Sandra G. Harding (born 1935) is an American philosopher of

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

and postcolonial theory, epistemology, research methodology, and philosophy of science. She directed the

UCLA Center for the Study of Women The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

from 1996 to 2000, and co-edited '' Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society'' from 2000 to 2005. She is currently a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Education and Gender Studies at UCLA and a Distinguished Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

. In 2013 she was awarded the John Desmond Bernal Prize by the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S).

Education and career

Sandra Harding received her undergraduate degree from Douglass College of Rutgers University in 1956. After 12 years working as legal researcher, editor, and fifth-grade math teacher in New York City and Poughkeepsie, N.Y., she returned to graduate school and earned a doctorate from the Department of Philosophy at New York University in 1973. Harding's first university teaching job was at The Allen Center of the State University of New York at Albany, an experimental critical social sciences college which was "defunded" by the state of New York in 1976. She then joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Delaware, with a joint appointment to the Women's Studies Program. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 1979, and to full Professor in 1986. From 1981 until she left Delaware in 1996, she held a Joint Appointment to the Department of Sociology. She was Director of the Women's Studies Program at Delaware 1985-1991 and 1992–1993. From 1994 to 1996 she was Adjunct Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at UCLA on a half-time basis. In 1996 she was appointed Director of the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, which is a research institute. She held that position until 2000. Meanwhile, since 1996 she has been a Professor in the Graduate Department of Education and the Department of Gender Studies at UCLA. In 2012 she was appointed Distinguished Professor of Education and Gender Studies. From 2000 to 2005 she also was co-editor of '' Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society''. Harding has held Visiting Professor appointments at the University of Amsterdam (1987), University of Costa Rica (1990), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) (1987), and the

Asian Institute of Technology The Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), founded in 1959, is an Intergovernmental organization, international organization for higher education situated 40km north of Bangkok, Thailand. It specializes in engineering, technology, advanced technol ...

, Bangkok (1994). In 2011 she was appointed a Distinguished Affiliate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at

, East Lansing. She has been a consultant to several United Nations organizations including the U.N. Commission on Science and Technology for Development, the Pan American Health Organization, UNESCO, and the U.N. Development Fund for Women. She was invited to co-edit a chapter of UNESCO's World Science Report 1996 on "The Gender Dimension of Science and Technology". This 56-page account was the first such attempt to bring gender issues in science and technology to such a global-scale and prestigious context. She was invited to contribute a chapter to UNESCO's World Social Science Report 2010 on "Standpoint Methodologies and Epistemologies: a Logic of Scientific Inquiry for People." Harding has served on the editorial boards of numerous journals in the fields of philosophy, women's studies, science studies, social research methodology, and African philosophy. Phi Beta Kappa selected her as a national lecturer in 2007. She has lectured at more than 300 colleges, universities, and conferences in North America as well as in Central America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Her books, essays and book chapters have been translated into dozens of languages and reprinted in hundreds of anthologies.

Research and criticism

Harding developed the research standard of " strong objectivity," and contributed to the articulation of standpoint methodology. This kind of research process starts off from questions that arise in the daily lives of people in oppressed groups. To answer such questions, it "studies up", examining the principles, practices and cultures of dominant institutions, from the design and management of which oppressed groups have been excluded. She has also contributed to the development of feminist, anti-racist, multicultural, and postcolonial studies of the natural and social sciences, asking the extent to which paradigms like

feminist empiricism Feminist empiricism is a perspective within feminist research that combines the objectives and observations of feminism with the research methods and empiricism. Feminist empiricism is typically connected to mainstream notions of positivism. F ...

are useful for promoting to goals of feminist inquiry. She is the author or editor of many books and essays on these topics, and was one of the founders of the field of

feminist epistemology Feminist epistemology is an examination of epistemology (the study of knowledge) from a feminist standpoint. Overview Feminist epistemology emphasizes how important ethical and political values are in shaping epistemic practices, and interpreta ...

. This work has been influential in the social sciences and in women/ gender studies across the disciplines. It has helped to create new kinds of discussions about how best to relink scientific research to pro-democratic goals. In her 1986 book ''The Science Question in Feminism'', Harding touched on the pervasiveness of rape and torture metaphors for the scientific method in the writings of Francis Bacon and others. In the book, she questioned why it would not be as illuminating and honest to refer to Newton's laws as "Newton's rape manual" rather than "Newtonian mechanics". Harding later said she regretted the statement. This statement, among others, caused Harding's work to be controversial within certain scholarly circles. During the Science Wars, a debate regarding the value-neutrality of the sciences of the 1990s, her work became a main target of critics of feminist and sociological approaches. She was criticized by mathematicians Michael Sullivan,Sullivan, M.C. (1996) A Mathematician Reads ''Social Text'',

AMS Notices ''Notices of the American Mathematical Society'' is the membership journal of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), published monthly except for the combined June/July issue. The first volume appeared in 1953. Each issue of the magazine since ...

43(10), 1127-1131. Mary Gray, and Lenore Blum, and by the historian of science Ann Hibner Koblitz.Ann Hibner Koblitz, "A historian looks at gender and science," ''International Journal of Science Education'', vol. 9 (1987), p. 399-407. Her essay on "Science is 'Good to Think With'"Harding, Sandra. "Science is 'Good to Think With'" in The Science Wars, ed. Andrew Ross. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. 1994. 15-28. was the lead article in the issue of the journal '' Social Text'' that also included the Sokal Hoax, which focused on her work among others. Her work was also a main target of Paul Gross and Norman Levitt's ''

Higher Superstition ''Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science'' is a 1994 book about the philosophy of science by the biologist Paul R. Gross and the mathematician Norman Levitt. Summary Levitt states he is a leftist trying to save th ...

