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IS TRADITIONAL EPISTEMOLOGY ANDROCENTRIC? A QUESTION AND 

RESPONSE IN THE LIGHT OF JANE DURAN’S FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY 

Remigius Achinike Obah PhD & Victor Chizi Ihunda PhD 

Department of Philosophy, 

University of Port Harcourt, 

Rivers State. Nigeria. 

e-mail: remigius.obah@uniport.edu.ng 

e-mail: victor_ihunda@uniport.edu.ng 

ABSTRACT 

This study critically examines whether Traditional Epistemology is Androcentric in the Light 

of Jane Duran’s Feminist Epistemology. In her work, Toward a Feminist Epistemology (1991), 

Jane Duran appears to have weighed the entire Western Traditional Epistemology on an 

epistemic gender-neutral scale or gender-inclusive scale, and in her observation and judgment 

finds it wanting of the charge of androcentrism. Hence, she sets out with the task of liberating 

epistemology from the 'parochial shackle’ of androcentrism to a liberal and holistic feminist 

perspective through the framework of naturalized epistemology and more recent advances in 

the cognitive science, feminist theories and sociology of knowledge. The findings in this study 

reveals that Duran’s feminist epistemology is simultaneously a reaction against androcentrism 

which she claims is inherent in traditional epistemological theorizing and her investigation into 

the possibility of a way of knowing that pertains to women. After engaging in a ground clearing 

attempt to establish her case against the traditional analytic epistemology which in her 

judgment is both androcentric and apsychological, Duran proceeds to lay foundation for a 

feminist epistemology and the possibility of a gynocentric model. Adopting the method of 

critical analysis, this paper is particularly concerned with her labeling of traditional 

epistemology as ideologically androcentric upon which she proceeded to advocate for a 

feminist epistemology. This study objects to the claim by Duran that traditional epistemology 

is androcentric and argues that contrary to her position, the theoretical traits of epistemology 

which she dubbed androcentric are in fact the product of the nature of the activity of 

epistemology as majorly a normative discipline. 

Keywords: Androcentric, Gynocentric, Traditional Epistemology, Feminist Epistemology.  

 

INTRODUCTION  

Advocacies for the proper redress of the injustices faced by women on the basis of their gender 

and the cry for inclusion is not just in the social, political and economic activities of society 

but also in an area of study such as Epistemology. As an idea, feminism’s root could be traced 

to Enlightenment ideals of freedom and justice (Lennon & Whitford, 1994, p. 1). Influenced 

by the panoply of feminist theories and movements, there has been a systematic attempt to 

ensure that both as subject and object of knowledge, women are not left behind. Thus, scholars 

with interest in the subject matter have made attempts to articulate what they mean by a feminist 

epistemology, that is, a way of knowing peculiar to women. Moreover, while some of these 

feminist scholars work in epistemology are aimed at exposing the masculinity of different areas 

of knowledge (Lennon & Whitford, 1994, p. 1), others are concerned with articulating a way 

of knowing that pertains to women—feminist epistemology.  

mailto:remigius.obah@uniport.edu.ng
mailto:victor_ihunda@uniport.edu.ng


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Some of the feminist scholars who have worked in the area of epistemology and have shaped 

the discourse of feminist epistemology include Evelyn Fox Keller (in her work, Reflections on 

Gender and Science and A Feeling for the Organism), Sandra Harding (in her work, The 

Science Question in Feminism) and Susan Bordo (The Flight to Objectivity) etc. With the aid 

of recent advances in areas such as Feminism, Cognitive Science, Philosophy of Science, 

Sociology of Knowledge and Naturalized Epistemology, Jane Duran in her work, Toward a 

Feminist Epistemology, sets out firstly, to argue that what has passed for epistemology, and 

particularly, analytic epistemology is ideologically androcentric, hyperidealized and normative 

(Duran, 1991, p. 19). Secondly, on the basis of her claim that traditional epistemology is 

inherently androcentric, she proceeds to establish grounds for her gynocentric model which she 

believes shall serve as a panacea to the androcentrism of the traditional epistemology.  

