Feminist epistemology claims that ethical and political values are important in shaping epistemic practices, and interpretations of evidence.
Therefore, feminist epistemologists attempt to propagate theories that aid liberation and egalitarian causes and protect these endeavors as advances in knowledge.
Empiricism focuses on combining the main ideas of feminism and their observations to prove feministic theories through evidence.
[10] Such an awareness allows a hearer to account for the likely impact of the identity power relation that mediates between himself and the speaker on his spontaneous perception, essentially correcting for the problems that can result in transactions of testimonial injustice.
[14] While potentially a limited set of categories, post-modern feminism was a transitional ideology that denounced absolute objectivity and asserted the death of the meta-narrative.
[16] Quantification, and its political relationships to notions of objectivity, maintains methodological dominance and preference primarily in the United States.
[16] Feminist empiricists believe in the concept of positivism; that all knowledge can be understood objectively and can be accessed through empirical research.
[17] In essence, all empirical inquiry is inherently skewed by value judgments and biased interpretation of evidence by male-biased authorities.
[17] Without this intervention of feminists in an empirical field, this commonality would never have been identified as an issue, since males had no reason to pursue this phenomenon.
Feminist empiricists state that no logical or methodological principle categorically prohibits scientists from choosing their background assumptions as their political and social values or other interests.
Therefore, there is a paradox of bias that confronts both empiricism and epistemological views that attempt to balance subjectivism and objectivism in knowledge acquisition.
[clarification needed][3] It is the most criticized theory by others, for its assumptions that transhistorical subject of knowledge exists outside of social determination (Harding 1990).
[3] According to Harding, this criticism stems from the perception that it is sufficient to eliminate sexist bias without altering traditional scientific methods further.
In order to achieve this critical aim, social theories must represent the understanding of feministic problems and try to improve their condition.
[3][22] It presents an elaborate map or method for maximizing "strong objectivity" in natural and social science,[22] yet does not necessarily focus on encouraging positivistic scientific practices, like is central to Feminist Empiricism.
[22] This is in some ways contrary to Doucet's assertion[14] that the controversy of how power influenced knowledge production is a post-standpoint, more contemporary debate.
[22] In building her standpoint epistemology, Sandra Harding used and built on her interpretation of the work of philosophers of science Thomas Kuhn and Willard Quine.
For example, in his view, the transition from the geocentrism of Ptolemy to the heliocentric theory of Copernicus did not occur through a gradual series of challenges and improvements to the previous model.
Bar On also claims that theory which explains structural relationship between advanced and less developed, which dictates epistemic privilege can not be applied to women[clarification needed].
Pinnick, to illustrate her point about Harding's poor evidence, points to standpoint theory's claim that science is more objective if it is politically motivated, which Pinnick claims runs contrary to what has happened in the past when scientists deliberately injected politics into their theories (she cites eugenics and intelligence test designs as examples of politicized science).
[23] Postmodernism is inspired by postmodernist and postculturalist theorists such as Lyotard and Foucalt, who question universality and objectivity as ways to transcend situatedness.
Post-modern thought marks a feminist group shift away from dominant, positivistic ideals of objectivity and universal understanding.
[14] However, Saba Mahmood[28] would argue this critique is in some ways oppositional to global understandings of female desire, where the idea of 'freedom' is an essential, conditionally oppressive component to western feminism which may wrongly assume that women of eastern countries dominated by male power are victims needing to be liberated.
For instance, while essentialism claims that gender identity is universal, feminist postmodernism suggests that these theories exclude marginalized groups such as lesbians and women of color.
[29] Despite post-modern relativist criticism,[19] this theory resists relativism in firmly recognizing power relations in that objectivity is a privilege of unmarked bodies.
[29] Positivism inherently gives way to authoritarian positions of knowledge which hinder discussion and render limited understanding of the world.
[29] Both positivist science and relativism have been recognized as contrary to post-modern feminist thought, since both minimize the significance of context (geographic, demographic, power) on knowledge claims.
[33] This epistemological framework has been utilized by feminists like bell hooks, who claims that theorizing is often tied to a process of self-recovery and collective liberation; it is not thus limited to those in the western academic realm, nor does it require 'scientific' research.
Lorraine Code's (1987, 1991, 1995, 1996) with other feminist co-workers determined in which ways political and social routine shapes our identities and perspectives of our world and especially gender, how it leads to understanding of epistemic responsibility.
This paints a pluralistic picture of science, where it appears to be disunified due to the presence of diverse structures that are not encompassed in any single theory.