Continental Feminist Approaches to Philosophy of Science

This chapter offers an account of central issues and themes in continental feminist philosophical engagements with philosophy of science, reflection on examples of important contributions to this discussion, and a discussion of to what extent recent continental feminist work on the topic of science has contributed to the beginning of a new field in continental feminist philosophy of science. The chapter considers current work primarily concerned with physics and calls for future work focused on other scientific fields.

Androcentrismo, ciencia y filosofía de la ciencia

In this work we will take up again the contributions of the feminist philosophy of science around androcentrism, with special emphasis on biology and biomedical sciences. We will propose that such contributions can be ordered according to three different senses of androcentrism, and that important tensions appear between these senses. Following the path traced by Longino, contextual critical empiricism, we will defend that the rational reconstruction of theories can help us to specify where patriarchal decision vectors crouch in scientific practice. To this end, we will present an alternative analysis to Longino’s and use it as an input to discuss the idea of type brains in the framework of the neuroendocrinology of behaviour.

The Elusive Arts of Reflexivity in the ‘Sciences’ of International Relations

There are a number of highly laudable aspects of Patrick Jackson’s broadened discussion of scientific inquiry in the field of International Relations, among them the attention he gives to feminist analysis as exemplary of reflexive science. Yet there are a few worrying elements in his approach as well. This piece addresses issues around Jackson’s presentation of feminist analysis and, in addition, tackles his off-handed reinscription of the split between social sciences and the arts (plus his neglect of poststructuralism). Jackson’s view of feminist analysis relies on early writings on feminist philosophy of science. He therefore underestimates the goals and the epistemological complexities of current research in feminist International Relations. As a separate but overlapping underestimation, Jackson’s drive for a post-foundational science ignores the capacity of the arts to enhance the very qualities of research that attract him to reflexive forms of International Relations science. To overcome both sets of concerns requires enlarging the critical scope of reflexive inquiry.