Thus, this paper titled, Is Traditional Epistemology Androcentric?: A Question and Response 

in the Light of Jane Duran‘s Feminist Epistemology is primarily concerned with Duran’s claim 

that thus far, what has been referred to as epistemology as a discipline concerned with the 

theory of knowledge is inherently an androcentric activity and hence, does not reflect the 

peculiarities of women as both subject and object of knowledge. This paper is divided into four 

parts and ends with a conclusion. Epistemology and feminism are the subject matter of the first 

part, here we tried to investigate if there is a relationship between epistemology as a sub-area 

of philosophy and feminism as an idea and socio-political movement. Secondly, we looked at 

the analytic theory of knowledge and the allegation of androcentrism, particularly with the aim 

of finding out what provided Duran with the overarching justification for her claim. The 

concern of third part is whether naturalized epistemology can save epistemology from 

androcentrism? Considering the nexus of naturalized epistemology with feminism, we tried to 

see if naturalized epistemology serves as appropriate framework, if we admit that traditional 

epistemology is indeed androcentric. The final part contains our response to Duran’s claim that 

traditional epistemology is androcentric. Here we maintained that Duran’s claim is not justified 

and that the theoretical traits that she labeled androcentric are in fact a product of the nature of 

analytic epistemology as a normative discipline. 

  

EPISTEMOLOGY AND FEMINISM  

Is there possibly a relationship between epistemology on the one hand and feminism on the 

other hand? How does epistemology as a branch of philosophy that is concerned with 

addressing fundamental problems and questions of knowledge and the clarification of what it 

means to know, (Rescher 2003, p. xiii) relate to the spectrum of socio-political movements and 

ideologies which seeks to establish the personal, social, economic and political equality  

of the both sexes called feminism? (Mendus 2005, p. 292). Does the feminist project which is 

concerned with activism for the social, economic and political rights of women some of which 

include but not limited to “right to: vote, hold public office, work, earn equal pay, own property, 

receive education, enter contracts, have equal rights within marriage, and maternity leave, 

access to contraception, legal abortions, etc.,” (Echols 1989, p. 23) have any nexus with 

epistemology? 



   Remigius Achinike & Victor Chizi                               Is Traditional Epistemology Androcentric?..... 

 

23 
 

Some of the recurring fundamental questions and problems bedeviling epistemology could be 

expressed as questions: What is knowledge and what are its essential features? From where 

does our knowledge originate (sources)? “How do we know (process or procedure)? What is 

the extent of our knowledge, is there actually a limit to what we can know? Etc.” (Moser & 

Nat 2003, p. 1). In the light of the feminist agitations, we may add new epistemological 

questions like: Do our biological or physiological constructions influence our quest for 

knowledge? Is there a way of knowing that is peculiar to both genders? These questions 

particularly, the two latter ones seem to draw us closer to the possibility of a nexus between 

epistemology and feminism. If we grant that there possibly is a nexus between epistemology 

and feminism, what exactly is the nature of the nexus? Miranda Fricker and Jennifer Hornsby 

did maintain that the nature of the nexus between epistemology and feminism is a friendly one. 

Referencing the brand of Michele Le Doeuff’s feminism, Fricker and Hornsby maintains that 

her feminism serves as a powerful instrument against prejudice and enables an individual to 

judge for oneself and grants the individual the “ability to uproot the habit of holding on to old 

opinions and to reveal women as rational knowers” (Fricker and Hornsby 2000, pp. 128-129). 

If relations between feminism and epistemology were entirely friendly, then 

feminism’s contribution to the subject would be to point this out, as Astell did. 

