Scientific Knowledge: Situatedness and Intersubjectivity without Standpoints

We have already argued not only that essentialism is detrimental for epistemologies and philosophies of sciences, as well as sciences themselves, but also that feminist standpoint epistemologies of sciences inevitably yield essentialism, or at least its undesirable consequences (Amoretti and Vassallo 2010a, 2011, forthcoming). Although abandoning feminist standpoint epistemologies seems to represent the straightforward solution, matters are more complicated. Some of the tenets of these epistemologies, in fact, can hardly be disregarded, such as those underlying the situatedness and intersubjectivity of scientific knowledge. Thus, the specific aim of this paper is showing that it is still possible to retain the above characteristics – namely situatedness and intersubjectivity – even while rejecting the very notion of standpoint.