Feminism and the Search for an Epistemic Self-portrait

Isaac  E. Ukpokolo,

Feminism and the Search for an Epistemic Self-portrait

Abstract:

By an epistemic self-portrait it shall be understood on account of the capacities and processes in virtue of which we are able to acquire an adequate understanding of reality, and reality becomes intelligible to us. It refers to the very framework of skills and traditions, or instrument of intellectual life and imaginations, through which human knowledge may be achieved or expressed. And, from a manifest perspective an enduring feature of speculative thought since Antiquity -- a permanent preoccupation of thinkers since the history of discourse- has been the preoccupation of thinkers since the history of discourse --has been the problem of human understanding. This has to do with how we must discover, establish, and systematically represent human knowledge, or a reliable cognitive scheme by which alone we are to meaningfully engage our reality. This has been the task of traditional epistemology. And so, it is usual to see epistemology as the branch of philosophy that studies knowledge. It attempts to answer the basic question: What distinguishes true (adequate) knowledge from false (inadequate) knowledge?