ABSTRACT
Advocates of communal living often urge that life in a commune provides the framework for a deeper knowledge of other people. There is, then, a generally unnoticed tension between privacy and self-knowledge: a thorough going commitment to self-knowledge requires a sacrifice of privacy, while preservation of privacy diminishes self-knowledge. This chapter believes that there are implications here both for epistemology and for philosophical reflection on the family. The impetus toward self-examination, dialogue, and shared deliberation grows out of this knowledge and concern. Feminist epistemology has been one of the contemporary movements that have combined to teach us that knower are always positioned or situated. Patricia Hill Collins's powerful notion of an outsider within can be adapted to thinking about the epistemology of families. Finally, if anyone is interested in circling back to where one began, that is why a pluralistic commune is epistemically better than a couple or a nuclear family.
