I argue that the continued focus on the possibility question – whether feminist logic can exist as a respectable practice – has several harmful consequences. First, it in-vites the association of feminist logic with substantial positions in the philosophy of logic, which unnecessarily leaves room for dismissing the field a priori. Second, it invites a systematic reading of feminist logicians as arguing in isolation from their logical practice, which can hide some genuine possibilities for the field. To avoid these issues, I propose a very broad characterization of feminist logic as a kind of practice which addresses some harmful aspect of dominant practices by focusing on their interaction with logical practices. This characterization trivializes the possibil-ity question, enforces no particular conception of logic to the exclusion of others, yet leaves room for both conservative and radical approaches.
“That’s Above My Paygrade”: Woke Excuses for Ignorance
Standpoint theorists have long been clear that marginalization does not make better understanding a given. They have been less clear, though, that social dominance does not make ignorance a given. Indeed, many standpoint theorists have implicitly committed themselves to what I call the strong epistemic disadvantage thesis. According to this thesis, there are strong, substantive limits on what the socially dominant can know about oppression that they do not personally experience. I argue that this thesis is not just implausible but politically pernicious; it is an excuse for ignorance and silence that stifles our ability to address many injustices. Moreover, I argue that if we are to avoid lending support to the SEDT while working within a standpoint theory framework, we must hold that the socially dominant can achieve marginalized standpoints. So, we must hold that men can achieve feminist standpoints, that white women (and men) can achieve black feminist standpoints, and so on.
Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What Is “Strong Objectivity”?
In this paper, Harding demonstrates how starting inquiry from the lives of the marginalized is a prerequisite to what she calls “Strong objectivity”. She outlines the central arguments for feminist standpoint theories and contrasts them with the objectivist ideals of traditional science, who, she argues, are only able to achieve weak objectivity.
From Standpoint Epistemology to Epistemic Oppression
Standpoint epistemology is committed to a cluster of views that pays special attention to the role of social identity in knowledge-acquisition. Of particular interest here is the situated knowledge thesis. This thesis holds that for certain propositions p, whether an epistemic agent is in a position to know that p depends on some nonepistemic facts related to the epistemic agent’s social identity. In this article, I examine two possible ways to interpret this thesis. My first goal here is to clarify existing interpretations of this thesis that appear in the litera- ture but that are undeveloped and often mistakenly conflated. In so doing, I aim to make clear the different versions of standpoint epistemology that one might accept and defend.This project is of significance, I argue, because standpoint epistemology provides helpful tools for understanding a phenomenon of recent interest: epistemic oppression. My second goal is to provide an analysis that makes clear how each of the readings I put forth can be used to illuminate forms of epistemic oppression.
Explaining Religion: Notes Toward a Research Agenda
I begin by arguing that our model of religion is often based on Christianity. A Christian model of religion is going to look for gods and creeds, churches, priests, prayer, collective worship, moral codes, each of which is absent in some of
the things we might want to call religions. And it may well ignore dietary and sumptuary rules or cult for ancestors, which are important in some of them. Religion is a paradigm of what Wittgenstein taught us to call a “family-resemblance” concept: each religion, like each member of a family, is like every other, in some respect, but there are few, if any, characteristics they all share. So the first thing we need to do in trying to decide what it is we’re explaining is disaggregate the elements that come together in Christianity; if we find that they usually come together that will be one of the things that we need to explain. What then are the questions worth focusing on? I think that, from an evolutionary point of view, it will be two families of issues. First will be the social and the cognitive features of religions that make their explanation challenging. A second family of issues worth exploring, once we have identified these components, is how they fit together. Why, for example does belief in invisible beings go with rituals dealing with disaster? Why does agreement in creeds go with creating powerful social groups that last across the generations?
When one finds broad patterns across many societies there are usually two natural types of explanation that spring to mind. One is that the pattern reflects shared solutions to common problems, independently discovered: evolutionary homology, as it were. The other is diffusion from common sources: in a word, copying. I suspect that much of what is share in the organization of religions globally today is the result of diffusion. But, of course, why some patterns diffuse successfully and others don’t is itself something that needs explaining.
Inventing Black Identity
Psychology has had a number of things to say about black and coloured people, none of them favourable, and most of which have reinforced stereotyped and derogatory images. Beyond the Masks is a readable account of black psychology, exploring key theoretical issues in race and gender. In it, Amina Mama examines the history of racist psychology, and of the implicit racism throughout the discipline. Beyond the Masks also offers an important theoretical perspective, and will appeal to all those involved with ethnic minorities, gender politics and questions of identity.
