http://www.jstor.org A Defense of Longino's Social Epistemology Author(s): K. Brad Wray Source: Philosophy of Science, Vol. 66, Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers (Sep., 1999), pp. S538-S552 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/188797 Accessed: 02/09/2008 14:51 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. 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Brad Wraytl University of Calgary Though many agree that we need to account for the role that social factors play in inquiry, developing a viable social epistemology has proved to be difficult. According to Longino, it is the processes that make inquiry possible that are aptly described as "6social," for they require a number of people to sustain them. These processes, she claims, not only facilitate inquiry, but also ensure that the results of inquiry are more than mere subjective opinions, and thus deserve to be called "knowledge." In this paper, I (a) explain Longino's epistemology, and (b) defend it against charges that have re- cently been raised by Kitcher, Schmitt, and Solomon. Longino rightly recognizes that not all social factors have the same (adverse) affect on inquiry. She also recommends that we distinguish knowledge from mere opinion by reference to a social standard. 1. Introduction. Though many critics of traditional analytic epistemol- ogy agree that we need to account for the role that social factors play in inquiry, developing a viable social epistemology has proved to be a difficult task. According to Helen Longino, it is the processes that make tDepartment of Philosophy, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Cal- gary, Alberta, T2N IN4. tThis paper benefitted from valuable feedback from numerous people. The following four deserve to be singled out: Lori Nash, Kathleen Okruhlik, Marc Ereshefsky, and Heidi Grasswick. In addition, numerous others gave me valuable feedback on earlier drafts, including: Alison Wylie, John Nicholas, Bruce Freed, Cheryl Misak, Marty Kreiswirth, Catherine Womack, Jay Odenbaugh, Mark Mercer, Charlie Martin, Bob Ware, and Richmond Campbell. I also benefitted from discussions at the following conferences at which I presented earlier drafts of the paper: the Pacific Division Meet- ings of the American Philosophical Association, in Los Angeles in March 1998; the Canadian Philosophical Association's annual meeting, in Ottawa in May 1998; the World Congress of Philosophy, in Boston in August 1998; and the Philosophy of Sci- ence Association's Biennial meeting, in Kansas City in October 1998. The University of Calgary and the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Calgary provided finan- cial support for me to pursue my research and attend the last of these conferences. Philosophy of Science, 66 (Proceedings) pp. S538-S552. 0031-8248/99/66supp-41$0.00 Copyright 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved. S538 A DEFENSE OF LONGINO S SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY S539 inquiry possible that are aptly described as "social," for they require a number of people to sustain them. These processes, she claims, not only facilitate inquiry, but also ensure that the results of inquiry are more than mere subjective opinions, and thus deserve to be called "knowl- edge." In this paper I want to both explain and defend Longino's epis- temology. In Section 2, I explain how Longino defines her view against two influential accounts in traditional philosophy of science. In Sections 3-5, I explain and address a number of criticisms that have recently been raised against Longino's epistemology. 2. Longino's Account of Knowledge and Inquiry. In Science as Social Knowledge (1990), Longino defines her account of scientific knowledge relative to positivist and holist [wholist] accounts. Though most people now regard positivism as offering an untenable account of science, Longino believes that it still needs to be reckoned with because "no comparable sweeping and detailed philosophical view has replaced it" (1990, 21). And, the holists, she claims, are significant because they have been the greatest critics of positivism. After presenting these two accounts, and explaining the difficulties that Longino has with them, I will present Longino's own account of scientific knowledge and in- quiry. Longino's discussion of positivism and holism focuses on two issues: the relationship between evidence and hypotheses; and, the role of "contextual" values in inquiry. Longino contrasts contextual values with constitutive values. The latter, the "values generated from an un- derstanding of the goals of scientific inquiry," "are the source of the rules determining what constitutes acceptable scientific practice or sci- entific method" (1990, 4). That these sorts of values influence inquiry is not a problem. But the former, "personal, social, and cultural val- ues," are generally thought to threaten the integrity of scientific inquiry (1990, 4-5). Longino identifies Hempel and Carnap as typical positivists (see, for example, Hempel 1966). According to the positivists, "the fundamental base of inquiry, the source of confirming or disconfirming instances, is a set of observations or observation statements that are established independently of any theory" (Longino 1990, 26). Observation state- ments, expressed in a theory-neutral language, provide a foundation for our theories. Theories are true insofar as they are confirmed by observations. Further, the positivists construe the relation between evidence and hypotheses to be syntactic (Longino 1990, 23). Consequently, "what would count as evidence for a hypothesis is determined by the form of S540 K. BRAD WRAY the hypothesis sentences and evidence sentences not by their content" (Longino 1990, 48). Thus, the criteria for confirmation is similar to "the formal criteria for the validity