I explore the conceptual connections between
Wittgenstein's On Certainty and the work of three
contemporary feminist epistemologists: standpoint theorist
Sandra Harding and feminist empiricists Helen Longino
and Lynn Hankinson Nelson. My inquiry reveals both
surprising similarities and important differences between
Wittgensteinian and feminist epistemologies. Exploring
these similarities and differences clarifies Wittgenstein's
epistemology and reveals ways feminist epistemologists
have developed themes from On Certainty.
On Certainty anticipates three important pillars of
feminist epistemology: criticism, context, and community

Caraway, Carol

English

Elektronisch archivierte Theorie - Sammelpunkt

  42 
Criticism, Context and Community: Connections between 
Wittgenstein's On Certainty and Feminist Epistemology 
 
Carol Caraway, Indiana (PA) 
 
 
I explore the conceptual connections between 
Wittgenstein's On Certainty and the work of three 
contemporary feminist epistemologists: standpoint theorist 
Sandra Harding and feminist empiricists Helen Longino 
and Lynn Hankinson Nelson.  My inquiry reveals both 
surprising similarities and important differences between 
Wittgensteinian and feminist epistemologies.  Exploring 
these similarities and differences clarifies Wittgenstein's 
epistemology and reveals ways feminist epistemologists 
have developed themes from On Certainty.  
On Certainty anticipates three important pillars of 
feminist epistemology:  criticism, context, and community.  
 
1. Criticism 
One focus of feminist criticism is the alleged 
objectivity of science.  According to tradition, science 
involves a method of justification that prevents our 
personal feelings and biases (such as greed and ambition) 
from distorting our understanding of the world.   
Both Wittgenstein and feminist epistemologists 
reject the traditional notion of scientific objectivity.  
Wittgenstein maintains that rather than being coercive and 
external to us, our linguistic and epistemological rules are 
based on our human customs, practices and institutions--
our "form of life".  Feminists see science as situated in and 
influenced by a social, historical, and cultural context.  
They maintain that science is not autonomous because 
scientists have no method for eliminating shared social 
biases.   
Having rejected the problematic traditional notion 
of objectivity, Longino and Harding offer non-traditional 
accounts of objectivity intended to fit feminism, avoid 
relativism, and explain how feminist criticism can enhance 
scientific objectivity.  I shall maintain that while 
Wittgenstein's account of objectivity is closer to Longino's 
than to Harding's, he would nevertheless reject both not 
because he supports the traditional account, but because 
his own non-traditional account conflicts with theirs at 
certain crucial points.   
Helen Longino argues that scientific knowledge is 
produced not by isolated individuals, but by an interactive 
dialogic community (Longino 1990).  A scientific 
community is objective if it satisfies her four criteria for 
transformative criticism:  
1.  There are public avenues for criticism: journals, 
conferences, etc. 
2.  Critics can invoke shared public standards. 
3.  The scientific community is open to criticism 
and reevaluation. 
4.  Qualified scientists share equal intellectual 
authority  (Longino 1993, 112-113).  
The heart of Longino's account is the third 
criterion, which involves questioning the background 
beliefs in light of which states of affairs become evidence 
(Longino 1990, 73).  Like theories, background beliefs 
should be articulated and critically evaluated by the 
scientific community.  They can then be defended, 
modified or abandoned in response to such criticism.  As 
long as such criticism is possible, individual and communal 
biases can be checked (Longino 1990, 73-75).   
The formal requirement of demonstrable evidential 
relevance constitutes a standard of rationality and 
acceptability independent of and external to any particular 
research program or scientific theory.  The satisfaction of 
this standard by any program or theory secured, as has 
been argued, by intersubjective criticism, is what 
constitutes its objectivity" (Longino 1990, 75).  
While Longino emphasizes intersubjective 
criticism, Wittgenstein characterizes the necessary 
foundation for such criticism.  He writes, "All testing, all 
confirmation and disconfirmation of a hypothesis takes 
place within a system.  And this system is . . . not so much 
the point of departure as the element in which arguments 
have their life" (OC 105).  "I have a world picture. … it is 
the substratum of all my enquiring and asserting" (OC 
162).  "Whenever we test anything, we are already 
presupposing something that is not tested" (OC 163).  
[See also OC 110, 136, 141-42, 144, 151-52,167, 204, 
220, 212, 225, 232, 253, 308, 337, 341-344, 370, 401, 
411, 414-15 & 475.] 
Sandra Harding maintains that traditional 
objectivity is not strong enough to eliminate gender bias.  
She advocates a "strong objectivity" that extends "the 
notion of scientific research to include systematic 
examination of powerful background beliefs" (Harding 
1991, 149).  Scientists, their practices, and their 
background beliefs must become objects of scientific 
study.  Longino supports examining background beliefs, 
but recognizes that there may be limits to the scope of 
such examinations.  Some background beliefs "may not be 
subject to empirical confirmation or disconfirmation," and 
may "be infused with metaphysical or normative 
considerations" (Longino 1990, 75).  Longino maintains 
that Harding is mistaken in identifying the objectivity of 
scientific methods with their empirical features alone.   
Like Longino, Wittgenstein maintains that certain 
background beliefs cannot be empirically tested, but he 
explains this limitation differently.  For Wittgenstein, the 
activities of science require that certain things go 
unquestioned or "stand fast" thus providing the general 
background context for inquiry and criticism. "One cannot 
make experiments if there are not some things that one 
does not doubt… If I make an experiment I do not doubt 
the existence of the apparatus before my eyes.  I have 
plenty of doubts, but not that" (OC 337).  "The questions 
that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some 
propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like 
hinges on which those turn.  That is to say, it belongs to 
the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things 
are in deed not doubted" (OC 342).  What "stands fast" is 
not subject to testing, criticism or confirmation. 
Criticism, Context and Community: Connections between Wittgenstein's On Certainty and Feminist Epistemology - Carol Caraway 
 
