🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <BxG75H.33@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, jwales@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (jimmy donal wales) writes:
>>Well, there are a lot of people working in feminist epistemology and
>>feminist ethics, so I think the onus is on you (at the beginning) to offer
>>some reason for thinking that what they're doing isn't worthwhile.
> 
> This is my first contribution to this particular thread, and I begin
> with a confession of ignorance.  I have no idea at all what 'feminist
> epistemology' would consist of.
>  [...]
> But feminist _epistemology_?  I honestly confess that I have no idea what
> such a field would study, or why.
> 
> So, in this case, I think that the onus is on those _doing_ this kind of
> work to explain to us what it is and why they think it is worthwhile.

Agreed 100% -- but there are two different things being confused here. I
agree that people working in a field bear, in general, the primary
responsibility for explaining what they're doing and why it's worthwhile.
But if someone comes up and tells me that some field in which lots of
people are working is actually a waste of time, or "invalid" (I wish I
knew what that meant) or whatever, then I think the onus is on that person
to give me some reason to believe them. There are all kinds of reasons
they might give (a good one would be "The people in this field have never
made any effort to explain exactly what it is they're doing and why it's
important") but if they don't give any good reason at all, I'm not going
to take them seriously.

Andrew.
-- 
Andrew McRae                       Internet: mcrae@husc.harvard.edu
                                     BITnet: mcrae@HUSC