Privilege and Position: Formal Tools for Standpoint Epistemology

Res Philosophica 97 (4):489-524 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

How does being a woman affect one’s epistemic life? What about being Black? Or queer? Standpoint theorists argue that such social positions can give rise to otherwise unavailable epistemic privilege. “Epistemic privilege” is a murky concept, however. Critics of standpoint theory argue that the view is offered without a clear explanation of how standpoints confer their benefits, what those benefits are, or why social positions are particularly apt to produce them. For this reason, many regard standpoint theory as being out of step with epistemology more broadly. But this need not be so. This article articulates a minimal version of standpoint epistemology that avoids these criticisms and supports the normative goals of its feminist forerunners. This account serves as the foundation for developing a formal model in which to explore standpoint epistemology using neighborhood semantics for modal logic.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

Standpoint Epistemology and Epistemic Peerhood: A Defense of Epistemic Privilege.Briana Toole - 2024 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 10 (3):409-426.
Feminist Standpoint Theory as a Form of Naturalist Epistemology.Catherine Hundleby - 2001 - Dissertation, The University of Western Ontario (Canada)
Feminist Philosophy of Science: Standpoint Matters.Alison Wylie - 2012 - Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophy Association 86 (2):47-76.
Standpoint theory then and now.Alessandra Tanesini - 2019 - In Miranda Fricker, Peter Graham, David Henderson & Nikolaj Jang Pedersen (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Social Epistemology. New York, USA: Routledge.
Standpoint Theory.Alison Wylie - 1995 - In Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. New York City: Cambridge University Press. pp. 1021-1022.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-10-25

Downloads
1,353 (#13,093)

6 months
285 (#8,432)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Catharine (Cat) Saint-Croix
University of Minnesota

Citations of this work

Attention as Selection for Action Defended.Wayne Wu - forthcoming - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
Standpoint Epistemology and Epistemic Peerhood: A Defense of Epistemic Privilege.Briana Toole - 2024 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 10 (3):409-426.
Epistemic Advantage on the Margin: A Network Standpoint Epistemology.Jingyi Wu - 2022 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (3):1-23.
(What) Is Feminist Logic? (What) Do We Want It to Be?Catharine Saint-Croix & Roy T. Cook - 2024 - History and Philosophy of Logic 45 (1):20-45.

View all 7 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

What is it like to be a bat?Thomas Nagel - 1974 - Philosophical Review 83 (4):435-50.
What is it like to be a bat?Thomas Nagel - 1979 - In Mortal questions. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 435 - 450.

View all 28 references / Add more references