 
 43
2. Context 
Wittgenstein and feminist epistemologists stress 
that human knowledge is situated in contexts.  Their use of 
"context", however, varies.  For Harding, the context of 
science is one of hierarchy and power differences.  White 
males at the center of science see the world from a 
perspective of dominance; women and others on the 
margin see the world from the perspective of 
subordination--an epistemically superior position according 
to Harding (Harding 1991 & 1993).   
Wittgenstein did not discuss class or gender based 
differences in power and epistemic perspective.  He did 
insist that our beliefs be justified by public criteria that 
function only given certain contexts.  He discusses two 
types of contexts with different epistemic roles.  First, 
criteria function only given certain very general facts of 
nature (including facts about human behavior) and certain 
human customs or general practices.  Wittgenstein calls 
this general background context "our inherited 
background", "our world picture", etc. (OC 167) and insists 
it is necessary for inquiry.  Moore's propositions in "A 
Defense of Common Sense" belong to this world picture.   
At this level of generality, certainty is absolute.  There is 
room for fluctuation, but not for doubt. 
Second, criteria provide a reliable basis for 
justification only in the appropriate particular contexts, 
which include where, when, who, what happened before 
and after, etc.  We assume that general circumstances 
obtain; we must determine what particular circumstances 
obtain in a given case.  This determination is two-fold.  
First, we must determine whether the context is one 
appropriate for applying a particular criterion or standard.  
If it is, then, we must determine whether the circumstances 
are normal.  Wittgenstein writes, "If however, one wanted 
to give something like a rule here, then it would contain the 
expression "in normal circumstances".  And we recognize 
normal circumstances but cannot precisely describe them.  
At most, we can describe a range of abnormal ones" (OC 
27). [See also OC 10, 27, 155, 250, 255, 334-35, 348, 423, 
553, 554, & 622.]  At this level, context may seem liable to 
the charge of relativism, for a proposition that is certain in 
one context may be uncertain in another.  But certainty at 
the more general level neutralizes the apparent relativism 
at this level.   
Longino's epistemology is "a form of contextualism 
that understands knowledge as the historical product of 
interactions between contextual factors such as social 
needs, values and traditions, and practices of inquiry such 
as observation, experiment, and reasoning" (Longino 
1990, 176-177).  Longino also has two types of contexts:  
one universal and one particular.  First, she sees the 
context of scientific inquiry as the international scientific 
community: "What is called scientific knowledge, then, is 
produced by a community (ultimately the community of all 
scientific practitioners)" (Longino 1990, 69).  Second, she 
emphasizes particular contexts, suggesting that we 
embrace multiple and, in some cases, incompatible 
theories that satisfy local standards (Longino 1993, 114).  
This need not plunge us into epistemological relativism 
because the standards of transformative criticism protect 
us from this fate.  
 
