ABSTRACT

Although the concept of knowledge is usually taken to be the central concept in epistemology, the concepts rationality and objectivity are also very prominent. The history of Western philosophy reveals a range of conceptions of rationality and objectivity. The historical association of objectivity with masculinity has played out somewhat differently, in part because that concept has had a more recent history closely linked with the development of modern empirical science since the seventeenth century. Gender was not the only social or cultural differentiation that figured into philosophical associations with epistemic ideals. There is little doubt that the long-term practical and political impact of these cultural associations with rationality and objectivity has been significant. Those deemed intellectually inferior were, for centuries, excluded from educational institutions and other venues of public influence and action. Feminist examinations of what had been forwarded as "objective" scientific knowledge about sex differences have served to bring the theory and practice of objectivity into productive feminist focus.