Kuhn, Feminism, and Science?

Evelyn Fox Keller I was a friend of T. S. Kuhn's long before I became his colleague, and I felt his death, first and foremost, as a personal loss. I also experienced (and continue to feel) an acute sense of professional loss, as, indeed, must anyone wor ing in the history and philosophy of science today! Tom's contributions to the field o"er the last four decades ha"e been absolutely formati"e, and the end of those contributions mar s the end of an era that may well ha"e been uni#ue in its producti"ity for our understanding of the historical contingency of scientific nowledge. Still, when I was as ed to write about Tom from my perspecti"e as a feminist, and particularly about his relation to the emergence of scholarship on gender and science, I was fran ly stymied. $ertainly, he ne"er wrote about gender and science, nor did he ha"e a direct influence on either the emergence or the growth of the sub%ect. &urthermore, the re#uest prompted me to as , 'as he e"en a feminist( The #uestion of Kuhn's relation to feminism would be a difficult one e"en without all the uncertainties about the meaning of feminism that plague us today, so I want to address it first. I thin it is fair to say that when I first met Tom, he was neither more nor less a feminist than other liberal men of his generation))which is to say, not "ery much of one. *lthough #uic to ta e pleasure in the intelligence of a few women, li e others of his time he had simply ne"er thought to as why there were so few. +ut one of his most distinguishing characteristics was his remar able openness to new #uestions, and o"er time, many of the insights produced by contemporary [End Page 15] feminist scholarship found a recepti"e niche in his "iew of the world. *gain, li e that of many others of his generation (as well as of the generations that followed), his "iew of the world, e"en if not his actual wor , was transformed by the re"olution of modern feminism. This was most li ely to show in his personal relationships with his women friends, with his wife, and with his daughters, but it also showed in his general responsi"eness to many feminist efforts (certainly greater than that of many of his peers), and perhaps especially in his enthusiastic and generous support of a number of feminist enterprises in the last few years of his life (such as the +unting Institute). +ut for all this, I doubt that Tom would e"er ha"e thought to apply the label ,feminist, to himself, and I am certain that most of his readers))or e"en most of those who new him))would not thin of him as such. *s to Kuhn's importance to the emergence of scholarship on ,gender and science,, %ust a bit of reflection ma es it clear that, e"en while he played no direct role, there is at least one sense in which his influence, howe"er indirect, was decisi"e for e"eryone wor ing on this sub%ect. &or me in particular, I must further ac nowledge at least two ways in which his role was decisi"e.

* good part of my own debt to Tom is a personal one, but in order to explain why, I need to inter%ect a fran ly autobiographical aside! I first met Tom almost twenty years ago, and for me, as for most people, it was another era. Six years earlier (in 1972), I had taken a o! tea"hing mathemati"s at a !rand new li!eral arts "ollege, a !ran"h of the then rapidly expanding S#$% system, where the spirit of ed&"ational inno'ation that was sweeping the "o&ntry was taken 'ery m&"h to heart. The mandate at S#$% (&r"hase was to trans"end (or transgress) dis"iplinary !o&ndaries. Th&s, while tea"hing mathemati"s, I also ta&ght "o&rses on physi"s, s"ien"e and so"iety, women)s st&dies**indeed, on any s&! e"t my "olleag&es and I had the fan"y to in'ent. It was a transformati'e opport&nity in a time of radi"al &phea'al, and I was transformed. +rom feminism, I had dis"o'ered the power of gender as an analyti" tool, and, f&eled !y the inno"ent enth&siasms of early feminist theory, I set o&t to !ring it to !ear on the meaning and history of s"ien"e. It was here, tea"hing in a time and pla"e of ed&"ational experiment, that I !egan my mo'e from s"ien"e to what we now "all s"ien"e st&dies, and espe"ially, it was where I !egan my work on gender and s"ien"e. I did not know what to "all this work, and e'en less, where to pla"e it. -r with whom** other than with friends (most of whom knew pre"io&s little a!o&t s"ien"e)**to talk a!o&t it. .any people s&ggested I talk to T. S. /&hn, a name of whi"h I was of "o&rse well aware. 0&t as o!'io&s as the "hoi"e might appear, the name was an i"on, and simply writing to the i"on &st did not seem feasi!le. [End Page 16] 1n extraordinary pie"e of l&"k ga'e me an opening2 In the fall of 1973, I fo&nd find myself on an ad'isory "ommittee at $%# with the i"on himself. 1nd to my s&rprise, I fo&nd that, !ehind the i"on, li'ed a remarka!ly a""essi!le man "alled Tom. This man soon !e"ame a friend, "lose eno&gh to risk asking him to read what I had !een writing, e'en while re"ogni4ing the ine'ita!le risk of &dgment !y his i"oni" other. 5emarka!ly, the man !oth read and seemed to &nderstand, and the i"on failed to po&n"e. 1t the time, I was simply gratef&l, !&t in retrospe"t, I mar'el**at !oth the gentleness of his6their response, and the generosity of his6their reading. The papers that I showed to Tom represented my earliest efforts to arti"&late some int&itions a!o&t gender and s"ien"e, and they displayed all the weaknesses and the strengths of an &nread amate&r. 1stonishingly, he read for the strengths, allowing himself to remain &npert&r!ed !y the weaknesses. #ltimately, I "ame to re"ogni4e that generosity of spirit as one of his most end&ring "hara"teristi"s, "ertainly, it was one that earned him the admiration of his friends. 0&t !esides admiration, I want to a"knowledge my gratit&de2 his en"o&ragement and s&pport at that "riti"al &n"t&re were a!sol&tely 'ital**espe"ially, they were 'ital to s&staining the long and hard work that, as I was soon to learn, wo&ld !e re7&ired to pers&ade other historians and philosophers that the pro e"t of reading that s&! e"t as a feminist was a worthy one. -ore important than my personal debt, howe"er, is the importance of Kuhn's actual wor for studies on gender and science in general))not only for my own, but, I