''. ross, Paul and Norman Levitt. Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. art, Roger. "The Flight From Reason: Higher Superstition and the Refutation of Science Studies," in The Science Wars, ed. Andrew Ross. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. 1996./ref>

Awards, honors, and fellowships

*2013. Awarded John Desmond Bernal Prize of Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S).https://gseis.ucla.edu/directory/sandra-harding/ , Sandra Harding's GSEIS Profile. *2012. Appointed Distinguished Professor of Education and Gender Studies. UCLA *2011. Appointed Distinguished Affiliate Professor of Philosophy, Michigan State University, East Lansing *2009. Received

American Education Research Association The American Educational Research Association (AERA, pronounced "A-E-R-A") is a professional organization representing education researchers in the United States and around the world. AERA's mission is to advance knowledge about education and p ...

(AERA) Award for Distinguished Contributions to Gender Equity in Education Research. *2007-08. Appointed as a Phi Beta Kappa National Lecturer. *2007. Awarded The Douglass (College) Society Membership. *2000-05 Co-editor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. *1990 Woman Philosopher of the Year, Eastern Division Society for Women in Philosophy. *1989. Elected to membership in Sigma Xi.

Selected works

Books

* ''The Science Question in Feminism'', 1986. *''Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?: Thinking from Women's Lives'', 1991. * ''Is Science Multicultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies'', 1998. * ''Science and Social Inequality: Feminist and Postcolonial Issues'', 2006. * ''Sciences From Below: Feminisms, Postcolonialities, and Modernities'', 2008. * ''Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research'', 2015.

Articles

* 1973. "Feminism: Reform or Revolution?" ''Philosophical Forum'' (Boston) 5, 271–284 * 1979. "The Social Function of the Empiricist Conception of Mind," ''Metaphilosophy'' 10 (Jan 1), 38–47 * 1979. "Is the Equality of Opportunity Principle Democratic?" ''Philosophical Forum'' (Boston) 10 (Dec 1), 206–22 * 1982. "Is Gender a Variable in Conceptions of Rationality: A Survey of Issues," ''Dialectica'', 36 (Jan 1): 225–42 * 1983. "Why Has the Sex/Gender System Become Visible Only Now," in ''Discovering Reality'', ed. Sandra Harding and Merrill Hintikka * 1987. "The Method Question," ''Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy'' 2, 19–35 * 1987. "The Curious Coincidence of Feminine and African Moralities," ''Women and Moral Theory'', ed. Eva Feder Kittay and Diana Meyers * 1990. "Starting Thought From Women's Lives: Eight Resources for Maximizing Objectivity," ''Journal of Social Philosophy'' 21(2-3), 140-49 * 1990. "Feminism, Science, and the Anti-Enlightenment Critiques," in ''Feminism/Postmodernism'', ed. Linda Nicholson, 83-106 * 1992. "After Eurocentrism? Challenges for the Philosophy of Science," ''PSA 1992'' Vol. 2, 311–319 * 1993. "Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What Is 'Strong Objectivity'?" in ''Feminist Epistemologies'', ed. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter * 1995. "'Strong Objectivity': A Response to the New Objectivity Question," ''Synthese'', Vol. 104, No. 3, pp. 331–349 * 1998. "Women, Science, and Society," ''Science'', New Series, Vol. 281, No. 5383 (Sep 11 1998), 1599-1600 * 2002. "Must the Advance of Science Advance Global Inequality?" ''International Studies Review'', Vol. 4, No. 2 (Summer), 87-105 * 2003. "How Standpoint Methodology Informs Philosophy of Social Science," in ''Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences'' * 2004. "A Socially Relevant Philosophy of Science? Resources from Standpoint Theory's Controversiality," ''Hypatia'', Vol. 19, No. 1, 25–47 * 2005. "'Science and Democracy:' Replayed or Redesigned?" ''Social Epistemology'', Vol. 19, No. 1, 5–18 * 2006. "Two Influential Theories of Ignorance and Philosophy's Interests in Ignoring Them," ''Hypatia'', Vol. 21, No. 3 (Summer), 20-36 * 2007. "Modernity, Science, and Democracy," in ''Social Philosophy Today'', Volume 22. Philosophy Documentation Center * 2008. "How Many Epistemologies Should Guide the Production of Scientific Knowledge?" ''Hypatia'', Vol. 23, No. 4, 212-219 * 2009. "Postcolonial and Feminist Philosophies of Science and Technology," ''Postcolonial Studies'', Vol. 12, No. 4, p. 410-429 * 2010. "Standpoint Methodologies and Epistemologies: A Logic of Scientific Inquiry for People," ''World Social Science Report 2010'', 173-5 * 2012. "Objectivity and Diversity," in ''Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education,'' ed. James Banks * 2017. "Latin American Decolonial Studies: Feminist Issues," ''Feminist Studies'', Vol. 43, No. 3, 624-636 * and Kathryn Norberg, 2005. "New Feminist Approaches to Social Science Methodologies: An Introduction," ''Signs'', Vol. 30, No. 4, 2009–15

References

External links

"Starting from Marginalized Lives: A Conversation with Sandra Harding"
by Elizabeth Hirsh and Gary A. Olson ''JAC'' 15.2, Spring 1995.
"Women, Science, and Society"
by Sandra Harding, '' Science'', September 11, 1998.
Sandra G. Harding Papers
- Pembroke Center Archives, Brown University {{DEFAULTSORT:Harding, Sandra 1935 births 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American philosophers Living people Epistemologists University of California, Los Angeles faculty Feminist philosophers Philosophers of science Postcolonial theorists Poststructuralists American women philosophers 21st-century American women