Feminist Epistemology

Feminist epistemologists examine social, political, and ethical aspects of knowing using a wide range of approaches.  Moreover, many of the key works in feminist epistemology draw on and contribute to more than one approach to epistemology making any straightforward cataloging of key works deceptive. Provided one keep in mind that any given author's work may fit perfectly well in more than one category, the following should give the reader a sense of the range of key contributions in feminist epistemology: feminist empiricism (e.g. Longino 1990 and Nelson 1990), feminist naturalized epistemology (Rooney 1998 and Code 2006), feminist standpoint theory (Harding 2004 and Collins 1991/2008), decolonial and Woman of Color feminist theories (Lugones 2003 and Narayan 1988), feminist phenomenology (Alcoff 2000 and Alcoff 2006), and feminist postmodernism (Haraway 2010).  Early works considered such topics as the nature of objectivity (Harding 1995), epistemic communities (Nelson 1993), and the role of values in knowing (Longino 1987). Recent topics within the field include: trust and epistemic agency (Jones 2012 and Dotson 2011), epistemologies of ignorance (Sullivan & Tuana 2007 and Tuana & Sullivan 2006), and epistemic injustice (Fricker 2007 and Medina 2012).