3. Community  
The most innovative aspect of feminist empiricism 
is its portrayal of knowledge as social or communal.  
Traditional epistemology is essentially individualistic and 
largely ignores the role(s) of social interactions and the 
community in the production of knowledge.  Alvin I. 
Goldman maintains that social epistemology "focuses on 
social paths or routes to knowledge… that feature 
interactions with other agents" (Goldman 1999, 4).  Social 
epistemology thus encompasses both minimally 
interpersonal views of knowledge, in which the individual is 
the primary knower, and maximally communal views, like 
Nelson's, in which the community is the primary knower.  
Consequently, Nelson, Longino, and Wittgenstein all have 
social epistemologies.  
Nelson uses feminist science criticism, Quine's 
holistic empiricism, and neurobiology to argue that 
knowledge is social, constructed by the community, and 
constrained by our experience (Nelson 1990, 40).  What 
others say and do is vital to the child's cognitive 
development.   Without interpersonal experience, an infant 
could never develop the neurological structures permitting 
language, concepts, and perceptions.  Other people 
provide the child with a language and a conceptual 
scheme.  The community also provides public standards of 
evidence for judging beliefs (Nelson 1990, 256).  These 
standards constrain what we can know as well as our 
theorizing (Nelson 1990, 277).  Hence, for Nelson, the 
agent of knowledge is "First and foremost the community, 
and then secondarily the individual" (Nelson 1990, 14).  
Her brand of "social epistemology" is quite robust and 
contains obvious parallels with Wittgenstein's remarks on 
language acquisition and communal practices.   
Longino's contextual empiricism is significantly 
more "social" than traditional epistemologies, but 
noticeably weaker than Nelson's communal coherentism.  
Longino maintains, "scientific knowledge is constructed not 
by individuals applying a method of investigation to 
objects, but by individuals interacting with one another in 
ways that modify their observations, theories, hypotheses, 
and patterns of reasoning" (Longino 1990, 111).  Longino 
focuses on individuals interacting to produce knowledge.  
Her view is, thus, more modest than Nelson's. Nelson 
focuses on the community; Longino focuses on the 
interaction between the members of the community.   
Although Longino's view is less communal and more 
interpersonal than Nelson's, they agree that epistemic 
agency is not solitary.  Knowing and coming to know are 
social and interactive.  They are things we do:  our human 
actions and practices.  Sentiments that seem compatible 
with Wittgenstein's rejecting the notions of a logically 
private language and a private mental life or world 
completely unavailable to others.   
How strongly social is Wittgenstein's account of 
knowledge?  Is it robustly communal like Nelson's or 
modestly interpersonal like Longino's? Longino believes 
"the later philosophy of Wittgenstein does challenge the 
individualist ideal" although "few commentators have 
developed the anti-individualist implications of his work" 
(Longino 1993, 119).  I am attempting to do so for On 
Certainty.  Wittgenstein writes, 'We are quite sure of it' 
does not mean just that every single person is certain of it, 
but that we belong to a community which is bound together 
by science and education" (OC 298).  How tightly do these 
cords of science and education bind us to each other? 
Does Wittgenstein believe with Nelson that the community 
is the primary knower?  Do his remarks allow or perhaps 
even entail such a robustly communal view?   
Stroll argues that Wittgenstein's notion of 
community involves three different levels: 
1. The totality of humans and other animals, their 
activities, interactions,  practices and institutions together 
with inorganic products such as buildings.  
Criticism, Context and Community: Connections between Wittgenstein's On Certainty and Feminist Epistemology - Carol Caraway 
 
