FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION AND THE PROBLEM OF EPISTEMIC PRIVILEGE Filsafat aliran feminis teologi dan hak istimewa

yang
VICTORIA S. HARRISON

University of Glasgow, UK
Terdapat sejumlah perkembangan yang merupakan bagian dari ilmu filsafah yang membahas ttng asal agama dewasa ini. sekarang ini. Pandangan yang dominan mainstream filsafat agama yang dapat disangkal membentuk epistimologi. There have been a number of developments within religious epistemology in recent years. Currently, the dominant view within mainstream philosophy of religion is, arguably, reformed epistemology. What is less well known is that feminist epistemologists have also been active recently within the philosophy of religion,advancing new perspectives from which to view the link between knowledge and religious experience. In this article I examine the claim by certain feminist religious epistemologists that women are both epistemically oppressed and epistemically privileged, and I consider whether or not this justifies the specific re-concep tualisations of religious terms that such epistemologists have proposed.

Recent years have seen a number of developments in religious epistemology. And while it could be argued that reformed epistemology is currently the dominant view within mainstream philosophy of religion,1 there has also been a proliferation of postmodern analyses of knowledge, reason and faith within the discipline.2 Perhaps the central issue within the philosophy of religion is the relationship between reason and faith, with a long tradition having held the view that faith could be the product of rational enquiry. Postmodernist accounts have tended to reject this traditional characterisation of the relationship between reason and faith, while reformed epistemology has argued that religious knowledge can be the product of rational enquiry, but only because, its adherents claim, faith is a legitimate component of ones grounding assumptions. However, there is a further issue that is of no less importance: that concerning the relationship between knowledge and religious experience. And what is considerably less well known than the work of reformed epistemologists and postmodern philosophers of religion is the recent developments within feminist philosophy of religion; of especial interest being the work feminist epistemologists have undertaken regarding this latter issue namely, that of the problematic relationship between knowledge and religious experience. And in adopting a feminist perspective, some philosophers of religion have been able to advance new perspectives from which to view this problematic relationship.Feminist philosophy of religion is, by and large, the result of applying the arguments developed by feminist philosophers working within other fields to those issues that are of prime interest to philosophers of religion.Because of the huge debt feminist religious epistemology owes to feminist theories of knowledge more generally, I

rovide a brief summary of the relevant aspects of the latter before turning to examine the former FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY Contemporaneously with the development of reformed epistemology, many feminist philosophers were engaged in a more radical critique of the theory of knowledge dominant within modern western philosophy. These philosophers found fault with the way of thinking about knowledge that had spawned logical positivism, and they explored alternative epistemologies that they took to be more consistent with feminism. Three distinct forms of feminist epistemology quickly emerged: feminist empiricist epistemology, feminist standpoint theory, and feminist postmodern epistemology.3 The latter two have had the most impact to date on academic philosophy of religion. However, feminist postmodern epistemology is not my present concern. Instead, I shall be focusing upon standpoint theory. Whatever brand of epistemology they subscribe to, feminist philosophers tend to be united in their rejection of the traditional positivist conception of knowledge. At the core of positivist epistemology is the claim that only what is given in experience can be known. But not just any experience counts as providing knowledge it must be the experience of a neutral observer. Such experience will be available to any neutral observer under the same conditions. This, for positivists, is what ensures that the knowledge generated by experience is objective. Many feminists, however, deny that it is either desirable or possible to be a neutral observer of the sort required by the positivists conception of objectivity.4 Clearly, in rejecting the notion of the neutral observer and the associated concept objectivity,5 feminist philosophers have challenged the modern analytic philosophical tradition at its core.6 What motivates this challenge? To answer this question we need to bear in mind that philosophers following in the tradition of Descartes have elevated epistemology to a central place within the discipline. For epistemologists, key questions include: What counts as knowledge? How do we know what we know? In what ways do we fail to know? And what conditions must a person satisfy in order to count as possessing knowledge? In the view of many modern analytical philosophers, these perplexing questions must be addressed before any further philosophical progress can be made. Yet in the western
society that nourished this philosophical tradition, women were routinely deprived of access to the knowledge that was available, at least in principle, to men.7 Feminists tend to agree that this systematic deprivation of knowledge has contributed significantly to the subordination experienced by women.8 Some feminists have gone so far as to claim that this tradition of exclusion from learning has bred into women a strong suspicion of philosophy in general, and epistemology in particular. However, there is a deeper issue. Many feminists opine that even in the latetwentieth century, when gender inequalities governing access to knowledge had been significantly attenuated, a disparity remained in the ways that men and women were regarded as subjects of knowledge. For example, Rae Langton claims that women can fail to be regarded as knowing subjects despite their possession of knowledge. And many feminists diagnose this problem as stemming from an inadequate conception of knowledge a diagnosis that takes us to the core of the feminist challenge to the modern philosophical tradition. As Langton writes:
Women may fail to be counted as knowers because there is something wrong with traditional conceptions, or traditional ideals, of knowledge. Something about knowledge, as it is traditionally understood, is mistaken, and it is this mistake not womens ignorance, or womens lack of credibility, or the omission of womens perspectives on the world which prevents women from counting as the knowers they really are . . .. It is at this point that the feminist critique of reason becomes more radical, and . . . advocates reform,