of deductive arguments" (Longino 1990, 23). By construing hypotheses and evidence to be related syntac- tically, the positivists ensure that "inference to a hypothesis is not me- diated by possibly value-laden assumptions" (Longino 1990, 48). Pos- itivists regard such assumptions as a threat to the integrity of scientific inquiry. Positivists, though, acknowledge that scientific inquiry is not com- pletely value-free. They allow "for a subjective, nonempirical element in scientific inquiry by distinguishing between a context of discovery and a context of justification" (Longino 1990, 64). Though values may play a causal role in the context of discovery, "in the context of justi- fication these generative factors are disregarded, and the hypothesis is considered only in relation to its observable consequences, which de- termine its acceptability" (Longino 1990, 64-65). Let us now consider the holists' account of scientific knowledge. Longino regards Hanson, Kuhn, and Feyerabend as holists, though Kuhn (1970) is Longino's principal target. The holists reject the posi- tivists' "fundamental assumption of the independence of observation from theory" (Longino 1990, 26). According to the holists, "confirming or disconfirming observations ... cannot be specified independently of a theory but are themselves given content, at least in part, by theory and described in language whose meaning [is] dependent on the whole of a theory" (Longino 1990, 27). And, the consequence of theory-ladenness is incommensurability: two (or more) opposing theories accounting for the same phenomena cannot be compared with each other and against 'the facts' in any way that enables us to determine which is false and which, if any, true. (Longino 1990, 27) Because competing theories are incommensurable "theory choice in science is no longer a uniquely pure expression of rationality and ob- jectivity but is described as nonrational or irrational, and certainly not evidence determined" (Longino 1990, 27). Holists believe that a sci- entist's values may be responsible for determining which of two com- peting theories she accepts. Longino regards both of these accounts of scientific knowledge as un- acceptable. Consider her criticism of the positivists' account. First, Lon- gino claims that the positivists are mistaken in believing that there is a theory-independent language of observation statements. She claims that "the absolute and unambiguous nature of evidential relations presented in the positivist view cannot accommodate the facts of scientific change" A DEFENSE OF LONGINO S SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY S541 (1990, 81). Sometimes advocates of competing theories appeal to the same body of data as support for their competing theories. Were evi- dence as unequivocal as the positivists suggest, this should not happen. Second, Longino believes that the positivists are mistaken in re- garding the relation between evidence and hypotheses as a syntactic relation. Data ... do not on their own ... indicate that for which they can serve as evidence. Hypotheses, on the other hand, are or consist of statements whose content always exceeds that of the statements describing the observational data. There is, thus, a logical gap be- tween data and hypotheses. (1990, 58) And, this gap between evidence and hypotheses allows contextual val- ues to influence decision-making (1990, 52). Third, Longino objects to the positivists' account of the role of val- ues in inquiry. If the positivists are correct, then good science should generally proceed according to the positivists' prescriptions. But, the "historical work of the wholists' decisively refutes the empiricists' claim that their prescriptions can also function as descriptions of scientific practice" (1990, 28). Scientists are more affected in their decision- making by values and value-laden assumptions than the positivists' suggest.1 Longino is not satisfied with the holists' account of scientific knowl- edge either. First, Longino argues that the holists "create a bond be- tween evidence and hypothesis impossible to break and even destroys, ultimately, the concept of evidence as something to which one can ap- peal in defending a hypothesis" (1990, 57). If the holist is right, evidence for one theory could not compel someone who accepts a competing theory to change her mind. The data would only appear to support the theory if one already accepts the theory it is intended to support. Second, Longino believes that the holists have exaggerated the sig- nificance of incommensurability. They claim that it is because of radical incommensurabilities that theory choice is not evidence determined. Longino, though, claims that "the incommensurability of theories in the wholist view cannot do justice to the lively and productive debate that can occur among scientists committed to different theories" (1990, 1. Kathleen Okruhlik argues, similarly, that "even if we grant ... that scientific method is itself free of contamination by non-cognitive factors and that the decision procedure operates perfectly ... nothing in this procedure will insulate the content of science from sociological influences once we grant that these influences do affect theory generation" (1998, 201). According to Okruhlik, because social factors play a significant role in determining what theories are generated, such factors also determine "how our options came to be determined in the particular ways that they are" (1998, 203). S542 K. BRAD WRAY 81). Further, she suggests that the holists' account of scientific knowl- edge gives rise to a paradox: "if we regard the meaning of a term occur- ring in one theory as changed when it occurs in some other theory, then we cannot say that any theories contradict one another" (1990, 28). Third, Longino believes that because holists claim that hypothesis acceptance that