We need to explore that/how gender is a theoretical category. (p. 277, first par.) (why?)
· Social sciences: willing to consider the social origins of conceptual systems ... [and the social circumstances] shaping the inquirer’s own assumptions and activities.”
· physical sciences: paradigmatic status of their methods appears to preclude reflection on social influences on their conceptual systems.
· The distinction is between taking seriously the role of the knower (and what has shaped the knower) in the knowledge and the suggestion that the knower is not ultimately relevant.
Concern: If scientific knowledge is truly objective, if it deals solely with facts, wouldn’t it seem that the producer of the science should really be irrelevant?
Harding seeks to subject science to its own method.
Two Dogmas of Empiricism:
Harding on Quine’s original two dogmas of empiricism:
1. the claim that there could be value free descriptions of immediate
experiences
2. Facts can be separated from the words used to express them.
New Dogmas of Empiricism:
3) Sacred Science: science is a unique kind of human activity.
4) Science is a unique method or set of sentences.
If scientific method is:
a) putting beliefs to the
test of experimental observation
b) relying on induction
and deduction
c) being willing to hold
all of our assumptions open to criticism
(a) and (b) aren’t unique to modern science.
(b) and (c) aren’t characteristic of what everyone counts as the
most rigorous methodology.
5) Physics is the paradigm of science.
Harding considers (5) in some detail. The following is a brief
sketch:
If physics is a good role model for sciences and we have reason to
think that it is not value-laden, then there is reason for hope for the
other sciences. i.e.,they’re not inherently value laden, they’ve merely
failed to adequately follow their role model.
Two responses:
1. physics is value-laden
2. physics is not a good role model
Harding considers (2) here:
Reasons to think that physic’s apparent objectivity can’t be transferred
to other sciences:
· subject matter of physics is less complex
· the formulas of physics don’t explain. (they must be interpreted)
· the physicist need not consider the intentional and learned
behaviours of humans.
· explaining social phenomena requires grasping the meaning
and purposes of intentional acts