supplementation, or outright rejection of the epistemological status quo. 9

The feminist critique of reason, referred to by Langton, has been an increasingly important aspect of feminist philosophy since the early 1980s. Essentially, it involves criticism of the dominant assumptions and methods of analytic philosophy, usually from within the discipline. The fact that many feminist philosophers are engaged in a critique of reasondoes not entail, however, that their work is somehow anti-rational or an attack upon the practice of philosophy tout court.10 Rather, they commonly seek rationally to deploy epistemological theories from outside the mainstream analytic tradition in order to criticise and,perhaps, provide alternatives to that traditions epistemology. Certain varieties of Marxist epistemology have been employed by feminists to this end.11 The variety of Marxism that has, perhaps, been most influential on feminist epistemology is that of the Hungarian Georg Luka cs (1885 1971). The fundamental principle of his epistemology is that it is impossible to be a neutral observer. And as we have noted, the possibility of occupying the standpoint of a neutral observer is typically presupposed by the conception of knowledge dominant within modern analytic philosophy. Luka cs emphasises, instead, that all knowledge is the product of interaction between a knowing subject and the world. More specifically, according to his account, knowledge is inevitably shaped by the social context of the knowing subject. The knowledge arrived at will, moreover, reflect the interests and values of the knower and his or her community. Luka cs, being a Marxist, interprets the social world in terms of class. Hence, in his view, a persons conception of the world is intimately linked to his or her class position. Each class position is thought to be aligned to a particular worldview that is constituted by the knowledge available to members of that class. Does this epistemology demand acceptance of a relativist account of truth, such that what is true is merely relative to whatever worldview one holds? Or are there any grounds for preferring the knowledge constitutive of one worldview to that which constitutes another? Luka cs subscribes to a coherence theory of truth. In other words, a statement is true not because it corresponds to some pre-given fact (as correspondence theories of truth hold) but because of its cohering with other warranted statements. The greater the number of warranted statements that any statement coheres with, the closer it is to the truth. Thus, Luka cs argues that, at any time, we should prefer the standpoint occupied by whichever social class is capable of generating the most total knowledge.12 Believing the proletariat to be in this position, Luka cs argues that their knowledge is superior to that of the bourgeoisie. He claims that they are epistemologically advantaged because their oppressed social position affords them a more impartial and, thus, more comprehensive view of reality than is available to those occupying other social positions. Alison Jaggar explains why, on her reading of Luka cs, the standpoint of the oppressed can be regarded as epistemically privileged:
It is more impartial because it comes closer to representing the interests of society as a whole; whereas the standpoint of the ruling class reflects the interests only of one section of the population, the standpoint of the oppressed represents the interests of the totality in that historical period. Moreover, whereas the condition of the oppressed groups is visible only dimly to the ruling class, the oppressed are able to see more clearly the ruled as well as the rulers and the relation between them. Thus, the standpoint of the oppressed includes and is able to explain the standpoint of the ruling class. 13

