Table Of ContentScience and
Other Cultures
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Science and
Other Cultures
Issues in Philosophies of
Science and Technology
Edited by
Robert Figueroa and
Sandra Harding
ROUTLEDGE
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Sandra Harding and Robert Figueroa
Part I Sciences in Cultures,Cultures in Sciences
AIDS,Crisis,and Activist Science 15
Robert Hood
Why Standpoint Matters 26
Alison Wylie
A World ofSciences 49
Sandra Harding
To Walk in Balance:An Encounter between 70
Contemporary Western Science and Conquest-era
Nahua Philosophy
James Maffie
Seeds and their Sociocultural Nexus 91
Hugh Lacey
Fallout:Issues in the Study,Treatment,and 106
Reparations ofExposed Marshall Islanders
Robert P.Crease
Part II Classifying People: Science and Technology
at Our Service
Essentially Empirical:The Roles ofBiological and 129
Legal Classification in Effectively Prohibiting
Genetic Discrimination
Anita Silvers and Michael Ashley Stein
v
vi contents
Rethinking Normalcy,Normalization,and 154
Cognitive Disability
Licia Carlson
Conformity through Cosmetic Surgery: 172
The Medical Erasure ofRace and Disability
Sara Goering
The Wisconsin Card Sort:An Empirical and 189
Philosophical Analysis ofPresuppositions
Regarding Flexibility ofCognition
Sara Waller
Geography and Ideas ofRace 201
Naomi Zack
Queer Nature,Circular Science 221
Margaret Cuonzo
Part III Tradition and Modernity: Issues in
Philosophies ofTechnological Change
Technology in a Global World 237
Andrew Feenberg
Creativity ofTechnology and the Modernization 252
Process ofJapan
Junichi Murata
Contributors 267
Index 271
Acknowledgments
This collection of papers originated in a National Science Foundation
grant to the American Philosophy Association (APA) to develop a series of
research activities focused on the topic ofdiversity issues in the philosophy
of science.We,the editors,managed the grant for the APA for most of its
term.The grant sponsored fourteen summer research projects and approx-
imately thirty-six research presentations at four regional APA meetings
from December 2000 through December 2001.
These APA programs were organized mostly by minority caucuses of
the APA and APA-recognized philosophical societies including the Com-
mittee on the Status of Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and
Philosophies,the Committee on the Status ofAmerican Indians in Philos-
ophy,the American Indian Philosophy Association,the Committee on the
Status ofWomen,the Society for Women in Philosophy,the Committee on
Lesbian,Gay,Bisexual and Transgender People in the Profession,as well as
the Committee on International Cooperation and the APA Board of Offi-
cers.This collection contains a selection of the essays developed through
both processes.
We express our appreciation to the National Science Foundation,and
especially to Program Director Rachelle Hollander,Ethics and Values Stud-
ies Program,without whose enthusiasm and assistance this project would
not have existed.Richard Bett,Acting Executive Director of the APA,ad-
ministered the grant for its first two years.The project greatly benefitted
from his assistance and good advice.We also owe thanks to Elizabeth Rad-
cliffe, Executive Director of the APA for the grant’s final year. The grant
project received valuable assistance in various stages from the APA Execu-
tive Board, Eric Hoffman, the former Executive Director of the APA in
whose term the grant began, Julia Yearian and Linda Smallbrook in the
APA National Office,and Bill Mann,Robin Smith,and Anita Silvers from
vii
viii acknowledgments
the three regional APA divisions.Bill Lawson,ofMichigan State University,
managed the grant for its first year.
The APA appointed a splendid Advisory Board to oversee and assist the
project. Joseph Rouse of Wesleyan University, Anita Silvers of California
State University at San Francisco,and Elliot Sober ofthe University ofWis-
consin responded quickly and effectively to our requests for proposal and
manuscript reviews.Their thoughtful analyses improved the quality ofthe
essays and ofthis collection.Stephanie J.Bird ofMassachusetts Institute of
Technology gave the project valuable assistance at a crucial point.We thank
Damon Zucca,our editor at Taylor and Francis,for his enthusiasm for the
collection and his good advice.Katherine Muir,a graduate student in the
Department of Education at the University of California at Los Angeles,
managed the manuscript review process.We owe Kate an immense debt for
her skillful services.We also thank Tara Watkins,also a graduate student in
the UCLA Department ofEducation,for her assistance in the final days of
the project.
Not all editorial or authorial collaborations are pleasurable. Sandra
thanks Rob for the very best one ofthe many I have had.Rob expresses his
heartfelt gratitude and deepest appreciation for Sandra’s kindness, wit,
brilliance,and unswerving camaraderie.
Introduction
Sandra Harding and Robert Figueroa
Science and Values?
Science and values is a familiar topic for philosophers.Most standard phi-
losophy of science readers have contained a small section of papers at the
end of the volume under such a heading.1 Yet, with but rare exceptions,
those who wrote on such topics thought that they were addressing two dis-
tinct phenomena and a relation between them that science could control,
at least in principle.“Science”was assumed to refer to inquiry processes
that could be made value free and thus capable oftranscending any partic-
ular cultural context.“Values”(or “society”) was taken to refer to cultural
and political values,interests,and ways ofthinking that tended to sneak or
march into scientific research processes and results,thereby restricting the
growth of knowledge as well as often harming innocent people, or that
shaped the uses of otherwise value-free sciences and their technologies.
From this perspective,“Nazi science,”Hiroshima,environmental destruc-
tion,the alienation oflabor,and scientific sexism and racism were the con-
sequence either of “bad science”or of the misuse and abuse of pure sci-
ence’s technologies and applications.
Thus,philosophy ofscience and the ethics ofscience could and should
be addressed separately.So,too,could philosophy of science and philoso-
phy of technology be addressed separately; the latter was not considered
part ofepistemology but rather ofsocial philosophy.Moreover,the politics
ofscience might be a topic for political scientists,but it was not a topic for
philosophers since the “good science”that philosophers studied by defini-
tion had no politics;only “bad science”and the misuses and abuses oftech-
nologies and of applications of sciences could have politics. Finally, the
1
