Ellen Klein

The culture wars must not be viewed as over, for if they are, the wrong side has won. That aspect of multiculturalism which has infected American colleges and universities known as "Feminism" has been especially insidious. Underlying its destructive force is its fundamental commitment to epistemological relativism. This essity offers an allegory to demonstrate the logical absurdity, intellectual paucity, and, ironically, ultimate sexist nature of contemporary academic feminism. The conclusion follows that traditional-minded academics need to take up the intellectual charge and challenge feminism on their own battlefields in what may be the last chance to win the culture wars and reapprorpiate feminism for the good of men and women everywhere.

Quine's account of why epistemology should be naturalized is examined. His claim that traditional epistemology has been misconceived and therefore should be abandoned is criticized and rejected. Quine's proposal to replace traditional epistemology with a naturalistic account is criticized and rejected. In the light of these criticisms, it is suggested that a "Yes" answer to the above metaepistemological question is, at best, premature. This response is then further weakened by a brief examination of some recent attempts to develop naturalistic accounts of the philosophy of science. The results of the investigation indicate that the most reasonable response to the question: Should epistemology be naturalized? is "No."

Klein (philosophy, U. of Northern Florida-Jacksonville) offers an analysis of modern-day feminism and a personal memoir of coming of age and coming to terms with feminism as it relates to university politics and teaching. She presents a critique of contemporary feminism, discussing feminist and nonfeminist philosophy, feminist nonphilosophy, and feminist epistemology and pedagogy. She exposes the dogmas and fallacies of feminism, and argues that feminism is oppressive to women. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

There has been much discussion concerning the consequences of 'going natural', i.e., of replacing a priori epistemology with empirical psychology. Traditionalists claim that a naturalized epistemology is not viable—to eliminate the normative from an account of knowledge is to cease to do epistemology at all. Naturalists claim that a naturalized account is the only viable one—assuming, in step with the urgings of Quine, that there are no standards independent of (and external to) science, science itself must act as the sole epistemic norm. In the wake of the above debate some epistemologists have attempted to argue in favor of, and develop, a middle-ground position— normative naturalism . Such a position is intended to be consistent with the naturalist's intuition that the traditional search for a 'first philosophy'is misguided and consistent with the traditionalist's intuition that a complete elimination of the normative would leave epistemology impotent. In this paper I will examine one argument in favor of a normative naturalism . / will show that such a proposal is inherently problematic and argue that naturalism and normativity are mutually exclusive concepts. Therefore, I suggest that, even in the 'age of cognitive science', epistemologists continue to do traditional epistemology by attempting to develop, a priori , the general criteria for determining the justificatory status of our (scientific) beliefs.