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Sandra Harding

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Sandra Harding (born 1935), is an American philosopher of feminist and postcolonial theory, epistemology, research methodology and philosophy of science. She has contributed to standpoint theory and to the multicultural study of science. She gained some notoriety for referring to Newton's Laws as a "rape manual" (Harding: 1986, pg. 264). The full quote is:

"Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica is a 'rape manual' because 'science is a male rape of female nature'."

This reflects the view that science is a perpetuation of patriarchal hegemony, and that it is indelibly imbued with masculine value systems and worldviews, both of which form an integral part of standpoint theory.

She is currently a professor of Social Sciences and Comparative Education at UCLA, and the Director of the UCLA Center for the Study of Women. Harding previously taught at the University of Delaware for many years. She earned her PhD from New York University (NYU). Harding was married to the philosopher Harold Morick, though the two are now long divorced.

Some of her ideas were criticised by scientists Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt in Higher Superstition for being ignorant, biased, and possibly even dangerous, as well as rather silly and not befitting the quality of scholarship one would expect from a tenured professor. This is part of the ongoing controversy known as the Science Wars.

Bibliography

  • Harding, Sandra and Merrill B. Hintikka, ed. Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science. 1983.
  • Harding, Sandra. The Science Question in Feminism. 1986.
  • Harding, Sandra and Jean F. O'Barr, ed. Sex and Scientific Inquiry. 1987.
  • Harding, Sandra. Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?: Thinking from Women's Lives. 1991.
  • Harding, Sandra. "Science is 'Good to Think With,'" Italic textSocial Text Italic text 46-47, (1996): 15-26.

References

Gross, P. & Levitt, N.: Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science. Johns Hopkins University Press. 1994.

External links

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