is not based on evidence is irrational, they implicitly accept the positivists' conception of evidential relations as syntactic (1990, 57-58). As suggested earlier, such an account of evidential re- lations is unacceptable. Longino develops an alternative account of scientific knowledge which she calls "contextual empiricism." The following two features constitute the core of Longino's account. First, Longino offers an al- ternative account of the relation between hypotheses and evidence. She believes that hypotheses and evidence are related by assumptions that scientists bring to their inquiries. According to Longino, "a state of affairs will only be taken to be evidence that something else is the case in light of some background belief or assumption asserting a connec- tion between the two" (1990, 44). "In the absence of any such beliefs no state of affairs will be taken as evidence of any other" (1990, 44). Thus, contextual background beliefs bridge the gap between hypoth- eses and evidence. And, relativizing evidential import to background assumptions thus in- volves abandoning the attempt to specify the relation between evi- dence and hypotheses by means of syntactic criteria and seeing this relation as involving substantive assumptions instead. (1990, 59) Second, Longino suggests that we must change our understanding of the nature of scientific method. She claims that we must "return to the idea of science as practice" and "regard scientific method as some- thing practiced not primarily by individuals but by social groups" (1990, 66-67). This "shift in perspective" is required, she claims, be- cause "the application of scientific method, that is, of any subset of the collection of means of supporting scientific theory on the basis of evi- dential data, requires by its very nature the participation of two or more individuals" (1990, 67). Longino thus situates her account of scientific knowledge between the positivists' and the holists', avoiding the weaknesses of both. First, by invoking background assumptions Longino is able to ex- plain how the same data can support competing theories or hypotheses. Advocates of different theories bring to their inquiries different back- ground assumptions, and "in the context of their differing background beliefs and assumptions different aspects of the same state of affairs [become] evidentially significant" (1990, 47-48). The apparent insta- A DEFENSE OF LONGINO S SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY S543 bility of evidence that leads the holists to claim that competing theories are incommensurable is due to the fact that the states of affairs that function as evidence can be described in different ways, and different descriptions will draw our attention to different aspects. But, Longino insists that hypotheses, background beliefs, and the states of affairs that count as evidence are independently specifiable (1990, 57). The sentences that express each of the above are not necessarily laden with the same theoretical assumptions. Second, the background assumptions that facilitate our inferences from evidence to hypotheses also make room for the influence of values in inquiry. Because the background assumptions that mediate our ev- idential reasoning are value-laden, an inquirer's values will shape sci- entific knowledge. Nonetheless, Longino insists that this need not threaten the integrity or objectivity of science, as the positivists suggest. Longino construes the demand for objectivity as the demand "to block the influence of subjective preferences at the level of background be- liefs" (1990, 73). When the background assumptions that play the me- diating role in evidential reasoning do not reflect merely subjective pref- erences, then a community's methods are as objective as is possible. 3. Kitcher's Criticism: The Charge of Relativism. I want now to examine a number of criticisms that have recently been raised against Longino's account of knowledge and inquiry. Each criticism is concerned with a different dimension of knowledge and inquiry: the role of truth; the nature of justification or rationality; and the nature of the knowing agent.2 By addressing these criticisms, I will both clarify and defend Longino's view. Philip Kitcher believes that Longino's view collapses into relativism (1994, fn. 26, 132). He argues that because she believes that "the only useable notion of truth is one that identifies truth with some type of acceptance" (1994, 122), her account of knowledge does not provide inquirers with a basis from which they can make principled judgments (1991, 676). As Kitcher explains, though "Longino [offers a concep- tion] of knowledge that [is] far more sophisticated than village relativ- ism . . . in the end, [she seems] to be forced to embrace all the conse- quences that make relativism so unappealing" (1991, 676). Kitcher does not believe that social factors play as prevalent a role in inquiry as Longino implies. Further, he believes that the traditional corre- spondence theory of truth is more plausible than Longino and other 2. This framework for understanding the various criticisms was suggested to me by Heidi Grasswick in her comments to an earlier version of the paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Philosophical Association. S544 K. BRAD WRAY critics suggest. Kitcher recommends a rather conservative approach to socializing knowledge. He argues that "knowledge is socialized by rec- ognizing the need to understand those social conditions which promote the well-groundedness of individual belief " (1991, 675). Kitcher's criticism implies that Longino's view does not differ sig- nificantly from sociological accounts of science. This, though, is a mis- take. Longino distinguishes her view from sociological accounts in two respects. First, contrary to what the Strong Programmers maintain, Longino