 
 44 
2. The set of human practices, customs, habits, 
and traditions.  
3. Individual practices of asserting, inquiring, etc.  
(Stroll 1994, 170).   
Stroll's third level can be divided into two sub-
levels: the domain of the expert, and the domain of the 
novice (Williams 1999, 8).  
Science is a specialized epistemic enterprise 
engaged in by experts.  Experts train novices in the 
epistemic practices of science.  First, however, novices 
must be trained in the more basic practices of language 
use, inquiry, etc.  Through this more basic training, 
children unconsciously absorb--Wittgenstein intentionally 
does not say "learn" (OC 297)--the inherited background 
beliefs of their community.  "When a child learns language 
it learns at the same time what is to be investigated and 
what not" (OC 472). 
The training of novices by experts of science 
indicates that knowledge is social.  Experts have mastered 
special scientific practices and gained special knowledge.  
Whether someone is such a master of science is 
determined by public criteria.  The domain of the novice is 
not that of the master.   
A pupil and a teacher.  The pupil will not let 
anything be explained to him, for he continually interrupts 
with doubts, for instance as to the existence of things, the 
meaning of words, etc. The teacher says "Stop interrupting 
me and do as I tell you.  So far, your doubts don't make 
sense at all.  Or imagine that the boy questioned the truth 
of history (and everything that connects up with it)--and 
even whether the earth had existed at all a hundred years 
before.  Here it strikes me as if this doubt were hollow (OC 
310-312). 
Scientific knowledge is the province of well-trained 
experts.  Their knowledge is part of the community's 
system of knowledge.  As libraries hold knowledge gained 
in the past, so today's experts are a living repository of 
scientific knowledge.  The community possesses this 
knowledge and passes it on to future generations through 
them.  Individual members of the community can generally 
gain access to the experts' knowledge through their 
testimony. Thus, Wittgenstein's epistemology, like 
Nelson's, is robustly communal. 
 
 
 
References 
Goldman, A. I. 1999 Knowledge in A Social World, Oxford. 
Harding, S. 1991 Whose Science?  Whose Knowledge? Cornell. 
Harding, S. 1993 "Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology:  What Is 
'Strong Objectivity'?" in L. Alcoff and E. Potter (eds.), 
Feminist Epistemologies, Routledge, 49-82. 
Longino, H. 1990 Science as Social Knowledge, Value and 
Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry, Princeton.   
Longino, H. 1993 "Subjects, Power and Knowledge: Description 
and Prescription in Feminist Philosophies of Science", in 
Alcoff and Potter (eds.), 101-120.   
Moore, G. E. 1959  "A Defense of Common Sense", in 
Philosophical Papers,  
London:  George Allen & Unwin. 
Nelson, L. 1990 Who Knows: From Quine to a Feminist 
Empiricism, Temple.   
Nelson, L. 1993 "Epistemological Communities", in Alcoff and 
Potter (eds.), 121-159.   
Stroll, A. 1994 Moore and Wittgenstein on Certainty, Oxford,  
Williams, M. 1999 Wittgenstein, Mind and Meaning, Routledge. 
Wittgenstein, L. 1969 On Certainty (OC), Harper & Row.   
 


Criticism, Context and Community: Connections between
Wittgenstein's On Certainty and Feminist Epistemology