African Women, Illogicality and Epistemic Tyranny
The book argues that women’s perspectives and gender issues must be mainstreamed across African philosophy in order for the discipline to truly represent the thoughts of Africans across the continent.
African philosophy as an academic discipline emerged as a direct challenge to Western and Eurocentric hegemonies. It sought to actualize the project of decolonization and to contribute African perspectives to global discourses. There has, however, been a dominance of male perspectives in this field of human knowledge. This book argues that African philosophy cannot claim to have liberated people of African descent from marginalization until the androcentric nature of African philosophy is addressed. Key concepts such as Ujamaa, Negritude, Ubuntu, Consciencism, and African Socialism are explored as they relate to African women’s lives or as models of inclusion or exclusion from politics. In addition to offering a feminist critique of African philosophy, the book also discusses topics that have been consistently overlooked in African philosophy. These topics include sex, sexuality, rape, motherhood, prostitution, and the low participation of women in politics.
By highlighting the work of women feminist scholars such as Oyeronke Oyewumi, Nkiru Nzegwu, Ifi Amadiume, Amina Mama, and Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, the book engages with African philosophy from an African feminist viewpoint. This book will be an essential resource for students and researchers of African philosophy and gender studies.
Women in the History of African Philosophy and the Imperative of ‘Her-Storical’ Perspective in the Contemporary African Philosophy
The points this chapter labors to make are straight and simple. First, the documented reflections of women in contemporary African philosophy, of individuals such as Sophie Oluwole, Anke Graness, Wangari Maathai, Nkiru Nzegwu, Ebunoluwa Oduwole, Betty Wambui, Gail Presbey, and Louise du Toit, are impossible to deny or to ignore; the heritage they (and other female thinkers on the African condition, too numerous to do justice to here) have bequeathed to African philosophy and the world deserves the recognition denied it for so long, and current African philosophical historiography must remediate this epistemic injustice. Furthermore, I maintain that concepts are crucial in philosophical discourse, and this work has thrown up fresh concepts and keywords such as ‘his-story’, ‘her-story’, ‘her-storycide’, ‘her-storicity’, and ‘Afro-herstoricism’. These concepts are pregnant with implications, consequences, and creative possibilities for African philosophy and her place in the philosophical world. These concepts encapsulate the idea that women’s lives, experiences, deeds, contributions, voices, perceptions, representations, struggles, problems, expectations and participation in human affairs have been too long neglected or undervalued in standard historical narratives, and that serious cognizance must be taken of the creative works that women have produced in the development of knowledge and how these have affected the philosophic temper. Contemporary African philosophy cannot run away from honoring its ‘debts and duties’ to women in African philosophy.
African Philosophy and the Shackles of Androcentrism
The book argues that women’s perspectives and gender issues must be mainstreamed across African philosophy in order for the discipline to truly represent the thoughts of Africans across the continent.
African philosophy as an academic discipline emerged as a direct challenge to Western and Eurocentric hegemonies. It sought to actualize the project of decolonization and to contribute African perspectives to global discourses. There has, however, been a dominance of male perspectives in this field of human knowledge. This book argues that African philosophy cannot claim to have liberated people of African descent from marginalization until the androcentric nature of African philosophy is addressed. Key concepts such as Ujamaa, Negritude, Ubuntu, Consciencism, and African Socialism are explored as they relate to African women’s lives or as models of inclusion or exclusion from politics. In addition to offering a feminist critique of African philosophy, the book also discusses topics that have been consistently overlooked in African philosophy. These topics include sex, sexuality, rape, motherhood, prostitution, and the low participation of women in politics.
By highlighting the work of women feminist scholars such as Oyeronke Oyewumi, Nkiru Nzegwu, Ifi Amadiume, Amina Mama, and Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, the book engages with African philosophy from an African feminist viewpoint. This book will be an essential resource for students and researchers of African philosophy and gender studies.
Gender and the Economy
In 1987, more than a decade before the dawn of queer theory, Ifi Amadiume published the groundbreaking ‘Male Daughters, Female Husbands’ to critical acclaim. This compelling, enduring, and highly original book argues that gender, as constructed in Western feminist discourse, did not exist in Africa before the colonial imposition of a dichotomous understanding of sexual difference. Amadiume examines the African societal structures that enabled people to achieve power within fluid masculine and feminine roles. At a time when gender and queer theory is viewed by many as overly focused on identity politics, this apt text not only warns against the danger of projecting Western notions of difference onto other cultures, but also questions the very concept of gender itself.