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A Critical Evaluation Of Epistemic Terms Within The Context Of Feminist Epistemology
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1.6 LITERATURE REVIEW
The
first book reviewed is titled The Power of Ideas, (ed) by Brooke Noel
Moore and Kenneth Bruder, 5th edition, published in 2002 by the
McGraw-Hill Companies, inc. Newyork. Chapter 14 of this book is devoted
to feminist philosophers and brings to limelight the work of feminist
(women) who have struck out their neck to fight for women’s freedom.
Feminist like Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), well known when she
published “A vindication of the Rights of Womenâ€. She was also well
known for her argument against Rosseau’s view about women in his
“Sophicâ€, when he advocated that women’s education should be designed
entirely to make them pleasing to men. As he said;
“To
please, to be useful to us, to make us love and esteem
them, to educate us when young and take care of
us, when grown up to advise
us, to console us, to render our
lives easy and agreeable – these are the duties
of women at all times; and what they should be taught in their
infancyâ€4.
These words by Rosseau, Wollstonecraft
employed several arguments against and also against his allies. Saying
that educating women to be the ornaments to, and playthings of men would
have bad consequences for the society, that how could women who have
been tagged silly, vain creatures ever be expected to do an adequate job
of raising a family? They would become “mere propagators of foolsâ€5.
This and other arguments she used against Rosseau’s view about women. We
also have other great feminist contributors like Simone de Beauvoir
(1908-1986) and Gloria Steimen (1934) in this chapter.
The Second book here is entitled The Blackwell Companion Co Philosophy,
(ed) Nicholas Bunnin and E.P.tsui-James, published in 2001 by Blackwell
Ltd, Oxford. Chapter 32 of this book is devoted to Feminism and
Philosophy. The author of this chapter Jean Grimshaw examines some main
features of contemporary feminist and considers proposals for the
future.
The next book reviewed is Feminist epistemology
(ed) by Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter, published in 1993 by
Routledge, Newyork. The book centers on feminist view on epistemology of
feminist way of knowing or “women’s knowledgeâ€. The authors pull
together the feminist epistemology which is an uneasy alliance of
feminism and philosophy. The authors are concerned with the many
problems that have vexed traditional epistemology which are the nature
of knowledge itself, epistemic agency, justification, objectivity and
whether and how epistemology should be naturalized.
The
Fourth book reviewed is titled Introducing Feminism, co-edited by S.A
Watkins, M. Rueda and M. Rodriguezi, published at Cambridge by Icon
Books Ltd in 1998. The book has the following central issues; (a)
Rebelling against all power, structures and convention that keep women
service, subordination and second best (b) Women consciously working
together for their own rights (c) Equality and the sacred right of
property for married and single women (d) The story of changing the
subordinate condition of women begins with feminism. The book also cut
through the myths surrounding the subject and provides an incisive
account of the women’s movement from its surprisingly recent birth in
the French revolution to the world wide explosion of women’s liberation
in the 1970’s. it looks at the achievements of feminism and the
challenges still confronting women throughout the world, even in the
21st century.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]This work takes a critical look at the term “Feminist epistemology†as well as their evaluation of the “epistemic terms†Feminist who are trying arguing that the quest for knowledge, which epistemology is centred on, should not be male oriented only, but that the female gender should be given an ear-say in the discus of knowledge. The task of this project is to elucidate on the terms used in epistemology within the view-point of the feminist as ... Continue reading---