‘Feminist epistemology’ would be - epistemology aware of its own feminist 

implications. But there is more to the story than this, and there are many ways 

in which relations have not been entirely friendly. One central strand of the 

feminist contribution to epistemology has been to show how, when it comes to 

knowledge, women get left out. Another has been to show how, when it comes 

to knowledge, women get hurt. These partly overlap, since women may be hurt 

by being left out, but may be hurt in other ways too. (Fricker and Hornsby 2000, 

p. 129)  

Both as object of knowledge and subject of knowledge, Rae Langton made an attempt to show 

how women may be left out in our quest for knowledge and the need for feminism or more 

precisely, feminist epistemology as a panacea to this undesirable negligence of women in the 

human epistemic quest. First, one of the ways women may be left out as objects of knowledge 

is that, “women might fail to be known” (Langton cited in Fricker & Hornsby 2000, p. 130). 

In the course of study of the various institutionalized branches of knowledge: 

Women’s lives may be rendered invisible by particular bodies of knowledge, 

such as history, economics, medicine and philosophy itself. When historians 

chronicle only kings and dates and battles, women are left out. When 

economists analyze the relations between capital and labour, ignoring unpaid 

labour in the home, women are left out. When scientists study heart disease 

using male-only samples, women are left out. When philosophers define human 

beings as rational animals, assuming all the while that women are not rational, 

women are left out. To the extent that these things happen, women remain a 

kind of terra incognita. (Langton cited in Fricker & Hornsby 2000, p. 130) 

Secondly, as subjects of knowledge, women may be left out of the human quest for knowledge  

by ‘failing to be knowers’ and this happens because they are often deprived of the knowledge 

men have. Langton maintains, that, from the earliest days of feminism it has been eloquently 

argued that women’s subordination is constituted in part by barriers to the knowledge to which 

men have access” (Langton cited in Fricker & Hornsby 2000, pp. 130- 131). 



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Feminism as socio-political movement and ideology or doctrine appears to be a herculean task 

when it comes exhaustively delineating what it is from what it is not. However, from a 

historical perspective, it cannot be disputed that, “over the centuries, and in many different 

countries, women have spoken out for their sex, and articulated, in different ways, their 

complaints, their needs, and their hopes” (Walters 2005, p. 2). One of such complaint among 

women though not without some male sympathizers against what they perceive to be a 

patriarchally biased or dominated society is what Jane Duran refers to as androcentric 

epistemology. In her work, Towards a Feminist Epistemology, Duran alleges that hitherto the 

rise of naturalized epistemology in the 1960s a great deal of what has passed for epistemology 

since the era of Plato is ideologically androcentric. She holds the overt emphasis on pure and 

speculative reason devoid of the influence of human passions and physiological functions 

alongside the conception of women as the ‘other being’ enslaved to bodily functions and 

incapable of separating her reason from the body as held by traditional epistemologists as the 

cause of “a tradition in epistemology that is at once virtually exclusively normative and 

staggeringly androcentric” (Duran, 1991, p. 8). 

 

ANALYTIC THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE ALLEGATION OF 

ANDROCENTRISM 

The idea of a feminist epistemology, at least, Duran’s version, is a product of a reaction to the 

perceived prevalence of a male-dominated or biased conception of epistemology that does not 

accord equal or adequate cognizance to the unique feminine features on the discourse in the 

theory of knowledge. Traditionally, in philosophy, normative epistemology refers to those 

aspects of epistemology that are dominantly concerned with first-order theorizing with regards 

to such recurring questions and problems as; what is truth? How can we know? How ought 

we to form justified belief? etc. Alvin I. Goldman delineates three conceptions of 

epistemology on the basis of their aims and functions. They are; Descriptive Epistemology, 

Analytical Epistemology and Normative Epistemology. He warns that these three conceptions 

are neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive (Goldman, 1985, p. 29). In her attempt to show 

the masculine nature of what passed as epistemology prior to the advent of naturalized 

epistemology, Duran appears to use the terms: analytic and normative interchangeably. She 

believes that the normative nature of analytic epistemology manifest itself in the course of our 

epistemic analysis of these problems of knowledge and the presuppositions we hold about 

knowledge (Duran, 1991, p. 19). In the part one of her work, entitled, Androcentric 