Name not available

  42 Criticism, Context and Community: Connections between Wittgenstein's On Certainty and Feminist Epistemology  Carol Caraway, Indiana (PA)   I explore the conceptual connections between Wittgenstein's On Certainty and the work of three contemporary feminist epistemologists: standpoint theorist Sandra Harding and feminist empiricists Helen Longino and Lynn Hankinson Nelson.  My inquiry reveals both surprising similarities and important differences between Wittgensteinian and feminist epistemologies.  Exploring these similarities and differences clarifies Wittgenstein's epistemology and reveals ways feminist epistemologists have developed themes from On Certainty.  On Certainty anticipates three important pillars of feminist epistemology:  criticism, context, and community.   1. Criticism One focus of feminist criticism is the alleged objectivity of science.  According to tradition, science involves a method of justification that prevents our personal feelings and biases (such as greed and ambition) from distorting our understanding of the world.   Both Wittgenstein and feminist epistemologists reject the traditional notion of scientific objectivity.  Wittgenstein maintains that rather than being coercive and external to us, our linguistic and epistemological rules are based on our human customs, practices and institutions--our "form of life".  Feminists see science as situated in and influenced by a social, historical, and cultural context.  They maintain that science is not autonomous because scientists have no method for eliminating shared social biases.   Having rejected the problematic traditional notion of objectivity, Longino and Harding offer non-traditional accounts of objectivity intended to fit feminism, avoid relativism, and explain how feminist criticism can enhance scientific objectivity.  I shall maintain that while Wittgenstein's account of objectivity is closer to Longino's than to Harding's, he would nevertheless reject both not because he supports the traditional account, but because his own non-traditional account conflicts with theirs at certain crucial points.   Helen Longino argues that scientific knowledge is produced not by isolated individuals, but by an interactive dialogic community (Longino 1990).  A scientific community is objective if it satisfies her four criteria for transformative criticism:  1.  There are public avenues for criticism: journals, conferences, etc. 2.  Critics can invoke shared public standards. 3.  The scientific community is open to criticism and reevaluation. 4.  Qualified scientists share equal intellectual authority  (Longino 1993, 112-113).  The heart of Longino's account is the third criterion, which involves questioning the background beliefs in light of which states of affairs become evidence (Longino 1990, 73).  Like theories, background beliefs should be articulated and critically evaluated by the scientific community.  They can then be defended, modified or abandoned in response to such criticism.  As long as such criticism is possible, individual and communal biases can be checked (Longino 1990, 73-75).   The formal requirement of demonstrable evidential relevance constitutes a standard of rationality and acceptability independent of and external to any particular research program or scientific theory.  The satisfaction of this standard by any program or theory secured, as has been argued, by intersubjective criticism, is what constitutes its objectivity" (Longino 1990, 75).  While Longino emphasizes intersubjective criticism, Wittgenstein characterizes the necessary foundation for such criticism.  He writes, "All testing, all confirmation and disconfirmation of a hypothesis takes place within a system.  And this system is . . . not so much the point of departure as the element in which arguments have their life" (OC 105).  "I have a world picture. … it is the substratum of all my enquiring and asserting" (OC 162).  "Whenever we test anything, we are already presupposing something that is not tested" (OC 163).  [See also OC 110, 136, 141-42, 144, 151-52,167, 204, 220, 212, 225, 232, 253, 308, 337, 341-344, 370, 401, 411, 414-15 & 475.] Sandra Harding maintains that traditional objectivity is not strong enough to eliminate gender bias.  She advocates a "strong objectivity" that extends "the notion of scientific research to include systematic examination of powerful background beliefs" (Harding 1991, 149).  Scientists, their practices, and their background beliefs must become objects of scientific study.  Longino supports examining background beliefs, but recognizes that there may be limits to the scope of such examinations.  Some background beliefs "may not be subject to empirical confirmation or disconfirmation," and may "be infused with metaphysical or normative considerations" (Longino 1990, 75).  Longino maintains that Harding is mistaken in identifying the objectivity of scientific methods with their empirical features alone.   Like Longino, Wittgenstein maintains that certain background beliefs cannot be empirically tested, but he explains this limitation differently.  For Wittgenstein, the activities of science require that certain things go unquestioned or "stand fast" thus providing the general background context for inquiry and criticism. "One cannot make experiments if there are not some things that one does not doubt… If I make an experiment I do not doubt the existence of the apparatus before my eyes.  I have plenty of doubts, but not that" (OC 337).  "The questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn.  That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are in deed not doubted" (OC 342).  What "stands fast" is not subject to testing, criticism or confirmation. Criticism, Context and Community: Connections between Wittgenstein's On Certainty and Feminist Epistemology - Carol Caraway    432. Context Wittgenstein and feminist epistemologists stress that human knowledge is situated in contexts.  Their use of "context", however, varies.  For Harding, the context of science is one of hierarchy and power differences.  White males at the center of science see the world from a perspective of dominance; women and others on the margin see the world from the perspective of subordination--an epistemically superior position according to Harding (Harding 1991 & 1993).   Wittgenstein did not discuss class or gender based differences in power and epistemic perspective.  He did insist that our beliefs be justified by public criteria that function only given certain contexts.  He discusses two types of contexts with different epistemic roles.  First, criteria function only given certain very general facts of nature (including facts about human behavior) and certain human customs or general practices.  Wittgenstein calls this general background context "our inherited background", "our world picture", etc. (OC 167) and insists it is necessary for inquiry.  Moore's propositions in "A Defense of Common Sense" belong to this world picture.   At this level of generality, certainty is absolute.  There is room for fluctuation, but not for doubt. Second, criteria provide a reliable basis for justification only in the appropriate particular contexts, which include where, when, who, what happened before and after, etc.  We assume that general circumstances obtain; we must determine what particular circumstances obtain in a given case.  This determination is two-fold.  First, we must determine whether the context is one appropriate for applying a particular criterion or standard.  If it is, then, we must determine whether the circumstances are normal.  Wittgenstein writes, "If however, one wanted to give something like a rule here, then it would contain the expression "in normal circumstances".  And we recognize normal circumstances but cannot precisely describe them.  At most, we can describe a range of abnormal ones" (OC 27). [See also OC 10, 27, 155, 250, 255, 334-35, 348, 423, 553, 554, & 622.]  At this level, context may seem liable to the charge of relativism, for a proposition that is certain in one context may be uncertain in another.  But certainty at the more general level neutralizes the apparent relativism at this level.   Longino's epistemology is "a form of contextualism that understands knowledge as the historical product of interactions between contextual factors such as social needs, values and traditions, and practices of inquiry such as observation, experiment, and reasoning" (Longino 1990, 176-177).  Longino also has two types of contexts:  one universal and one particular.  First, she sees the context of scientific inquiry as the international scientific community: "What is called scientific knowledge, then, is produced by a community (ultimately the community of all scientific practitioners)" (Longino 1990, 69).  Second, she emphasizes particular contexts, suggesting that we embrace multiple and, in some cases, incompatible theories that satisfy local standards (Longino 1993, 114).  This need not plunge us into epistemological relativism because the standards of transformative criticism protect us from this fate.   3. Community  The most innovative aspect of feminist empiricism is its portrayal of knowledge as social or communal.  Traditional epistemology is essentially individualistic and largely ignores the role(s) of social interactions and the community in the production of knowledge.  Alvin I. Goldman maintains that social epistemology "focuses on social paths or routes to knowledge… that feature interactions with other agents" (Goldman 1999, 4).  Social epistemology thus encompasses both minimally interpersonal views of knowledge, in which the individual is the primary knower, and maximally communal views, like Nelson's, in which the community is the primary knower.  Consequently, Nelson, Longino, and Wittgenstein all have social epistemologies.  Nelson uses feminist science criticism, Quine's holistic empiricism, and neurobiology to argue that knowledge is social, constructed by the community, and constrained by our experience (Nelson 1990, 40).  What others say and do is vital to the child's cognitive development.   Without interpersonal experience, an infant could never develop the neurological structures permitting language, concepts, and perceptions.  Other people provide the child with a language and a conceptual scheme.  The community also provides public standards of evidence for judging beliefs (Nelson 1990, 256).  These standards constrain what we can know as well as our theorizing (Nelson 1990, 277).  Hence, for Nelson, the agent of knowledge is "First and foremost the community, and then secondarily the individual" (Nelson 1990, 14).  Her brand of "social epistemology" is quite robust and contains obvious parallels with Wittgenstein's remarks on language acquisition and communal practices.   Longino's contextual empiricism is significantly more "social" than traditional epistemologies, but noticeably weaker than Nelson's communal coherentism.  