Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T01:07:55.014Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Norms of Social Inquiry and Masculine Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2022

Sandra Harding
Sandra Harding*
Affiliation:
University of Delaware
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

For more than a century social scientists and philosophers of social science have argued about whether or not the ontology and methodology for inquiry in the physical sciences is appropriate to capture adequately the regularities of social life and their underlying causal determinants. The issue arises because of the prima facie fact that human actions are structured not only by the laws governing the behavior of physical matter, but also by intentional systems—that is, by culture-wide systems of concepts, rules, conventions and beliefs, and by individual systems of perceptions, motives, and goals arrived at within these cultural systems. Consequently, it is not possible either to identify or to classify human actions apart from this intentional dimension within which human action occurs. Whether, and how, this difference in the nature of the subject matter of social inquiry requires “deviating” from the “logic” of the natural sciences then becomes the substance of the dispute.

Type
Part V. Social Values and Social Science
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1980 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1980 , 1980 , pp. 305 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

A University of Delaware Summer Faculty Research Fellowship and a NEH Summer Research Fellowship supported the research for this paper. Conversations with Nancy Hartsock improved my thinking on these issues.

References

Bernard, Jesse. (1971). “The Paradox of the Happy Marriage.” In Woman in Sexist Society. Edited by Gornick, V. and Moran, B.K.. New York: Basic Books. Pages 145-162.Google Scholar
Chodorow, Nancy. (1978). The Reproduction of Mothering. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dinnerstein, Dorothy. (1976). The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Fay, B. and Moon, J.D. (1977). “What Would an Adequate Philosophy of Social Science Look Like?” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 7: 209-227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flax, Jane. (1978). “The Conflict Between Nurturance and Autonomy in Mother-Daughter Relationships and Within Feminism.” Feminist Studies 4: 171-189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. (1979). “Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle.” Harvard Educational Review 49: 431-1146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandra, Harding. (Forthcoming). “Social Practices and the Production of Belief: The Feminist ‘Strong Program’ for Epistemology.” In Harding and Hintikka (Forthcoming).Google Scholar
Harding, Sandra and Hintikka, Merrill (eds). (Forthcoming). Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology. Metaphysics. Methodology and the Philosophy of Science. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Hartsock, Nancy. (Forthcoming). “The Feminist Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism.” In Harding and Hintikka (Forthcoming).Google Scholar
Hesse, Mary. (1966). Models and Analogies in Science. Notre Dame: University Press.Google Scholar
Keller, Evelyn F. (1978). “Gender and Science.” Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Science 1: 409-433.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University Press.Google Scholar
Leiss, William. (1972). The Domination of Nature. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Merchant, Carolyn. (1980). The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Person, E.S. (1980). “Sexuality as the Mainstay of Identity: Psychoanalytic Perspectives.” Signs 5: 605-630.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosaldo, M. (1980). “The Use and Abuse of Anthropology: Reflections on Feminism and Cross-Cultural Understanding.” Signs 5: 389-417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (1975 e t .seq.). Chicago: University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Dorothy. (1974). “Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology.” Sociological Inquiry 44: 7-13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Dorothy. (1977). “Some Implications of a Sociology for Women,” In Woman in a Han-Made World: A Sooloeconomio Handbook. Edited by Glazer-Malbin, N. and Waehrer, H.. Pages 15-29. Chicago: Rand-McNally.Google Scholar
Smith, Dorothy. (1979). “A Sociology for Women.” In The Prism of Sex: Essays in the Sociology of Knowledge. Edited by Sherman, J. and Beck, E.. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Pages 135-187.Google Scholar
Westkott, Marcia. (1979). “Feminist Criticism of the Social Sciences.” Harvard Educational Review 49: 422-430.CrossRefGoogle Scholar