does not believe that "science is socially constructed in the sense that the congruence of a hypothesis or theory with the social interests of the members of a scientific community determines its ac- ceptance by that community (rather than a congruence of theory/hy- pothesis with the world)" (1994, 136). Indeed, Longino does grant that how we describe things is a matter of convention (1990, 42). But once we commit ourselves to a way of describing, the right description is not merely a matter of convention. Consequently, according to Longino, "the fact that the boundaries of classificatory categories are conven- tional and determined by a linguistic community does not show that the boundaries are adopted because of their semantic relation with social values" (1994, 136). Second, Longino believes that sociological accounts of science mis- takenly make no distinction between knowledge and opinion. As Lon- gino expresses it: "the fate of knowledge as it is treated in social theories of science is to collapse into what is believed or what is accepted" (1994, 138). Such accounts "are too concerned with finding the criteria that do govern scientific selections . .. not the criteria that ought to govern them" (1994, 137-138). Despite the fact that Longino accepts the traditional knowledge/ opinion dichotomy, her conception of knowledge differs significantly from traditional conceptions. She argues that knowledge is the out- come of interaction between people that is mediated by the appropriate social processes (1994, 142). Such processes, she suggests, enable us "to transform the subjective into the objective" (1994, 144). Longino calls the sort of interaction that leads to knowledge "transformative criti- cism." She suggests that the following four features of "the design and constitution of a community . . . facilitate transformative criticism and enable a consensus to qualify as knowledge": public forums for criti- cism; uptake to criticism; publicly recognized standards; and, equality of intellectual authority3 (1994, 144-145). Longino believes that insofar 3. Longino's fourth criterion is frequently misunderstood by her critics. Alvin Goldman, for example, claims that "in the case for equality of intellectual authority, I think there is a substantive mistake. Longino herself tacitly recognizes the inadequacy of the equal- ity norm by adding the phrase 'among qualified practitioners,' thereby blunting the A DEFENSE OF LONGINO S SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY S545 as the interaction between people satisfy these procedural conditions, the outcome of our inquiries deserve to be called "knowledge." But, contrary to what Kitcher claims, Longino does not reduce truth to some form of acceptance. In fact, she does not even identify truth as the end of inquiry. Underlying Kitcher's criticism of Longino's account are disagree- ments about (1) the relationship between truth and knowledge, and (2) the role that truth plays in inquiry. Kitcher insists that "what is known must be true" (1994, 119), Thus, like most philosophers, Kitcher believes that truth is a necessary condition for knowledge. And, I suspect that it is because Kitcher believes that knowledge entails truth that he regards truth as the end of inquiry.4 If one only has knowledge when one has a true belief, good inquirers will always aim for truth. Longino, though, rejects both of Kitcher's assumptions. First, she believes that "knowledge" can (and should) be defined in a manner that requires no reference to truth. Longino believes that the key con- straint on a viable philosophical account of knowledge and inquiry is that "knowledge" be a normative concept. That is, knowledge must be distinguishable from mere belief.5 But this, she suggests, does not war- rant the traditional demand, that only true beliefs should count as instances of knowledge. In fact, Longino suggests that "knowledge" should be broadened to include any empirically adequate representa- tion of a portion of the natural world that provides "us with a frame- work within which to carry out inquiry and successfully to pursue prac- tical projects" (1994, 153).6 Second, Longino believes that truth is not the only epistemically relevant end of inquiry, but merely one of many aims of inquiry. She argues that scientists are moved by at least two different sorts of goals, implication that all individuals deserve equal authoritative respect on scientific matters. But she does not elaborate on this qualification" (1995, 174). Longino is quite explicit that her fourth criterion is meant to ensure that "what consensus exists must not be the result of the exercise of political or economic power or of the exclusion of dissenting perspectives; it must be the result of critical dialogue in which all relevant perspectives are represented" (1993, 113). 4. More precisely, Kitcher believes that "what we want is significant truth" (1993, 94). 5. This distinction is Plato's classic distinction between doxa and episteme. See, e.g., Plato's (1963) Theaetetus. 