Second thoughts

Abstract

The authors - the co-editors of this volume - reflect on issues raised in the earlier chapters and convey their resultant insights. Ruitenberg opens by reflecting that the earlier chapters might have “fallen short” in the amount of attention they paid to culture, and when they have turned to address it, they have focused upon ethnicity. But there are other cultures (in the C. P. Snow sense of the term) that sometimes claim to have their own epistemologies - the arts being the prominent example. These do not produce propositional knowledge but rather (as some claim) aim to “enhance perspectives," and they allow for non-prose modes of representation. Ruitenberg is sympathetic to this, but concludes that without, for example, explicit formulation and testing of knowledge-claims, it is not yet clear that this is epistemology. Phillips uses Ruitenberg’s discussion as his launching place and argues more strongly that it is a mistake to regard the arts as being producers of knowledge - a skeptical conclusion he extends to multicultural epistemology. There can be alternative paths within epistemology but not alternative epistemologies. To hold that there are “alternative epistemologies” associated with different cultural groups (or with the arts community) probably indicates that those concerned misunderstand the nature of epistemology; they are arguing in support of important educational programs and ideals in a misleading manner.