ABSTRACT
Feminist theory is often associated with social and political philosophy and questions of justice, but epistemology is also a fundamental concern to feminists because feminist claims depend on knowledge of the natural and social world and on knowledge of moral duties and constraints. Feminist claims require accounts of the relation between knowledge and politics and also accounts of the practices and norms that govern how knowledge is produced, evaluated, and circulated. Feminist epistemology keeps social relations in sight while investigating questions about knowledge and knowledge-making practices that are relevant to the goal of cultivating social equality. 1 Contextualist epistemology, with its emphasis on the social and practical context of justification, knowledge attribution, and so on, would thus seem to have much in common with feminist epistemology.
