Feminism and Science: (Oxford Readings in Feminism)

Over the past fifteen years, a new dimension to the analysis of science has emerged. Feminist theory, combined with the insights of recent developments in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science, has raised a number of new and important questions about the content, practice, and traditional goals of science. Feminists have pointed to a bias in the choice and definition of problems with which scientists have concerned themselves, and in the actual design and interpretation of experiments, and have argued that modern science evolved out of a conceptual structuring of the world that incorporated particular and historically specific ideologies of gender. The seventeen outstanding articles in this volume reflect the diversity and strengths of feminist contributions to current thinking about science.

About the Author :
Evelyn Fox Keller is Professor of History and Philosophy of Science in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of Refiguring Life: Metaphors of Twentieth-Century Biology (Columbia UP). Helen E. Longino teaches women's studies and philosophy at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry (Princeton UP, 1990).

Review :
An excellant volume of essays that summarizes the state of the art in the feminist perspective on the philosophy of science. ... No one concerned with a deep understanding of science can afford to ignore this perspective and this book is the ideal overview. Network No 66, April 1998 `The book will certainly enhance undergraduate reading lists.' Women's Philosophy Review `This valuable collection leads the reader through the development of feminist thinking in the sciences. The well chosen pieces are republished here in carefully abridged form, and the collection should make an excellent teaching resource ... an engaging read as a single book, though its structure obviously renders it a useful trove for individual papers a number of which were formerly difficult to get hold of. All the papers in this very good collection show how a feminist perspective can reveal political aspects of inquiry, thereby serving the twin goals of objectivity and understanding in both science and philosophy. I hope that this volume finds its place on standard reading lists so that students and professionals alike may benefit.' Miranda Fricker, University of London, Brit. Jnl. for the Phil. of Sci.