Knowledge in Absolutist Epistemology
As well as showing through the principle of the many and the principle of incompleteness that there are valid ways of gaining knowledge apart from the dominant sciences, a key strength to the relativist argument is its ability to consider subjugated knowledges. According to the standard view of knowledge, different ways of knowing are part of a continuous and unitary epistemological tradition. However, instead of being equally considered knowledge is hierarchically structured so that one type of knowledge system becomes dominant leading to what Kuzmic (2014) calls ‘epistemological hegemony’ (p. 79).
For a long time Western sciences were accepted as obvious facts that were grounded in reality creating a …show more content…
Epistemic Relativism in Research. As a single example of feminist-based research in practice, Nightingale’s work (2003) on community forestry in Nepal reported that recognizing the silences and discrepancies in research has opened up knowledge claims traditionally closed off to women. By exploring oral histories and conducting participant-observation and in-depth interviewing as well as aerial photo interpretation, Nightingale found that women’s experiences with forest usage were different to the dominant quantitative understandings of forest usage based on aerial photos …show more content…
Even when applied to broader projects such as Black Feminist Thought, epistemic relativism has been used to counter race and gender oppression and further understandings of the connections between knowledge and the politics of empowerment. In her book ‘Black Feminist Thought’ (1990), Patricia Collins states that defining colored women as self-defined and self-reliant individuals has reconceptualised relations of domination and resistance by countering the traditional understandings of colored women as hostile and sexually defiant (Thomas et. al., 2004). Her comment suggests that by offering subordinate groups new knowledge to define their own reality Black Feminist Thought has redefined concepts like ‘community’ from market-based competition and domination to caring and personal accountability as a way of including colored women’s experience in what was traditionally understood as an exclusive domain for men (Collins,
As well as showing through the principle of the many and the principle of incompleteness that there are valid ways of gaining knowledge apart from the dominant sciences, a key strength to the relativist argument is its ability to consider subjugated knowledges. According to the standard view of knowledge, different ways of knowing are part of a continuous and unitary epistemological tradition. However, instead of being equally considered knowledge is hierarchically structured so that one type of knowledge system becomes dominant leading to what Kuzmic (2014) calls ‘epistemological hegemony’ (p. 79).
For a long time Western sciences were accepted as obvious facts that were grounded in reality creating a …show more content…
Epistemic Relativism in Research. As a single example of feminist-based research in practice, Nightingale’s work (2003) on community forestry in Nepal reported that recognizing the silences and discrepancies in research has opened up knowledge claims traditionally closed off to women. By exploring oral histories and conducting participant-observation and in-depth interviewing as well as aerial photo interpretation, Nightingale found that women’s experiences with forest usage were different to the dominant quantitative understandings of forest usage based on aerial photos …show more content…
Even when applied to broader projects such as Black Feminist Thought, epistemic relativism has been used to counter race and gender oppression and further understandings of the connections between knowledge and the politics of empowerment. In her book ‘Black Feminist Thought’ (1990), Patricia Collins states that defining colored women as self-defined and self-reliant individuals has reconceptualised relations of domination and resistance by countering the traditional understandings of colored women as hostile and sexually defiant (Thomas et. al., 2004). Her comment suggests that by offering subordinate groups new knowledge to define their own reality Black Feminist Thought has redefined concepts like ‘community’ from market-based competition and domination to caring and personal accountability as a way of including colored women’s experience in what was traditionally understood as an exclusive domain for men (Collins,