6. Like van Fraassen, Longino believes that a theory or model is "empirically adequate exactly if what it says about the observable things and events in this world, is true- exactly if it 'saves the phenomena' " (van Fraassen 1980, 12). As Longino notes, a theory can be empirically adequate, "we can use [it] to guide our interactions in the natural world, even be committed to so using [it], without being committed to belief in its literal truth" (1990, 93). S546 K. BRAD WRAY and that there is "tension within science itself between its knowledge- extending mission and its critical [truth-seeking] mission" (1990, 34). As far as Longino is concerned, "both knowledge-extension and truth can guide scientific inquiry and serve as fundamental, but not neces- sarily compatible, values determining its assessment" (1990, 36). Kitcher's assumptions get their credibility in virtue of the fact that they have long been presumed by philosophers. And, the assumptions seem to stand or fall together. If truth is not the only end of inquiry, we have less reason to think that truth is a necessary condition of knowledge. Similarly, if truth is not a necessary condition of knowl- edge, then truth is not the only end of inquiry. Longino, I believe, does provide us with compelling reasons for re- jecting these assumptions. She suggests that an adequate account of scientific knowledge must account for the fact that knowledge is ex- pressible in models as well as propositions (1994, 153). Longino sug- gests that all of the following count as models: "sets of equations, spec- ifications of structure, visual representations, mental maps, diagrams, three dimensional objects like the wire and plastic models of the DNA molecule, [and] four-dimensional models that incorporate change and motion" (1994, 147). But, because models are not reducible to sets of propositions, they are not aptly described as either "true" or "false" (1994, 147).7 Rather, it is because a model has (1) withstood criticism from a variety of perspectives, and (2) enables us to successfully pursue practical projects that it counts as knowledge. Hence, truth is not a necessary condition for knowledge.8 And, given that scientists aim not only for knowledge expressible in propositions, but also for knowledge expressible in theories and models, truth cannot be the only end of inquiry. 4. Schmitt's Criticism: The Charge of Incoherence. Frederick Schmitt argues that Longino's view is incoherent. He attributes a "multiper- spectival or consensus theory of rational choice" to Longino. Given such an account, "the rational theory choice is the choice that is ac- cepted from each of various perspectives representing opposing inter- ests" (Schmitt 1994, 26). Advocates of such an account of rationality, Schmitt suggests, claim that, though interests "inevitably cause theory 7. Again, Heidi Grasswick's comments on an earlier draft helped me to clarify this point. 8. I think Ronald Giere provides a clearer explanation for why models are not aptly described as either true or false. As he puts it, "the relationship between model and real world system ... cannot be one of truth or falsity since neither is a linguistic entity" (1988, 78). A DEFENSE OF LONGINO S SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY S547 choice," our aim is to reduce their effects (1994, 26). Schmitt suggests that such accounts are incoherent because, on the one hand, they re- gard the influence of interests on theory choice as ineliminable, and yet, on the other hand, they seek to alleviate their effects (1994, 26). As Schmitt claims, Longino does in fact believe that it is not possible to eliminate the effects that social factors have on decision making. But, contrary to what he says, she does not claim that we should seek to eliminate the effects of social factors on decision-making. Given the role that some social factors, like background assumptions, play in scientific reasoning, we cannot reasonably expect to eliminate the ef- fects of all social factors. Longino's claim is that we should mobilize the right sorts of social factors-those that permit transformative criti- cism in order to ensure that our inquiries result in knowledge, rather than mere opinion. It is only the effects of subjective preferences that ought to be eliminated. Because Longino distinguishes between (1) so- cial factors that permit transformative criticism and (2) merely subjec- tive preferences, she is not guilty of the incoherence that Schmitt iden- tifies. Schmitt also seems to misunderstand what role consensus plays in Longino's account. Kitcher makes a similar mistake when he claims that Longino "identifies truth with consensus belief in societies that follow certain types of procedures" (1994, 132, fn. 26). Contrary to what Schmitt and Kitcher suggest, Longino does not believe that either truth, knowledge, or rational choice is determined by consensus. Rather, it is Longino's view that there must be a consensus about back- ground assumptions in order for inquiry to be possible.9 For example, she claims that "observational data consist in observation reports that are ordered and organized. This ordering rests on a consensus as to the centrality of certain categories, the boundaries of concepts and classes, the ontological and organizational commitments of a model or theory, and so on" (1994, 140). Consensus plays a crucial role in or- dering and organizing our observation reports so that they can function as data. A similar consensus is required in order for us to reason effectively. Reasoning involves "bringing the appropriate considerations to bear on a judgment" (1994, 141). But, as Longino explains,"what counts as an appropriate consideration, as a reason, is determined and stabilized through discursive interaction" (1994, 141-142). And, essential to the process of reasoning are the assumptions common to those who are part of one's social context, one's community. As Longino explains, "every assumption upon which it is permissible to rely is a function of 9. I argue a similar point in Wray (forthcoming). S548 K. BRAD WRAY consensus among the scientific community" (1994, 142). It is because there is a consensus about the assumptions that one draws on in one's reasoning that one's actions count as reasoning at all. Underlying Schmitt's criticism of Longino's account is the belief that there is no principled way to evaluate the various types of social factors that influence inquiry. Schmitt is not alone in making this assumption. Many sociologists of science seem to believe this. In particular, when the advocates of the Strong Programme in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge insist on the symmetry postulate, when