Many feminists, Jaggar among them, have accepted such a standpoint theory. They have added, however, that the epistemic standpoint to be preferred is that of women.14 This is because:
Womens subordinate status means that, unlike men, women do not have an interest in mystifying reality and so are likely to develop a clearer and more

trustworthy understanding of the world. A representation of reality from the standpoint of women is more objective and unbiased than the prevailing representations that reflect the standpoint of men.15

This feminist elaboration of Marxist epistemology has been developed by a number of philosophers.16 But it has been applied within the philosophy of religion most prominently by Grace Jantzen.

FEMINIST RELIGIOUS EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGON

Convinced that the philosophy of religion should not be practiced without regard to the effect that religious ideas have on people, Jantzen urges philosophers of religion to recognise their responsibility to those who may be oppressed by religious ideas. As we shall see, she argues that traditional religious epistemology is inadequate because it promotes sexual inequality, and she insists that such epistemology must, therefore, be replaced. Her work thus explicitly advocates the radical changes that many feminists demand in religious concepts and institutions.17 What, then, is traditional religious epistemology, and why might it be accused of promoting sexual inequality? According to Jantzen, traditional religious epistemology recognises four sources of religious knowledge:revelation, tradition, experience and reason. Each, she argues, is deeply rooted in masculinist thinking; and, because of this, traditional religious knowledge depicts God in overwhelmingly masculine terms.18 When Jantzen criticises revelation, it is the Bible (the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures) that she has in mind, and which she regards as a fundamentally patriarchal composition serving male interests. Most feminists would agree with Jantzens characterisation of the Bible, and hence would share her reservations about regarding it as a source of religious knowledge. Moreover, Jantzens assessment of the Bible could plausibly be extended to apply to Islams sacred text. Indeed, the religious literature of Judaism, Christianity and Islam has been written by men and is, by and large, about men. Jantzens claim, then, that revelation is rooted in masculinist thinking amounts to the assertion that the Bible is the product of a male view of the world, God and religion a view that reflects male values. The second mooted source of religious knowledge, religious tradition, is similarly, in Jantzens judgement, the product of a masculine view of the world as can be inferred from the ubiquitousness of Christian teaching on the subordination of women, and the enactment of this teaching in ecclesiastical structures . . ..19 Although Jantzen does not mention the traditions of Judaism and Islam, her remarks would also be regarded by many as applying to those traditions just as pointedly as to Christianity. The commitment to a masculine view of the world can also be seen, Jantzen claims, in the concept God dominant within the Christian tradition: God conceived as the all-powerful, all-knowing Lord of the universe. Moreover, in Jantzens view, this commitment is also reflected in a preoccupation, exhibited by mainstream philosophers of religion, with the attributes of God so conceived a preoccupation that is usually unaccompanied by any examination of how the