Epistemology, Duran sets out to establish what she terms the “normative and hyperidealized 

nature of contemporary analytic epistemology” (Duran, 1991, p. 19). In tracing the historical 

roots of epistemology as a sub-field of philosophy, she contends that epistemology is as old 

as the Platonic Dialogues but the present status or advancement made in epistemology as it is 

the case today is largely due to the modern era, that is, the post-Cartesian period and partly 

also due to the twentieth century that have witnessed more narrowly defined epistemological 

question. An instance of this question is the question of the fourth condition for knowledge. 

Predominantly utilizing Bertrand Russell’s, A History of Western Philosophy, Duran embarks 

on a task to establish the problem of the epistemic tradition of philosophy. Referencing Russell 

on the Cartesian architectural quest for indubitable knowledge and his eventual arrival at 

cogito ergo sum, Duran draws attention to subjectivity of certain knowledge as highlighted by 



   Remigius Achinike & Victor Chizi                               Is Traditional Epistemology Androcentric?..... 

 

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Russell when following the logical expression of Descartes’ cogito ergo sum. This, she claims, 

has been at the heart of contemporary epistemology. 

Duran went on to highlight some of the major epistemological theories and their influence; 

she begins with Russell’s logical atomism. She is of the view that the work foreshadows a 

good deal of the history of twentieth-century epistemology and from the works of Descartes 

and even Russell’s logical atomism she tried to show that there is a “desire to place empirical 

knowledge on a footing equal to non-empirical or deductively ascertainable knowledge” 

(Duran, 1991, p. 23). This underlining pattern in epistemology she contends manifest itself in 

the twentieth-century analytic quest, “and this was ushered in partly by Russell’s attempt to 

establish a basis of irrefutability for sense-based contentions, beginning with the deployment 

of logically proper names” (Duran, 1991, p. 23). It is this perspective of Russell that Duran 

blames for the move among professional epistemologists to give “a tighter and narrower 

account of knowledge, or claims to knowledge derived through the senses” (Duran, 1991, p. 

23). In the subsection entitled, Sense-Data Views: Normative Theories of Privileged Access, 

she proceeds to argue that the sense-data theorists in an attempt to obtain epistemic certainty 

subserviently sacrificed most of what would pass for an adequate ontology and in “the process 

did, indeed, begin to encompass their own destruction” (Duran, 1991, p. 25). In reaction to 

this atomistic and sense-data view, by J. L. Austin’s objection, Duran points out that this 

brought about an attempt to tackle the conditions for knowledge from the view point of 

analytically “tight necessary and sufficient conditions” (Duran, 1991, P. 26), by American 

philosophers. From the stand point of necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge in 

approaching the question of knowledge, Duran held that this new standpoint ended up all cases 

of knowledge, “whether empirically derived or not, on the same footing” (Duran 1991, p. 26). 

Even the American analytic epistemology is not without its own impediments. In examining 

Edmund Gettier’s classical reaction to the traditional epistemological conception of 

knowledge as justified true belief and the panoply of reactions to Gettier’s thesis in the 

twentieth-century were all purely obsessed with normativity. Neither Gettier in his 

hypothetical examples nor scholars with their counterexamples responding to his work cared 

to at least make reference to the human cognitive process as that of rational agent seeking 

knowledge. Yet these cognitive dimensions of humans play a vital role both in the generation, 

storage and retrieval of human knowledge.  

What sorts of facts about cognitive and neural functioning are relevant? One 

wants to inquire why it is that elements of memory storage, retrieval from 

memory, sensory retention of images, capacity for inferring logical structure, 

and other sorts of cognitive capacities -all relevant to the sorts of examples 

utilized -are never referred to in the theories of relevant counterexamples? 

