9 Feminism, Knowledge and Society Introduction: Objectivity and Cultural Diversity Since the origins of modern social theory in the Enlightenment, there has been a tension between, on the one hand, the received model of objective (scientific) knowledge and, on the other, the recognition of the historical and cultural variability of patterns of belief: The paradigm of mechanical science, associated. with Galileo and Newton, dealing with objectively measurable phenomena, and disclosing a world governed by mathematically specifiable laws, was widely adopted as the model for ‘scientific’ morality, law and government. Although the advocates of rival epistemologies ~ empiricists, rationalists and Kantians ~ differed from cach other on many issues they still shared important thematic commitments, most especially their belief in the objectivity and universality of scientific knowledge and method. ‘This beliefcan be summed up in the form of the following four statements: (a) The concepts of science should be universally applicable, across time and space. (b) The work of science should be objective, in the sense that it should aim at knowiedge of the world as itis, and not as the investigators might like it tobe (©) The personal characteristics of the investigator should therefore be irrelevant to the evaluation of the knowiedge-claims they make, and the institutions of science should be designed to ensure this (for example, anonymous refereeing of journal articles and research applications) (d) The standards, or criteria, in terms of which rival knowledge-claims are evaluated should be universalist, and so neutral with respect to the rival positions being evaluated, Reason, observation and experimental testing are the standards most generally appealed to. 142Feminism, Knowledge and Society 143 However, thinkers as diverse as Ferguson, Herder, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Vico and Voltaire were also well aware of the deep differences between the understandings and values which prevailed in different cultures. They not infrequently used the standpoint of cultural outsider as a device for exposing the irvationalitics and injustices of their own societies (sce, for example, ‘Montesquicu’s Persian Letters). By the early nineteenth century it was also recognized that, within the same society, differences of social position and social experiences shaped different ways of thinking. Feuerbach, Marx and Engels developed this insight further into a systematic sociology of knowledge For those who took cultural diversity seriously, it posed a challenge to the project of objective and universal knowledge of the social world. But, since other cultures also had different ways of understanding nature, the recognition of cultural diversity could also call into question the special status of Western natural scientific knowledge. How could one escape the conclusion that scientific standards of objectivity and universality were themselves the product and property of a particular, historically and geographically localized civiliza- tion (modern Western society)? What justification could there be for imposing these forms of thought on radically different cultures? This is, of course, the recurring theme of our book! ‘The use of the word ‘imposing’ in the penultimate sentence of the last paragraph is one indication why this has become such an important question. ‘What at fist sight seems like a matter of which set of beliefs we adopt ~ those of Western science, or those of some other culture ~ turns out to imply far more than this. Modern science is not just a set of authoritative beliefs and methodological principles, but is part of a complex apparatus of power, one which spans ‘cultures’, and incorporates Third-World farmers, indigenous peoples, tropical rain forests, the upper atmosphere, pregnant women, the sick, industrial workers, consumers of processed food and hi-tech gadgets, ethnic minorities and sextal deviants - that is, all of us humans, and large parts of the non-human world, too. This immensely complex and heterogencous web of power both produces and coexists in tension with a correspondingly complex and diverse array of ‘subaltern’ positions, ‘These positions, in turn, sustain relationships and activities on the part of the people who occupy them which, ‘may provide alternatives to the dominant forms of knowledge and understand- ing. The struggles of such subaltern groups on behalf of their own autonomy, emancipation, or even mere survival necessarily involve struggles to redefine themselves and theit relations to the world around them against the dominant ‘world-view, including its ‘scientific’ legitimations. “The benign and comforting ethic of welcoming cultural diversity, commonly claimed by relativistic approaches to knowledge and rationality is inadequate ‘when it is applied to such complexes of knowiedge and power. For subaltern groups, resistance to domination has to include challenging the forms of knowledge which are invariably complicit in such regimes. These forms of knowledge, so far as the modern West is concerned, have generally harnessed144 Philosophy of Social Science the authority of science. So, for example, the eminent German biologist Emst Haeckel was able to say in 1865: “That immense superiority which the white race has won over the other races in the struggle for existence is due to Natural Selection, the key to ll advance in culture, 0 all so-called history, as i is the key to the origin of species in the Kingdoms of the living, That superiority wil, without doubs become more and more matked in the fature, so that stl ewer races of man will be able, 38 cime advances, co contend with the white in the struggle for existence. (Haeckel, 1883: 85) Hacckel’s use of Darwinian ideas to justify the genocidal implications of West= cm imperialisms was in no sense exceptional. Indeed, the text was composed at atime when Hacckel’s views were relatively liberal and progressive, and simi- lar views were being expressed in Britain and the other Western powers. Such. evidence clearly calls into question the objectivity and value-neutrality of scientific expertise, long, before the emergence of modern military-commer- cial technoscience. From the standpoint of those on the receiving end of this knowledge, a tolerant, relativist acceptance of it as just one of an indelin- ite plurality of incommensurable discourses seems insufficient So, what would constitute an appropriate challenge? If we agree that the relativist response will not do, then there are three broad alternatives to it. One is to accept, in some version, the account of ‘good science” bequeathed by the Enlightenment, and to use it against the specific knowledge-claims which are considered objectionable. So, for example, it could be argued against Haeckel that his extended use of the concept of natural selection to inckade genocide isnot licensed by scientific canons of enquiry, or that his assumption of ‘progress’ as an outcome of selection involves an illegitimate importation of values into his ‘science’. So, this sort of criticism accepts a certain normative concept of science, but uses it to criticize ‘bad science’, or ‘misuses’ of science ‘The second sort of challenge would be to accept that all knowledge-claims, including scientific ones, are grounded in the interests or values of some social group. Since we have no ‘Archimedean’ point, neutral between such rival claims from which to assess their relative closeness to the truth, we can turn only to the values and projects which inspire them. Beliefs should be supported or rejected on the basis of their conduciveness to a just and good society. But this only poses further questions about the status and meaning of these appeals to values, Are they universally valid? What is to count as ‘justice’? ‘The third sort of challenge to the authority and power-relations of Western science gives a central place to the metaphor of ‘perspective’, or ‘point of view" Patterns of belief are associated with social positions in a way analogous to the relationship between a view of a landscape and the physical location from which itis surveyed. However, there are diflerent ways of taking this metaphor, and they result in rather different positions in epistemology. In the case of views of a landscape, the different perspectives obtained from different