suggest, for those of "irtually all others who ha"e wor ed on the sub%ect. In order to ma e this claim, I must first specify how I am using the term gender and s"ien"e. ."er the last fifteen years, these words ha"e come to be used as an umbrella co"ering three distinct (e"en if related) efforts! (a) studies of women in science/ (b) analyses of scientific claims about gender/ and (c) studies of the roles that cultural norms of gender ha"e played in the historical de"elopment of science (i.e., of what in recent years I ha"e come to refer to as ,gender in science,). 0either of the first two efforts depends in any ob"ious way on the wor of Thomas S. Kuhn/ but the third does, and critically so, and it is in this, more restricti"e, sense that I first in"o ed the term, 1 and in which I am using it here. The "ery idea that ,gender,))now understood in the cultural rather than the biological sense of the term))might ha"e had a role to play in the history of science pi"ots on the sea change in our thin ing about science that Kuhn's Str&"t&re of S"ientifi" 5e'ol&tions did so much to bring about. -ore than in any other wor , it was [End Page 17] here that the intellectual space was cleared for responsible scholars to examine the formati"e role for scientific in#uiry of its particular social and political contexts. Str&"t&re pro"ided a launching pad for the social studies of science/ in so doing, it also pro"ided))%ust a few years later))a place from which feminist analyses of science could begin. If scientific nowledge was dependent on social and political forces to gi"e it direction, and e"en meaning, then it was surely reasonable to suppose that ,gender,, which exerts so powerful a force in shaping other parts of our li"es and worlds, would exert its force here as well. Tom was not always happy about the uses to which his wor was put, and his reser"ations must apply to feminist studies of science as much as they did to more general social studies of science. 2is struggles with the highly fraught relation between cogniti"e and social analyses of science))or, if you will, with the #uestion of science and culture))now seem to me, from my "antage point as a professional in the business, little short of heroic. I illustrate with a story from 1345, when, with great pleasure (and considerable surprise), he recei"ed the +ernal *ward from the Society for the Social Studies of Science. 2is acceptance speech was entirely gracious. +ut in a published addendum to that speech, he was prodded into elaborating on his surprise. 2ere he openly complained! If Str&"t&re is a contribution to the sociology of science, then the core of that contribution has been missed or else denied by many of those who trace their own wor to it. -y concerns . . . ha"e indeed been sociological, but they ha"e also and inseparably been cogniti"e or epistemic. . . . 'hat is it about what scientists do, I ha"e been as ing, that ma es their output knowledge( 6 Tom's ambition was nothing less than a sociology of science that would truly be sociology of nowledge))that is, one that would explain ,the relation between the cogniti"e content of an older science and the content of its successor., 5 Such, after

all, was the aim of Str&"t&re/ but this ambition, he wrote regretfully, ,remains to be fulfilled. In most circles it is not, I fear, e"en recogni7ed., 8 Kuhn ne"er publicly expressed a %udgment about feminist studies of science, but it would not be difficult to infer that he had similar reser"ations here as well. In the years since 1345, feminist analyses ha"e been more or less integrated into science studies, and together, [End Page 1 ] these efforts ha"e significantly enlarged upon his "ision. &eminist analyses ha"e alerted historians and philosophers of science e"erywhere to the significance of gender/ and, in their turn to studies of scientific practice, science studies more generally ha"e gone a long way toward redressing the theory)centered myopia of Kuhn's entire generation. Indeed, as if to underscore these more recent de"elopments, one fre#uently hears the term post*/&hnian bandied about. +ut I suggest that we may all ha"e been too #uic to thin of oursel"es as ,post)Kuhnian., The problems that most troubled Kuhn remain largely unresol"ed! we ha"e yet to produce an account of the production of scientific nowledge that fully integrates the social, the material, and the cogniti"e/ if anything, that "ery goal seems to ha"e receded e"en further from "iew. 9art of my sadness at Kuhn's demise thus stems from a recognition of the ways in which our efforts to mo"e forward are li ely to be the poorer without his participation. *bo"e all, I lament the silencing of that "oice of conscience reminding us of the fundamental unanswered #uestion (his #uestion) that, as a discipline, we cannot afford to forget! 'hat is it about what scientists do that ma es their output knowledge( .assa"h&setts Instit&te of Te"hnology 8'elyn +ox /eller recei"ed her 9h.:. in theoretical physics at 2ar"ard ;ni"ersity, wor ed for a number of years at the interface of physics and biology, and is now 9rofessor of 2istory and 9hilosophy of Science in the 9rogram in Science, Technology, and Society at -IT. She is author of 1 +eeling for the -rganism2 The 9ife and :ork of 0ar!ara .";linto"k (San &rancisco, 1345)/5efle"tions on <ender and S"ien"e (<ale, 134=)/ Se"rets of 9ife, Se"rets of =eath2 8ssays on 9ang&age, <ender, and S"ien"e (>outledge, 1336)/ and, most recently, 5efig&ring 9ife2 .etaphors of Twentieth*;ent&ry 0iology ($olumbia ;ni"ersity 9ress, 133=). 2er current research is on the history and philosophy of de"elopmental biology.

!o"es
1. ?"elyn &ox Keller, ,@ender and Science,, (sy"hoanalysis and ;ontemporary Tho&ght 1 (September 13A4)! 8B3)855. 6. Thomas S. Kuhn, ,>eflections on >ecei"ing the Cohn :esmond +ernal *ward,, >S 5e'iew 1!8 (1345)! 6A.

5. Ibid., p. 64. 8. Ibid.