(Duran, 1991, pp. 29-30)  

It is her observation and judgement that vast majority of what passes as analytic epistemology 

is not only hyperidealized and ideologically androcentric but originated in sheer 

apsychological manner and have held on to this apsychological character from the 1960s and 

1970’s. This apsychological character of epistemological theory became a cause of concern 

among epistemologists and forms the needed grounds for “another important move in the 

theory of know1edge” -naturalized epistemology (Duran, 1991, p. 30).  

Duran’s allegation of androcentrism as an underlying ideological current underpinning 

contemporary analytic epistemology majorly springs forth from these her analysis of the 

theoretical traits of traditional epistemology. Particularly, in the light of an analysis of 



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knowledge in terms of “logically necessary and sufficient conditions, lack of allusion to 

descriptively adequate models, the importance of counter-exampling, putative 

universalizability of conditions and so forth” (Duran, 1991, p. 44). It is in fact these kinds of 

traits that Duran and other feminist theorists describes and labels androcentric. The structuring 

of traditional Western epistemology is inherently and purely normative in its approach in 

theorizing about knowledge without adequate consideration of what humans engage in 

cognitive activities, in quest for knowledge, actually do go about it. On the contrary, it seems 

too obsessed with what approach the ideal would-be knower ought to take in arriving at 

knowledge. This hyperidealized nature of epistemology is not only too stringent an approach 

to theorizing about knowledge but also narrows the bounds of a holistic approach to 

epistemology. These aforementioned traits of analytic epistemology are in fact repudiated by 

Duran hence, her advocacy for a more naturalized theory of knowledge liberated from the 

shackles of the stringent and hyperidealized normative foundations or analytic epistemology. 

However, the question at this juncture is this: how would a naturalized epistemology deliver 

epistemology from the undesirable allegation of androcentrism, if we grant that in fact those 

aforementioned traits are indeed androcentric or a product of androcentrism? 

 

WOULD A NATURALIZED EPISTEMOLOGY SAVE EPISTEMOLOGY FROM 

ANDROCENTRISM? 

In the part one of her work, entitled, Androcentric Epistemology, Duran seems to have 

weighed the entire Western traditional epistemology on an epistemic gender-neutral or 

gender-inclusive scale, and in her observation and judgment finds it wanting of the charges of 

androcentrism. Thus, she sets out to liberate epistemology from the parochial shackles of 

androcentrism to a ‘liberal and holistic’ feminist perspective through the framework of 

naturalized epistemology. If we assume that all the enumerated problems inherent in analytic 

epistemology as argued by Duran is indeed androcentric, how would a naturalized 

epistemology salvage epistemology from its undesirable androcentric trait? Duran is of the 

view that yes, her gynocentric model grounded on the framework of naturalized epistemology 

would save epistemology from androcentrism. The embracive nature of naturalized 

epistemology as a cluster of philosophical views that advocate the adoption of empirical 

methods and the utilization of the empirical findings of certain fields of study in understanding 

epistemic phenomena is considered a panacea to the overt masculine nature of traditional 

epistemology by Duran. Tracing the roots of naturalized epistemology, she pointed out that: 

“The late 1960s and the early 1970s saw an enormous rise in the development of what came 

to be known as cognitive science, the intersections of areas such as psychology, linguistics, 

artificial intelligence, computer simulation and computer science itself” (Duran, 1991, p. 35). 

In spite of little or no response to these developments in the aforementioned fields by 

philosophers to the materials generated in these new frontiers of knowledge, “it was clear from 

the outset that the material was immediately relevant to issues in philosophy of mind” (Duran, 

1991, p. 3). 

Duran considers the rise of naturalized epistemology as a necessary precursor to her idea of 

feminist theory of knowledge. The rise and advances of cognitive science was not entirely 

embraced by epistemologists, but by the 1970s things began to change. For instance, such 

work as Beyond Foundationalism and Coherence Theory by Hilary Kornblith and 



   Remigius Achinike & Victor Chizi                               Is Traditional Epistemology Androcentric?..... 

