IS TRADITIONAL EPISTEMOLOGY ANDROCENTRIC? A QUESTION AND RESPONSE IN THE LIGHT OF JANE DURAN’S FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY

Abstract

This study critically examines whether Traditional Epistemology is Androcentric in the Light of Jane Duran’s Feminist Epistemology. In her work, Toward a Feminist Epistemology (1991), Jane Duran appears to have weighed the entire Western Traditional Epistemology on an epistemic gender-neutral scale or gender-inclusive scale, and in her observation and judgment finds it wanting of the charge of androcentrism. Hence, she sets out with the task of liberating epistemology from the 'parochial shackle’ of androcentrism to a liberal and holistic feminist perspective through the framework of naturalized epistemology and more recent advances in the cognitive science, feminist theories and sociology of knowledge. The findings in this study reveals that Duran’s feminist epistemology is simultaneously a reaction against androcentrism which she claims is inherent in traditional epistemological theorizing and her investigation into the possibility of a way of knowing that pertains to women. After engaging in a ground clearing attempt to establish her case against the traditional analytic epistemology which in her judgment is both androcentric and apsychological, Duran proceeds to lay foundation for a feminist epistemology and the possibility of a gynocentric model. Adopting the method of critical analysis, this paper is particularly concerned with her labeling of traditional epistemology as ideologically androcentric upon which she proceeded to advocate for a feminist epistemology. This study objects to the claim by Duran that traditional epistemology is androcentric and argues that contrary to her position, the theoretical traits of epistemology which she dubbed androcentric are in fact the product of the nature of the activity of epistemology as majorly a normative discipline.