they insist that we should seek explanations for both true and false beliefs in terms of social causes, they suggest that all social factors are normatively indis- tinguishable.10 As far as these sociologists are concerned, what makes the social factors that cause "true" belief superior to the social factors that cause "false" belief is the fact that the former type of social factors serve the prevailing social interests. But this, they note, is just a con- sequence of historical contingencies (Barnes and Bloor 1982; Barnes, Bloor, and Henry 1996). Longino, on the other hand, believes that there is a way in which we can and should distinguish between the types of social interests that influence inquiry. She believes that we should distinguish between the types of social factors that enable communities of inquirers to satisfy her four criteria of transformative criticism, and the types of social factors that merely serve the subjective preferences of some part of the community. The former, she argues, are epistemically superior.'1 I believe that the onus of proof rests with Schmitt and the Strong Programmers. They need to supply us with a compelling argument to the effect that all the social factors that influence inquiry are equally detrimental (or constructive). More traditional research in the sociol- ogy of science, in particular the work of many sociologists working in the Mertonian tradition, provides us with compelling evidence for be- lieving that different social factors can have better or worse influences on inquiry better or worse epistemically. For example, the research 10. Sociologists of science are not the only ones who endorse a symmetry postulate. Sandra Harding also does in Harding 1991. 11. Louise Antony has also suggested that Longino fails to distinguish between episte- mically better and worse social factors. She argues that there are reasons "to doubt Longino's claim that social interaction can be expected to favorably alter the individ- ual's epistemic situation" (1995, 82). As Antony explains, "social interaction per se does not guarantee an increase in objectivity. Social interaction can, in fact, strengthen or even engender distorting biases and self-serving preferences" (1995, 83). Here, An- tony, like Schmitt, fails to appreciate the normative distinction Longino draws, the distinction between merely subjective preferences and those social factors that permit transformative criticism. A DEFENSE OF LONGINOGS SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY S549 of Joseph Ben-David provides evidence that suggests that decentralized academic systems are epistemically superior to centralized academic systems (Ben-David and Zloczower 1991). In systems of the former type, institutions are more responsive to changes, and thus scientists working in such systems are more apt to respond to criticism and in- novations. Such systems are also more suited to ensure that there is equality in intellectual authority. Consequently, background assump- tions are less likely to dominate in virtue of the political power of their adherents. 5. Solomon's Criticism: The Charge of Individualism. Miriam Solomon argues that Longino is mistaken about the role that the community plays in scientific inquiry. Solomon claims that though Longino rightly "regards some social processes as constitutive of scientific objectivity," she "envisages these social processes as practices of criticism that help individual scientists to reason better" (1994, 219). Consequently, Sol- omon argues, Longino's account is too individualistic. Solomon "ar- gues for a more social epistemology," one in which the community is regarded as the locus of scientific rationality (1994, 219). As Solomon explains, "social groups can work to attain and even recognize epistemic goals without individual rationality or individual cognizance of the overall epistemic situation" (1994, 219).12 Longino argues that in our efforts to account for the influence of social factors on inquiry, "individuals are not to be replaced by a tran- scendent social entity" (1994, 143). She believes that if we construe the community to be a knowing agent we are at risk of overlooking the significance of the role that individuals play in inquiry. "Without in- dividuals there could be no knowledge: it is through their sensory sys- tem that the natural world enters cognition; it is their proposals that are subject to critical scrutiny by other individuals, their imaginations which generate novelty" (1994, 143). Though Longino rejects the notion of a "transcendent social entity," 12. I have criticized Solomon's account of rationality elsewhere, in Wray 1997. I argue that though social groups can realize epistemic goals without individual rationality, when they do, they are not aptly described as acting rationally. Antony suggests that Longino's and Solomon's strategies to socializing epistemology are far more similar than Solomon implies. She claims that both "Helen Longino and Miriam Solomon... have argued that, at least with respect to scientific knowledge, it is the community, rather than the individuals within the community, that must be the object of epistemic eval- uation" and that "the conditions on scientific knowledge are such that no individual could possibly satisfy them" (1995, 75). This is a misrepresentation of Longino's view for reasons which will become apparent shortly. Solomon is correct to insist that there are significant differences between her own approach to socializing epistemology and the approach developed by Longino. S550 K.BRAD WRAY there is a sense in which her account of inquiry is not aptly described as "individualistic". Epistemologists have traditionally construed knowledge to be a specific type of relationship between the knowing agent and the object of knowledge. Such epistemologies are aptly de- scribed as "individualistic" because they focus on the individual agent and her relationship to the world. Longino, though, recommends that epistemologists shift their attention from the relationship between knower and known to the processes that mediate our interactions with others. Knowledge, as she construes it, is the outcome of the appro- priate sorts of social interactions."3 In fact, according to Longino, to think of the community as the know- ing agent "is still to see the knowledge-productive feature of a knower as internal to the knower, or as a matter of the relation between knower and known, rather than a matter of relatedness of the knower to other knowers" (1994, 146). It is the processes that mediate our interactions with each other that are aptly described as "social," not the knowing agent. Underlying Solomon's criticism of Longino's account is a commit- ment to an externalist standard of rationality or epistemic evaluation. Solomon believes that a community of scientists is rational to the extent that they select theories that are empirically more successful than the available alternatives. And Solomon emphasizes that "scientific decision-making can be scientifically effective without any individuals having to reason effectively on her or his own, or even recognizing that the community reasons effectively" (1994, 230). Longino construes rationality in a significantly different way. Like Solomon, she believes that traditional accounts of rationality are too individualistic. But she construes the demand to amend this difficulty quite differently. She suggests that what makes the methods of a par- ticular community of inquirers rational is the fact that they ensure that the community employs as many of the available epistemic resources as is possible. And this involves, among other things, permitting criti- 13. Antony rightly claims that "social knowledge, in Longino's sense, presupposes in- dividual epistemic agency" (1995, 77). But she is mistaken in thinking that Longino's view amounts to no more than the claim that "other people afford me epistemic access to regions of reality that I cannot secure on my own" (1995, 81). As Antony suggests, this latter claim is individualistic in the traditional sense. It is concerned with the re- lationship between the knower and the known. Longino's point, though, is that the norms and practices that make inquiry possible can be sustained only by groups of people. Thus, rather than construing other people as merely "instruments for enhancing [one's] own individual epistemic situations" (Antony 1995, 81), Longino suggests that other people provide the framework within which inquiry and knowledge are made possible. A DEFENSE OF LONGINO S SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY S551 cism from a wide (as wide as is possible) variety of perspectives in the community. Longino's understanding of "rationality" captures an important as- pect of our intuitions about the nature of rationality. The fact that an inquirer believes that an action is rational provides her with a reason for doing it.14 An inquirer can ask herself questions like, "have I been responsive to criticism from others?", and then act accordingly. In this way, an agent's beliefs about what is rational shape how she behaves. Solomon construes rationality as an emergent property of a com- munity's behaviour. As such, it is not a property that an individual can effectively aim to realize. Only after the fact, after one realizes that the community has chosen the theory with more empirical successes, can one legitimately claim to have acted rationally. Given Solomon's ac- count, it would be difficult for one to argue that the reason one acted as one did was because it was the rational thing to do. One cannot know what is rational until after the fact. 6. Concluding Remarks. In summary, I have tried to draw attention to the virtues of Longino's epistemology. Longino offers a viable alter- native to both positivism and holism, one that recognizes just how thoroughly values influence inquiry. Further, I have argued that her critics have misunderstood her view and have thus failed to raise in- surmountable challenges for her. Though Longino rightly acknowl- edges the significant influence that social factors have on inquiry, she also recognizes that not all social factors have the same (adverse) affect. A key component of her account of inquiry is the way she reconcep- tualizes "knowledge." Though Longino insists on the traditional knowledge/opinion distinction, she proposes that knowledge be distin- guished from opinion by reference to a social standard. REFERENCES Antony, Louise (1995), "Sisters, Please, I'd Rather Do It Myself: A Defense of Individualism in Feminist Epistemology", Philosophical Topics 23: 59-94. Audi, Robert (1993), "Rationalization and Rationality", in The Structure of Justification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 405-430. Barnes, Barry and D. Bloor (1982), "Relativism, Rationalism and the Sociology of Knowl- edge", in M. Hollis and S. Lukes (eds.), Rationality and Relativism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 21-47. Barnes, Barry, D. Bloor, and J. Henry (1996), Scientific Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ben-David, Joseph and A. Zloczower (1991), "Universities and Academic Systems in Mod- 14. In fact, Robert Audi argues that rational actions must "be performed for appro- priate reasons, not merely rationalizable in terms of such reasons" (1993, 425). Thus, an action is only rational if it is performed for an appropriate reason. S552 K. BRAD WRAY ern Societies", in J. Ben-David (ed.), Scientific Growth: Essays on the Social Organi- zation and Ethos of Science. Berkeley: University of California Press, 125-157. Giere, Ronald (1988), Explaining Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Goldman, Alvin (1995), "Social Epistemology, Interests, and Truth", Philosophical Topics 23: 171-187. Harding, Sandra (1991), Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hempel, Carl (1966), Philosophy of Natural Science. