Event Title
Science in the world: Arendt, Beauvoir and feminist epistemologies
Start Date
26-6-2010 2:45 PM
End Date
26-6-2010 4:15 PM
Description
This presentation is part of the Beauvoir and Arendt on Science track.
For over 20 years, feminist science studies has explored the relationship between science and values. As Sharyn Clough pointed out, this largely centered on epistemology, an “investment” that “is beginning to yield diminishing returns.” With Clough, I argue that much of the discourse on science and values presents a false dichotomy between objectivism and relativism—some tried to salvage objectivity through inclusive or relational methodologies while others abandoned this as a quixotic quest because science will always be value-laden and thus relative. This approach also relies on abstractions, obscuring the actual practices of science and distracting attention from its impact. This paper suggests an alternative approach—drawing primarily from the work of Hannah Arendt, but also utilizing on Simone de Beauvoir and voices in feminist science studies—that emphasizes human beings as “worldly,” and prioritizes a narrative understanding. This approach sidesteps the relativism/objectivism dichotomy by focusing on the impact of science, avoids abstractions and reveals the public/political dimension of science.
A full exploration of the relationship between Arendt and Beauvoir is beyond the scope of this paper, but important similarities—including a phenomenological approach, use of narrative, and a focus on “the political”—make this conversation useful. While neither woman was a philosopher of science, both critiqued a culture dominated by science and both included substantive discussion of science in their work. Nonetheless, there are almost no published papers discussing their approach to science: a few papers on Arendt and, aside from passing criticisms of Beauvoir as not “scientific” enough, only one 20-year-old paper on Beauvoir (Seigfried). More shocking, despite their status as arguably the two most important women thinkers of the 20th Century, only one published paper compares their work (Blanchard). Hopefully, this paper helps demonstrate that both absences are undeserved.
I begin by outlining relevant aspects of Arendt and Beauvoir’s thought, pointing out connections to feminist science studies. Both understand human existence as always in “the world” (roughly analogous to culture, both material and non-material). Everything we encounter (or do, or create) becomes part of the world the moment we encounter it, because we encounter it. There are clear parallels with feminist epistemologies; for Beauvoir in particular, science reflects certain values because science is embedded in the world. But this is not relativism, both accepted that “facts” exist, that we can know them, and that our knowledge is contingent on those facts. Both believed bias was avoided not by detachment, but by exchanging a plurality of perspectives on our worldly experiences. Again, there are clear resonances with feminist epistemologies, including Evelyn Fox Keller’s relational epistemologies, and standpoint theories.
This “worldly” approach moves beyond standard epistemological accounts by emphasizing that worldly phenomena—including everything studied by science—are not only shaped by the world, they are shaped by their impact on the world. This is not external to phenomena, but is intrinsic to what they are. Thus, Arendt dismissed accusations that she was insufficiently objective in her discussion of Nazi death camps by claiming that any description that did not express horror was a misrepresentation, in the same way that describing extreme poverty, “without permitting my indignation to interfere . . . robbed it of part of its nature.” To describe mass murder without judgment is inaccurate because horror is part of its nature. The same can be said of physical phenomena because the decisive factor is not whether a phenomenon has human causes, but whether it has human effects: “indignation is one of the qualities of excessive poverty insofar as poverty occurs among human beings.” Things do exist outside the world, but they are irrelevant until we come in contact with them.
Both women also criticized the way “facts” allow us to deny responsibility and agency. Beauvoir argued that the “fact” of women’s biology was used to justified patriarchy, even among those who claimed to wish women could be equal. Both observed that the “fact” of racial inferiority justified racism and anti-Semitism. Arendt went so far as to point out that Nazi’s used scientific “facts to justify genocide.
Worldliness suggests a narrative approach to science studies—science is entangled in the worldly “web of relationships” that is naturally expressed in stories—and the bulk of my paper will elaborate on what this entails, noting connections to feminist science studies First, this approach avoids the objective/relative dichotomy: facts exist, but they must be “picked out of the chaos of other happenings” and “fitted into a story that can be told only in a certain perspective.” Arranging facts is not the same as changing facts. A narrative imagination—what Lisa Jane Disch, relying on Arendt, calls “thinking in stories”—reduces bias and increases the capacity to judge by allowing us to see the world from many positions at once Third, narratives (including myths and language) reveal underlying values in the practices of science. In The Second Sex Beauvoir used this method specifically in regards to science, but using stories and language to understand phenomena was integral to both their works. Narratives also reveal the impact of phenomena, and a fourth aspect of this approach pays attention to the stories of those affected by science. In addition, a narrative imagination helps us to see how science might impact the world (i.e., Science Fiction, esp. feminist SF). Finally, narratives emphasize agency and responsibility because they connect motives, actions and results.