 

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Epistemology Naturalized by W. V. Quine had apparently begun to suggest the need for a 

replacement of epistemology by natural and social sciences. Kornblith in the beginning of his 

essay explicitly acknowledges the view predominant in positivist epistemology that 

epistemological questions should be divorced from psychological questions on grounds that 

epistemology is traditionally considered a normative discipline. This view Kornblith believes 

is mistaken and rather supports “a psychological approach to the questions about knowledge 

and justification” (Kornblith, 1980, p. 597) like Quine and Alvin Goldman. Quine expresses 

similar view when he speaks of epistemology thus:  

Epistemology, or something like it, simply falls into place as a chapter of 

psychology and hence, of natural science. It studies a natural phenomenon viz. 

a physical human subject. This human-subject is accorded a certain 

experimentally controlled input certain patterns of irradiation in assorted 

frequencies for instance, and in the fullness of time the subject delivers as output 

a description of the three-dimensional world and its history. (Quine, 1969, pp. 

82-83) 

However, subsequently, a new wave literature in epistemology that generally did not call for 

a replacement of epistemology but the recognition by epistemology of works that explicitly 

are related to the possibility of knowledge acquisition began to surface. Duran tried to show 

as argued by Kornblith that, “the question of whether or not the actual cognitive functioning 

of agents could be relevant to epistemology as practiced by professional philosophers” (Duran, 

1991, p. 36) leads to an apsychologistic approach to epistemology and this is a mistake. 

Furthermore, she takes on foundationalism and coherentism challenging them as theories that 

are a psychological in nature. That is, that they fail to tell us anything about the functioning 

of the epistemic agent, “and each theoretical stance may be thought of as a recommendation 

for the way in which epistemic agents should perform the task of justification, if that task of 

justification were to be performed ideally” (Duran, 1991, p. 40). However, this is not the case 

as human agents seldom perform epistemic tasks in an ideal manner. Duran remarks of the 

naturalizing project thus:  

If contemporary analytic epistemology may be thought of as non-naturalized 

and androcentric, the current naturalization of theory of knowledge at least 

strikes the positive note of moving in another direction. If, as some theorists 

have contended, gynocentric thinking tends to concern itself with the particular 

and the contextualized (or as Bordo has it, the “View from Everywhere”), the 

newer naturalized material is already somewhat less androcentric simply insofar 

as it is more context sensitive and less concerned with a highly idealized 

universalizability. (Duran, 1991, p. 4) 

From the foregoing, we can easily notice the rigid and hyperidealized normative emphasis of 

analytic epistemology been challenged by a more embracive, descriptive, empirical and 

collaborative attempt to grasp not just the epistemic process of knowledge acquisition and 

justification but the cognitive or psychological process of an epistemic agent within the  

naturalized epistemology framework. 

 

 

 



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IS TRADITIONAL EPISTEMOLOGY ACTUALLY ANDROCENTRIC? A        

RESPONSE IN THE LIGHT OF DURAN’S FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY  

Feminism as a distinct philosophical idea has turned into an umbrella term for a plethora of 

meanings and usages, hence, making it a difficult task to exhaustively and adequately 

delineate what it precisely is in a single definition. Even within feminist thinking, there are 

divergent and often contradictory views (Lennon &Whitford, 1994, p. 1). However, in spite 

of this definitional challenge, there are basic tenets or commonalities shared by feminist 

theorists in spite of their individual peculiarities or area of interest with regards to the 

perceived injustices faced by women by virtue of their gender as women in different areas of 

life. Such areas encompass the social, political, economic and even personal or private aspects 

of women’s life. Epistemology is also not exempted; it is one area feminist theorists have 

taken up to articulate the peculiarities of women’s experience as both object and subject of 

knowledge. Duran’s feminist epistemology is simultaneously a reaction against androcentrism 

which she claims is inherent in much of traditional epistemological theorizing and her 

investigation into the possibility of a way of knowing that pertains to women. 

