Explore Feminist Scientific Objectivity

Objectivity is the key issue of science and philosophy, and it is also the highest ideal for those who engaged in the research of science and philosophy. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the feminism has opened a brand-new cultural angle of view by its unique sex attention in the scientific domain, meanwhile, objectivity was inevitably a problem to be discussed for feminism. The feminist researchers become an emerging power in studying the scientific objectivity and they also proposed many new concepts and conclusions, which input a fresh blood for the studies of scientific objectivity. This paper focuses on the feminism studies of the scientific objectivity. On the basis of their research results in this field, this paper makes some analyses, evaluations and reflections on them, in order to enrich the research on objectivity of philosophy of science, to eliminate the myth of objectivity from the mainstream science, to highlight the role of female in science, and to win the females their right to speak and legal status in scientific research. The main purpose of the thesis is trying to make science be more equal and really benefit us humanity whether male or female, and making science tending towards diversification and democratization.Firstly, this paper reviews the background of the feminist scientific objectivity, and analyzes the criticism on traditional scientific objectivity from the post-Kuhn period, postmodernism and SSK. In the second part, this paper evaluates the four feminists' views on scientific objectivity:Evelyn Fox Keller, Sandra Harding, Helene E. Longino, and Catharine A. Mackinnon, and clarifies the important concepts: dynamic objectivity, strong objectivity, the theory of knowledge in scientific society, power and objectivity. At last, the author makes some comments on the feminist studies of scientific objectivity, describes some positive effects, and points out its inadequate places, and also gives some brief future development prospects of the feminist scientific research.