valorisation of power and knowledge and freedom from the constraints of bodiliness reflect traditionally male attitudes and values.20 With respect to the third purported source of religious knowledge experience Jantzen claims that, throughout much of the history of Christendom, mystical experience was thought to involve insight into the spiritual meaning of Scriptures. Because women were not allowed access to this sacred literature, they could not claim to possess religious knowledge on the basis of this mystical experience.21 Jantzen believes that this situation altered in the eighteenth century when religious experience came to be regarded as merely private experience. This demotion was in part a result of a widespread distrust of whatever could not be publicly demonstrated. Jantzen argues that as soon as religious experience lost its authority as a source of public knowledge, it became acceptable for women to claim to have such experience. In short, when religious experience was regarded as a genuine source of religious knowledge, it was only the experience of men that counted. And Jantzens claim is that such experience was inevitably shaped and interpreted by a male view of reality. Hence, the knowledge that it generated was biased.Reason is the fourth source of religious knowledge recognised by traditional western religions. Throughout the history of Judaism,Christianity and Islam, philosophers have used reason in their attempt to clarify the concept God and other religious notions. When successful, their clarifications have been accepted into the religious traditions, and regarded as religious knowledge. Jantzen, however, is suspicious of purported religious knowledge derived from men using reason. She attempts to substantiate this suspicion by appealing to the work of earlier feminist theorists who sought to demonstrate the extent to which the western understanding of reason is a male conception.22 Indeed, philosophy has historically been perceived as the preserve of men, and, Jantzen claims, its methods reflect the fact that it is a mans discipline dominated by masculine adversarial rules.23 In short, these rules institutionalize what philosophical reason properly is. In this and so many other ways, what counts as reason has been appropriated by men, so that an appeal to reason as a source of religious knowledge is a gendered appeal.24 Taking herself to have established that the four traditional sources of religious knowledge each privilege a male perspective, Jantzen claims that they do not account for womens religious knowledge. Thus, she believes that an alternative religious epistemology is required to replace the traditional one. Any acceptable alternative epistemology must recognize the experience of women, as well as the knowledge this experience generates. Jantzen proposes that feminist standpoint theory constitutes a suitable alternative epistemology. As we have seen, according to feminist standpoint theory, women are to be regarded as occupying a superior position to men with regard to acquiring a less biased and a more comprehensive perspective on reality, provided that they have managed to free themselves from the perspective of men. Feminist standpoint theory advocates, then, that all knowledge-claims be tested against a female perspective on reality a perspective that will

have developed out of the shared experience of women. Any knowledge-claims that conflict with that perspective should be rejected. Consider, for example, the dominant view within the Abrahamic religions that God is most appropriately conceived of as male. Tested against the perspective of women, this particular knowledge-claim may well be found wanting, and may, consequently, be rejected. From the exclusive standpoint of women, God might be viewed as possessing primarily feminine qualities, such as being caring, say. And this has clear implications for how God is to be conceptualised. Indeed, were womens experience to be regarded as providing the basis for superior knowledge claims, then the term God would require considerable reconceptualisation. Standpoint theory, in Jantzens view, thus justifies placing greater weight on womens experience than on mens as a source of religious knowledge.25 And she further believes that if womens experience is regarded as the normative source of religious knowledge against which the adequacy of other sources is assessed, then the result will be a radical re-conceptualisation not just of God but of all the central terms deployed within western religion. Jantzen, following Luce Irigaray, holds that these religious concepts are primarily symbols and metaphors that have been projected from human self-consciousness. In this view, the currently dominant symbols are damaging to women because they originated as projections from male self-consciousness. Taking womens experience as a guide, new religious symbols can be generated which will be projections of female self-consciousness, instead. Only thus, claims Jantzen, can women achieve both selfknowledge and genuine religious knowledge. Furthermore, if women are epistemically privileged, it would appear that there is reason to think that the projections of female self-consciousness are, in some sense, superior to those of male selfconsciousness. Jantzens is certainly a radical proposal and one that, if implemented, would transform the philosophy of religion as well as the central concepts of traditional religion. And Jantzen does not underestimate the implications of her view: any notion of a God objectively existing in the heavens has disappeared, together with the correspondence theory of truth and the patriarchal understanding of religious knowledge.26 Some questions remain, however. First, even if standpoint theory is accepted, one can still wonder whether employing womens experience as the arbiter of religious knowledge-claims will in fact compel acceptance of Jantzens radical conclusions. Jantzen would have to claim that any woman who disagreed with her reconfiguration of religion was still suffering from epistemic oppression and, thus, had not attained the privileged female perspective. But that sounds arbitrary, for any woman who proposed a different reconfiguration to Jantzens could level the same charge against Jantzen. Second, standpoint theory appeals to feminists because it purports to justify the claim that womens experience is privileged, and hence affords a vantage point from which to judge all knowledge-claims. But does standpoint theory actually provide the required justification? It is supposed to establish two things: on the one hand, that there is a relationship between knowledge and power those in the dominant social group are in a position to foist their own