After engaging in a ground clearing attempt to establish her case against the traditional 

analytic epistemology which in her judgement is both androcentric and apsychological, Duran 

proceeds to lay foundation for a feminist epistemology and the possibility of a gynocentric 

model. In the third chapter of her work, she provides an overview of what has come to be 

known as feminist epistemology, particularly, as it has been constructed by other feminist 

theorists interested in epistemological problem and who engaged in a task she describes as 

being of “crucial importance for the intersection of naturalized and gynocentric strands” 

(Duran, 1991, p. 103) of thinking that she intends to create. Some of the feminist theorist that 

featured majorly in Duran’s work include: Evelyn Fox Keller, Sandra Harding and Susan 

Bordo. And other hosts of feminist theorists such as: Ruth Hubbard, Helen Longino, Elizabeth 

Prior and Robert Pargetter, Loraine Code, and Alison Wylie are some of the scholars who part 

of their works as previewed by Duran enabled her to clearly delineate what she meant by 

feminist epistemology. Moreover, the works of some feminists specifically the French 

feminists like Cixous, Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray etc. whose works were influenced by 

the general Continental tradition in philosophy and serves as a source of variation from 

traditional philosophy. 

Having employed these numerous literatures in an attempt to elaborately establish grounds for 

a feminist epistemology from the feminist theories of these scholars, what does Duran 

delineates as feminist epistemology? For Duran, what is meant by feminist epistemology or 

“feminists’ epistemics” is a model that is not only grounded in inherently female practices or 

pragma but that is also applicable to women cross and inter-culturally. Central to Duran’s 

feminist epistemology is the emphasis on the importance of nonverbal means of 

communication and the sensitivity of the female to such form of communication in general. 

Thus, she asserts that her model “allows for acquisition of knowledge, or justification of 

knowledge claims, to be accomplished on the basis of informal input that is both verbal and 

nonverbal, straightforward and nuanced, articulable and only somewhat expressed (Duran, 

1991, p. 184). Moreover, it is an indispensable tenet of Duran’s Feminist Epistemology that 

knowledge acquisition, that is epistemic justification is a context and culture-related process. 

Hence, it is due to this process of knowledge acquisition she claims that her model is 

applicable to all context and culture-related process (Duran, 1991, p. 185). She believes this 



   Remigius Achinike & Victor Chizi                               Is Traditional Epistemology Androcentric?..... 

 

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provides her model with the fluidity not found in non-naturalized model and also makes it 

profoundly relevant to that particular critical area of contemporary feminist theory that deals 

with the pluralistic nature of women’s voices. The Crux of Duran’s model having been 

expressed, we are left with the very pertinent question: Is traditional epistemology 

androcentric? Considering that the overarching justification of Duran’s Feminist 

Epistemology is based on her observation and conclusion of the nature and inadequacies of 

traditional analytic epistemology. Is Duran’s claim actually the case that analytic 

epistemology is androcentric? In response to this, we argue otherwise with three major 

reasons, that Duran is not justified in labeling analytic epistemology as androcentric. 

Firstly, it is necessary to note that, Duran did not directly assert that analytic epistemology is 

androcentric but did so indirectly on the basis of the theoretical traits she observed. Such traits 

include the “normative and hyperidealized nature of contemporary analytic epistemology” 

(Duran, 1991, p. 19). Also, “analysis in terms of logically necessary and sufficient conditions, 

lack of allusion to descriptively adequate models, the importance of counterexampling, 

putative universalizability of the conditions (of knowledge) and so forth” (Duran, 1991, p. 

44). One could argue that some, if not all of these traits are not essentially androcentric but 

could be an attribute of the nature of the task of analytically theorizing about knowledge. 