Science in the world: Arendt, Beauvoir and feminist epistemologies
This presentation is part of the Beauvoir and Arendt on Science track.
For over 20 years, feminist science studies has explored the relationship between science and values. As Sharyn Clough pointed out, this largely centered on epistemology, an “investment” that “is beginning to yield diminishing returns.” With Clough, I argue that much of the discourse on science and values presents a false dichotomy between objectivism and relativism—some tried to salvage objectivity through inclusive or relational methodologies while others abandoned this as a quixotic quest because science will always be value-laden and thus relative. This approach also relies on abstractions, obscuring the actual practices of science and distracting attention from its impact. This paper suggests an alternative approach—drawing primarily from the work of Hannah Arendt, but also utilizing on Simone de Beauvoir and voices in feminist science studies—that emphasizes human beings as “worldly,” and prioritizes a narrative understanding. This approach sidesteps the relativism/objectivism dichotomy by focusing on the impact of science, avoids abstractions and reveals the public/political dimension of science.
A full exploration of the relationship between Arendt and Beauvoir is beyond the scope of this paper, but important similarities—including a phenomenological approach, use of narrative, and a focus on “the political”—make this conversation useful. While neither woman was a philosopher of science, both critiqued a culture dominated by science and both included substantive discussion of science in their work. Nonetheless, there are almost no published papers discussing their approach to science: a few papers on Arendt and, aside from passing criticisms of Beauvoir as not “scientific” enough, only one 20-year-old paper on Beauvoir (Seigfried). More shocking, despite their status as arguably the two most important women thinkers of the 20th Century, only one published paper compares their work (Blanchard). Hopefully, this paper helps demonstrate that both absences are undeserved.
I begin by outlining relevant aspects of Arendt and Beauvoir’s thought, pointing out connections to feminist science studies. Both understand human existence as always in “the world” (roughly analogous to culture, both material and non-material). Everything we encounter (or do, or create) becomes part of the world the moment we encounter it, because we encounter it. There are clear parallels with feminist epistemologies; for Beauvoir in particular, science reflects certain values because science is embedded in the world. But this is not relativism, both accepted that “facts” exist, that we can know them, and that our knowledge is contingent on those facts. Both believed bias was avoided not by detachment, but by exchanging a plurality of perspectives on our worldly experiences. Again, there are clear resonances with feminist epistemologies, including Evelyn Fox Keller’s relational epistemologies, and standpoint theories.
This “worldly” approach moves beyond standard epistemological accounts by emphasizing that worldly phenomena—including everything studied by science—are not only shaped by the world, they are shaped by their impact on the world. This is not external to phenomena, but is intrinsic to what they are. Thus, Arendt dismissed accusations that she was insufficiently objective in her discussion of Nazi death camps by claiming that any description that did not express horror was a misrepresentation, in the same way that describing extreme poverty, “without permitting my indignation to interfere . . . robbed it of part of its nature.” To describe mass murder without judgment is inaccurate because horror is part of its nature. The same can be said of physical phenomena because the decisive factor is not whether a phenomenon has human causes, but whether it has human effects: “indignation is one of the qualities of excessive poverty insofar as poverty occurs among human beings.” Things do exist outside the world, but they are irrelevant until we come in contact with them.
Both women also criticized the way “facts” allow us to deny responsibility and agency. Beauvoir argued that the “fact” of women’s biology was used to justified patriarchy, even among those who claimed to wish women could be equal. Both observed that the “fact” of racial inferiority justified racism and anti-Semitism. Arendt went so far as to point out that Nazi’s used scientific “facts to justify genocide.
Worldliness suggests a narrative approach to science studies—science is entangled in the worldly “web of relationships” that is naturally expressed in stories—and the bulk of my paper will elaborate on what this entails, noting connections to feminist science studies First, this approach avoids the objective/relative dichotomy: facts exist, but they must be “picked out of the chaos of other happenings” and “fitted into a story that can be told only in a certain perspective.” Arranging facts is not the same as changing facts. A narrative imagination—what Lisa Jane Disch, relying on Arendt, calls “thinking in stories”—reduces bias and increases the capacity to judge by allowing us to see the world from many positions at once Third, narratives (including myths and language) reveal underlying values in the practices of science. In The Second Sex Beauvoir used this method specifically in regards to science, but using stories and language to understand phenomena was integral to both their works. Narratives also reveal the impact of phenomena, and a fourth aspect of this approach pays attention to the stories of those affected by science. In addition, a narrative imagination helps us to see how science might impact the world (i.e., Science Fiction, esp. feminist SF). Finally, narratives emphasize agency and responsibility because they connect motives, actions and results.