interpretation of reality onto those in less powerful social groups (this has been termed epistemic oppression); on the other hand, those who are epistemically oppressed have the potential to gain a fuller, because less biased, interpretation of reality than that possessed by those in the dominant social group. It is a crucial premise of standpoint theory that the epistemically oppressed are also epistemically privileged. It is possible, however, to accept the theorys account of epistemic oppression whilst remaining unconvinced of its account of epistemic privilege. Why should we accept that the oppressed are epistemically privileged? It is the account of epistemic privilege that is crucial to the mooted justification for preferring a female perspective to a male one. If that account is untenable, standpoint theory will be of little use to feminists who require it in order to explain why the female perspective can justifiably be regarded as superior to the male. Let us consider again, then, why the epistemically oppressed are regarded as epistemically privileged by those who accept feminist standpoint theory. The epistemically oppressed are supposed to possess at least potentially the knowledge constitutive of their oppressors worldview, in addition to the knowledge constitutive of their own. The oppressors, however, have greater epistemic limitations. Specifically, they lack the potential to possess the knowledge constitutive of the worldview of the oppressed. This amounts to the claim that the oppressed can possess more knowledge than the oppressors can; and the advantage of this is supposed to be that the oppressed can gain a more comprehensive worldview. But would the most comprehensive worldview be aptly characterised as the worldview of the oppressed? Even if the shared worldview that women might come to develop is more comprehensive than that of men, might not an even more comprehensive worldview include all the various standpoints on equal terms? But then, such a worldview one that was capable of generating the greatest totality of knowledge, and thus, on this theory of knowledge, come closest to the truth would surely differ from the standpoint shared only by women. In other words, even if the perspective of women must be included in order to correct for male bias, and even if its exclusion up to the present gives grounds for thinking that women are epistemically privileged, that does not justify the prioritising of the standpoint of women to the extent that the future of religious concepts should lie in, say, the projections of female selfconsciousness. Moreover, one might wonder what advantage there could be in having access to more knowledge if all such knowledge is distorted by class position. Would it not be preferable to try to correct for distortion by comparing the claims of those from different standpoints rather than to treat one standpoint as superior? This, too, would suggest that the ideal worldview would be one that incorporated the knowledge of those in all classes and in both genders. Miranda Fricker has attempted to address some of these problems.27 However, in trying to explain epistemic privilege in terms of the claim that the perspective of the oppressed is required as a corrective to the incomplete perspective of the dominant, she fails to justify the assessment that womens perspectives are more valuable than mens. For if womens perspectives are a

corrective to mens, then why arent mens perspectives equally a corrective to womens? But then, to talk of either as privileged seems redundant. As such, feminists would appear to be left with an account of epistemic oppression without the privilege. However, even if womens perspectives are not privileged, merely pointing out that mens perspectives are incomplete, and hence deficient, constitutes a major challenge to traditional, masculinist, religious beliefs and philosophy of religion. Furthermore, we saw that standpoint theorists such as Jaggar have claimed that women do not have an interest in mystifying reality.28 Standpoint theory claims to be derived from Marxist theory. Yet Karl Marx, himself, argued that the oppressed do, as a matter of fact, distort reality. As he argued: Religion, which he took to be a distortion, is the sigh of the oppressed creature,29 adding that it is the opium of the people. In other words, the oppressed produce religious distortions in order to make their lives more bearable. And as one has an interest in making ones life more bearable, then it could be argued that the oppressed have at least some interest in distorting reality. Of course, they have an even greater interest in overcoming oppression; but it does not appear to be the case that they have no interest in subscribing to a mystified view of the world. Indeed, it seems odd to downplay the worry that women, as oppressed, are equally capable of producing distorted worldviews.30 Notwithstanding the seeming problems inherent in Jantzens work, it has nevertheless exerted a profound impact on the way that many people think about religious knowledge and its relationship to gender. Her claim that academic philosophy of religion is at best irrelevant and at worst in collusion with oppression31 has been taken seriously by many, and her development of an explicitly feminist philosophy of religion constitutes a significant attempt to propel the discipline in a new direction.

privilege: hak istimewa current; sekarang arguably ; yang dapat disngkal/didebat