Why Gender is a Relevant Factor in the Social Epistemology of Scientific Inquiry?

In recent years, feminist philosophy of science has been subjected to criticism. Much of the debate has focused on the implications of the underdetermination thesis for accounts of the role of social values in scientific reasoning. My aim here is to offer a different approach. I suggest that feminist philosophers of science contribute to our understanding of science by (1) producing gender sensitive analyses of the social dimensions of scientific inquiry and (2) examining the relevance of these analyses for normative issues in philosophy of science. 1 Department of Philosophy, Helsinki School of Economics, P.O. Box 1210, 00101 Helsinki, Finland. I will not be able to present the paper in the meeting. For comments, please contact [email protected].