Longino maintains, "scientific knowledge is constructed not by individuals applying a method of investigation to objects, but by individuals interacting with one another in ways that modify their observations, theories, hypotheses, and patterns of reasoning" (Longino 1990, 111).  Longino focuses on individuals interacting to produce knowledge.  Her view is, thus, more modest than Nelson's. Nelson focuses on the community; Longino focuses on the interaction between the members of the community.   Although Longino's view is less communal and more interpersonal than Nelson's, they agree that epistemic agency is not solitary.  Knowing and coming to know are social and interactive.  They are things we do:  our human actions and practices.  Sentiments that seem compatible with Wittgenstein's rejecting the notions of a logically private language and a private mental life or world completely unavailable to others.   How strongly social is Wittgenstein's account of knowledge?  Is it robustly communal like Nelson's or modestly interpersonal like Longino's? Longino believes "the later philosophy of Wittgenstein does challenge the individualist ideal" although "few commentators have developed the anti-individualist implications of his work" (Longino 1993, 119).  I am attempting to do so for On Certainty.  Wittgenstein writes, 'We are quite sure of it' does not mean just that every single person is certain of it, but that we belong to a community which is bound together by science and education" (OC 298).  How tightly do these cords of science and education bind us to each other? Does Wittgenstein believe with Nelson that the community is the primary knower?  Do his remarks allow or perhaps even entail such a robustly communal view?   Stroll argues that Wittgenstein's notion of community involves three different levels: 1. The totality of humans and other animals, their activities, interactions,  practices and institutions together with inorganic products such as buildings.  Criticism, Context and Community: Connections between Wittgenstein's On Certainty and Feminist Epistemology - Carol Caraway    44 2. The set of human practices, customs, habits, and traditions.  3. Individual practices of asserting, inquiring, etc.  (Stroll 1994, 170).   Stroll's third level can be divided into two sub-levels: the domain of the expert, and the domain of the novice (Williams 1999, 8).  Science is a specialized epistemic enterprise engaged in by experts.  Experts train novices in the epistemic practices of science.  First, however, novices must be trained in the more basic practices of language use, inquiry, etc.  Through this more basic training, children unconsciously absorb--Wittgenstein intentionally does not say "learn" (OC 297)--the inherited background beliefs of their community.  "When a child learns language it learns at the same time what is to be investigated and what not" (OC 472). The training of novices by experts of science indicates that knowledge is social.  Experts have mastered special scientific practices and gained special knowledge.  Whether someone is such a master of science is determined by public criteria.  The domain of the novice is not that of the master.   A pupil and a teacher.  The pupil will not let anything be explained to him, for he continually interrupts with doubts, for instance as to the existence of things, the meaning of words, etc. The teacher says "Stop interrupting me and do as I tell you.  So far, your doubts don't make sense at all.  Or imagine that the boy questioned the truth of history (and everything that connects up with it)--and even whether the earth had existed at all a hundred years before.  Here it strikes me as if this doubt were hollow (OC 310-312). Scientific knowledge is the province of well-trained experts.  Their knowledge is part of the community's system of knowledge.  As libraries hold knowledge gained in the past, so today's experts are a living repository of scientific knowledge.  The community possesses this knowledge and passes it on to future generations through them.  Individual members of the community can generally gain access to the experts' knowledge through their testimony. Thus, Wittgenstein's epistemology, like Nelson's, is robustly communal.    References Goldman, A. I. 1999 Knowledge in A Social World, Oxford. Harding, S. 1991 Whose Science?  Whose Knowledge? Cornell. Harding, S. 1993 "Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology:  What Is 'Strong Objectivity'?" in L. Alcoff and E. Potter (eds.), Feminist Epistemologies, Routledge, 49-82. Longino, H. 1990 Science as Social Knowledge, Value and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry, Princeton.   Longino, H. 1993 "Subjects, Power and Knowledge: Description and Prescription in Feminist Philosophies of Science", in Alcoff and Potter (eds.), 101-120.   Moore, G. E. 1959  "A Defense of Common Sense", in Philosophical Papers,  London:  George Allen & Unwin. Nelson, L. 1990 Who Knows: From Quine to a Feminist Empiricism, Temple.   Nelson, L. 1993 "Epistemological Communities", in Alcoff and Potter (eds.), 121-159.   Stroll, A. 1994 Moore and Wittgenstein on Certainty, Oxford,  Williams, M. 1999 Wittgenstein, Mind and Meaning, Routledge. Wittgenstein, L. 1969 On Certainty (OC), Harper & Row.    

Criticism, Context and Community: Connections between Wittgenstein's On Certainty and Feminist Epistemology

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Elektronisch archivierte Theorie - Sammelpunkt

Name not available