (eds) Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6835-5_2
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