Moreover, the prevailing zeitgeist of the era (analytic tradition) which was in itself a reaction 

against such continental philosophies as existentialism and phenomenology, etc. was 

concerned with the primary emphasis on language and logical analysis in elucidation of 

meaning and proper usage of language and by extension our attainment of knowledge. There 

was a need to precisely and clearly state what conditions where required for an ideal knower 

to be justified in his or her claim to knowledge. It is this normative aspect of analytic 

epistemology that Duran appears to be dissatisfied with and thus, believes it is androcentric. 

It apparently seems to be the case that without judging analytic epistemology to be 

androcentric, she possibly would not have had the grounds to introduce her feminist 

epistemology. This is arguably unnecessary as naturalized epistemology largely undertakes 

the investigation of the contexts, social and individual peculiarities in the task of theorizing 

about knowledge. 

Secondly, the normative nature of analytic epistemology requires these theoretical traits  

(normative, hyperidealized, stringent, narrow and obsession with universalizability) which  

Duran dubbed androcentric, are in fact some of the basic traits that sets analytic epistemology 

apart from other aspects of epistemology as a normative discourse also concerned with the 

task of outlining the basic conditions of knowledge. Moreover, as a branch of philosophy, 

epistemology is a normative discipline that is primarily concerned “among other things, with 

questions about how reasoning ought to proceed. Such questions can be answered, we are told, 

independently of investigation into the processes that in fact occur when reasoning takes 

place” (Kornblith, 1980, p. 597). Despite the fact that, like Kornblith, Duran thinks that this 

approach is mistaken, we need to be clear that it is the nature of epistemology as a normative 

enterprise involved in the theoretical analysis of knowledge that warranted such theoretical 

traits that Duran dubbed androcentric. Regardless of how we decide to label those theoretical 

traits of analytic epistemology, we cannot expect that the nature of a discipline engaged 

primarily with a normative task pertaining to fundamental questions and problems of 

knowledge should be similar with that of a discipline that is engaged with a descriptive 

activity. 

Lastly, without conceding, if we grant that analytic epistemology is indeed androcentric, then 

one would have expected that Duran’s Feminist Epistemology should call for a total 



                                                                    Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol 5 Issue 1, April 2025. 

                 ISSN: 2786-9792 

 
 

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jettisoning of traditional epistemology and should erect or at least provide us with an idea on 

how to erect a new epistemological edifice but no, she does not. Rather, she held that it is still 

relevant to epistemology. To put it in her words: “However, androcentric the tradition of the 

professional epistemologists has been up to now, it has the virtue of being a rigorous method 

of inquiry and being a finely tuned philosophical apparatus” (Duran, 1991, p. 15). Given the 

option she chooses, it is fair to think that she actually does have a problem with the stringent 

and narrow nature of theorizing and not necessarily because analytic epistemology is per se 

androcentric. 

 

CONCLUSION  

 

If indeed there is a way of knowing that is peculiar to women as both the subject and object 

of knowledge, naturalized epistemology does justice to that. Duran’s idea of a feminist 

epistemology, we admit, has raised awareness about the peculiarities of women as knowers. 

However, the inadequacies of analytic epistemology do not provide Duran with an 

overarching justification to label analytic epistemology as androcentric on the basis of its 

prevailing theoretical traits as a normative enterprise. Drawing our attention to a way of 

knowing that pertains to women do not necessarily require a reactionary response to analytic 

epistemology and its eventual labeling as androcentric by Duran. The theoretical traits of 

analytic epistemology pointed out by Duran we argue, posit and hold as a product of the 

normative nature of analytic epistemology and are not necessarily and essentially androcentric 

as she claims.   

In conclusion, with regards to Duran’s claim that traditional epistemology is androcentric, this 

study concludes that those theoretical traits which she labels as androcentric are not 

androcentric, but are by-products of the nature of the task of epistemology as normative 

discipline. With three major reasons, the paper objects to Duran’s claim that traditional 

epistemology is androcentric. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



   Remigius Achinike & Victor Chizi                               Is Traditional Epistemology Androcentric?..... 

 

31 
 

 

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