Sandra Harding
Encyclopedia
This article is about the American philosopher not the Australian sociologist and university administrator of the same name.


Sandra G. Harding (born 1935) is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 philosopher of feminist
Feminist philosophy
Feminist philosophy refers to philosophy approached from a feminist perspective. Feminist philosophy involves both attempts to use the methods of philosophy to further the cause of the feminist movements, and attempts to criticise or re-evaluate the ideas of traditional philosophy from within a...

 and postcolonial theory, epistemology, research methodology and philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...

.

She has contributed to standpoint theory
Standpoint theory
Standpoint theory is a postmodern method for analyzing inter-subjective discourses. "Developed primarily by social scientists, especially sociologists & political theorists. It extends some of the early insights about consciousness that emerged from Marxist/socialist feminist theories and the wider...

 and to the multicultural
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...

 study of science
Science studies
Science studies is an interdisciplinary research area that seeks to situate scientific expertise in a broad social, historical, and philosophical context. It is concerned with the history of academic disciplines, the interrelationships between science and society, and the alleged covert purposes...

. She is the author or editor of many books on these topics, and was one of the founders of the fields of feminist epistemology
Feminist epistemology
Feminist epistemology is concerned with the way in which gender influences our concept of knowledge and "practices of inquiry and justification". It comes under the umbrella of social epistemology, the broad set of approaches to the study of knowledge. Elisabeth Anderson argues that the concept of...

 and philosophy of science. Her ways of developing standpoint theory and stronger standards for objectivity
Objectivity (science)
Objectivity in science is a value that informs how science is practiced and how scientific truths are created. It is the idea that scientists, in attempting to uncover truths about the natural world, must aspire to eliminate personal biases, a priori commitments, emotional involvement, etc...

 ("strong objectivity") have been influential in the social sciences
Social sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...

 as well as in philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, and have created discussions in the natural sciences.

She currently is a professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies
UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies
The Graduate School of Education and Information Studies is one of the professional graduate schools at the University of California, Los Angeles...

. Sandra Harding earned her PhD from New York University (NYU) in 1973.

Former Director of the UCLA Center for the Study of Women
UCLA Center for the Study of Women
-Organization :-Publications:* 1986 * 1995 Conference Proceedings * 1992 Conference Proceeding -Organization :-Publications:* 1986 * 1995 Conference Proceedings (UCLA Institute of Industrial Relations)* 1992 Conference Proceeding -Organization :-Publications:* 1986 * 1995 Conference...

 (1996–2000), and co-editor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (2000–2005), she previously taught at the University of Delaware
University of Delaware
The university is organized into seven colleges:* College of Agriculture and Natural Resources* College of Arts and Sciences* Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics* College of Earth, Ocean and Environment* College of Education and Human Development...

 for many years, and has been a visiting professor at the University of Amsterdam, the University of Costa Rica
University of Costa Rica
The University of Costa Rica is a public university in the Republic of Costa Rica, in Central America. Its main campus, Ciudad Universitaria Rodrigo Facio, is located in San Pedro, in the province of San José. It is the oldest, largest, and most prestigious institution of higher learning in...

, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
ETH Zurich
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich or ETH Zürich is an engineering, science, technology, mathematics and management university in the City of Zurich, Switzerland....

, Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

. She was an invited lecturer for Phi Beta Kappa in 2007-2008.

She has consulted to a number of international agencies on feminist and postcolonial science issues, including the Pan-American Health Organization, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, and the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 Commission on Science and Technology for Development. She was invited to co-author a chapter on "Science and Technology: The Gender Dimension" for the UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

 World Science Report 1996.

During what is known now as the "Science Wars
Science wars
The science wars were a series of intellectual exchanges, between scientific realists and postmodernist critics, about the nature of scientific theory which took place principally in the US in the 1990s...

", she was part of a debate regarding the value-neutrality of the sciences. This aspect of her work has been criticized by some scientists. Harding referred to Newton's
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...

 Principia Mathematica as a "rape manual" in her 1986 book "The Science Question in Feminism", a characterization that she later said she regretted.

External links

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