On the Flaws of Pop Standpoint Theory
The so-called standpoint theory of epistemology is associated with feminism and has roots in Marxist epistemology. Roughly, standpoint theory holds that those who are marginalized or underprivileged with respect to some sociocultural or economic good G have undergone experiences which provide them with knowledge, reasonable belief, or understanding about issues related to G-marginalization but that those who are privileged with respect to G lack knowledge, etc. concerning such issues. In short, being deprived of G gives one some important epistemic benefit (e.g., understanding) whereas possessing G prevents one from obtaining such epistemic benefits.
A standpoint is something like a social consciousness achieved by a group that has struggled with respect to unfair treatment within a society. The standpoint is achieved or earned via the struggle. To have a standpoint concerning G, one must belong to a group that has struggled regarding G. Membership in such a group provides one with a collective awareness or standpoint about G which in turn gives one a favored perspective on G — a sort of experiential knowledge lived out by the group as a whole, though not necessarily by each individual in the group. Some have referred to this favored perspective as an epistemic privilege.
Now, standpoint theory contains some insights about the epistemic value of knowledge by experience regarding certain sociocultural issues, though I am skeptical about standpoint theory as a robust theory of knowledge. But this is not the point I want to address.
Rather, I am interested here in what seems to be a popularized version of standpoint theory which is commonly used in our public discourse. Many are inclined to say things like “You can’t understand me because you’ve never shared my experiences and the experiences of my community” or “You’re not a woman, so you can’t understand what a woman is and have no right to discuss ‘female topics’ such as abortion” or “Since you’re not a man, you can’t know what the term ‘man’ means” or “You’re not an artist and thus have no right to discuss art.”
It seems to me that this pop epistemology is confused and yet many accept it as though it were obvious. For one thing, it unjustly favors one kind of knowledge by acquaintance over other kinds of such knowledge and also over propositional knowledge. Secondly, it seems to rest on the doubtful assumption that for some items of knowledge or reasonable belief, (i) group experience and (ii) membership in the pertinent experiencing group are necessary conditions.
Thirdly, precisely speaking, there are no shared experiences. No person can have an experience identical to that of another, though people have similar experiences. As such, it is unlikely that mere group membership provides members with knowledge based on experiences had by others in the group. I.e., if member A of group Gr has experience E, and new member B joins Gr, B does not have E merely because B has joined Gr, since E is singular to A.
One might reply that although people cannot share the same token experience, they can have different tokens of the same type of experience. While this is true, it seems to work against the apparent tribalism of standpoint theory. For according to this theory, as we have noted, being marginalized, underprivileged, or more generally mistreated is the relevant necessary condition for sociocultural understanding. But reflect: it is vastly likely that every human being has experienced some token of the type *mistreated* and thus if there is a relevant group the identity by which one gains social consciousness, it is the group of humanity and not merely some human tribe or other.
This point about human tribes raises the fourth problem: it seems to be a form of epistemic tribalism which is unhelpful because too narrow and superficial to work as a robust theory of epistemology. Epistemic goods such as knowledge, understanding, and reasonable belief are too complicated to fit the confines of this pop theory, and moreover, the pop version of standpoint theory looks more like a cognitive bias than a plausible theory of knowledge.
Lastly, pop standpoint theory seems to create new gaps between the privileged and the marginalized, for on this theory, group membership provides one with privileged insights which those outside the group cannot have. Consequently, these outsiders, marginalized as they are, have their own group-based understanding which folks outside their group lack, which generates a third group of outsiders with its own group consciousness, and so on. The pop theory thus perpetuates the fracturing and division of human knowledge and understanding into a disunited epistemic economy – an epistemic Tower of Babel – instead of one which is unified and capable of extending responsibly into new areas of discovery.