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, Inc. Kitcher, Philip (1991), "Socializing Knowledge", The Journal of Philosophy 88: 675-676. . (1993), The Advancement of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . (1994), "Contrasting Conceptions of Social Epistemology", in F. Schmitt (ed.), Socializing Epistemology: The Social Dimensions of Knowledge. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 111-134. Kuhn, Thomas S. (1970), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed., enlarged. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Longino, Helen (1990), Science as Social Knowledge. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (1993), "Subjects, Power, and Knowledge: Description and Prescription in Feminist Philosophies of Science", in L. Alcoff and E. Potter (eds.), Feminist Epistemologies. New York: Routledge, 101-120. (1994), "The Fate of Knowledge in Social Theories of Science", in F. Schmitt (ed.), Socializing Epistemology: The Social Dimensions of Knowledge. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 135-157. Okruhlik, Kathleen (1998), "Gender and the Biological Sciences", in M. Curd and J. A. Cover (eds.), Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 192-208. Plato (1963), Theaetetus, in E. Hamilton and H. Cairns (eds.), Plato: The CollectedDialogues. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 845-919. Schmitt, Frederick (1994), "Socializing Epistemology: An Introduction Through Two Sam- ple Issues", in Socializing Epistemology: The Social Dimensions of Knowledge. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1-27. Solomon, Miriam (1994), "A More Social Epistemology", in F. Schmitt (ed.), Socializing Epistemology: The Social Dimensions of Knowledge. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 217-233. van Fraassen, Bas (1980), The Scientific Image. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Wray, K. Brad (1997), "Rational Communities", Perspectives on Science: Historical, Phil- osophical, Social 5: 232-254. . (forthcoming), "The Role of Solidarity in a Pragmatic Epistemology", Philosophia. Philosophical Quarterly of Israel 27. Article Contents p.S538 p.S539 p.S540 p.S541 p.S542 p.S543 p.S544 p.S545 p.S546 p.S547 p.S548 p.S549 p.S550 p.S551 p.S552 Issue Table of Contents Philosophy of Science, Vol. 66, Sep., 1999 Front Matter [pp.i-v] Preface [pp.vii-viii] Mathematics and Science Applying Pure Mathematics [pp.S1-S13] Category Theory: The Language of Mathematics [pp.S14-S27] Foundations of Quantum Mechanics Bell's Theorem, Nonseparability, and Spacetime Individuation in Quantum Mechanics [pp.S28-S46] The Light at the End of the Tunneling: Observation and Underdetermination [pp.S47-S58] Are GRW Tails as Bad as They Say? [pp.S59-S71] A Note on Nonlocality, Causation, and Lorentz Invariance [pp.S72-S81] Van Fraassen and Ruetsche on Preparation and Measurement [pp.S82-S91] Foundations of Statistical Physics, Spacetime Theories, and Quantum Field Theory Explaining the Emergence of Cooperative Phenomena [pp.S92-S106] Reconsidering the Concept of Equilibrium in Classical Statistical Mechanics [pp.S107-S118] The Analysis of Singular Spacetimes [pp.S119-S145] Gravity and Gauge Theory [pp.S146-S155] Changing the Subject: Redei on Causal Dependence and Screening off in Relativistic Quantum Field Theory [pp.S156-S169] Objects or Events?: Towards an Ontology for Quantum Field Theory [pp.S170-S184] Philosophy of Biology Is Pure R-Selection Really Selection? [pp.S185-S195] Selection and the Extent of Explanatory Unification [pp.S196-S209] Proper Function and Recent Selection [pp.S210-S222] Explanatory Pluralism in Paleobiology [pp.S223-S236] The Organization of Knowledge: Beyond Campbell's Evolutionary Epistemology [pp.S237-S249] Philosophy of Psychology and Cognitive Science The Dogma of Isomorphism: A Case Study from Speech Perception [pp.S250-S259] Measured Realism and Statistical Inference: An Explanation for the Fast Progress of "Hard" Psychology [pp.S260-S272] Helmholtz's Naturalized Conception of Geometry and His Spatial Theory of Signs [pp.S273-S286] Philosophy of Social Science Do We See through a Social Microscope?: Credibility as a Vicarious Selector [pp.S287-S298] No Strings Attached: Functional and Intentional Action Explanations [pp.S299-S313] Functionalism and the Meaning of Social Facts [pp.S314-S323] Units of Decision [pp.S324-S338] Probability and Statistical Inference No One Knows the Date or the Hour: An Unorthodox Application of Rev. Bayes's Theorem [pp.S339-S353] The Likelihood Principle and the Reliability of Experiments [pp.S354-S361] The Plurality of Bayesian Measures of Confirmation and the Problem of Measure Sensitivity [pp.S362-S378] Why Bayesian Psychology Is Incomplete [pp.S379-S389] The Curve Fitting Problem: A Bayesian Rejoinder [pp.S390-S402] Use-Novelty, Severity, and a Systematic Neglect of Relevant Alternatives [pp.S403-S413] Explanation, Confirmation, and Scientific Inference Interpolation as Explanation [pp.S414-S423] Inference to the Best Explanation Made Coherent [pp.S424-S435] Defending Abduction [pp.S436-S451] Problems with the Deductivist Image of Scientific Reasoning [pp.S452-S473] Empiricism, Conservativeness, and Quasi-Truth [pp.S474-S485] Causation and Laws of Nature The Conserved Quantity Theory of Causation and Chance Raising [pp.S486-S501] "Laws of Nature" as an Indexical Term: A Reinterpretation of Lewis's Best-System Analysis [pp.S502-S511] The Principle of the Common Cause Faces the Bernstein Paradox [pp.S512-S525] Science and Values Laudan's Naturalistic Axiology [pp.S526-S537] A Defense of Longino's Social Epistemology [pp.S538-S552] Back Matter [pp.S553-S568]