Resurgence of Feminist philosophy
Number of feminist philosophy of religions attempt to radicalize religious thought and push up it forward. They challenge the bias and conservative claims about religious truth and move by liberated and proposed an alternative epistemology to understand women in religious term.
Traditional religious epistemology recognize four sources of epistemology; revelation, tradition, experience and reason. Jantzen argues that all rooted by masculine thinking, and because it traditional religious knowledge depict God in overwhelmingly masculine views. The religious literature of Judaism, Christianity and Islam has been written by men. Religion was dominated by men, all prophets are men. In Christianity inferred to ubiquitous teaching on subordination of women, and enactment of this teaching in celestial structures. Aftermath of that epistemology in religious knowledge is bias gender, men placed in superior possession and women vice versa. Therefore, feminist philosophies require replacing that traditional epistemology with new one.
Feminist theology and feminist philosophy of religion see that the root of unequal gender is because women have no authorities to interpret themselves. Women see themselves under oppressed of men strength. Women are object, and men are subject. Whereas, women have different experiences that it unique, and it not equal even superb than men. Experience is very important in religion, because it to involve spiritual meaning of scriptures. Wiliam James concedes that a religious experience is genuine source of religious knowledge. Thus, acknowledgement to women religious experience means confess women knowledge. Feminist philosophies see that one way to liberate women from the epistemological oppression.
Victoria S. Harrison, one of the Feminist philosophies, proposes three kind theories to understand and to liberate women from gender biases of interpretation; that is empiric epistemology, stand point theory, and feminist postmodernism. Empiric epistemology try to discover stable ground for feminist epistemology that at last will be better than traditional epistemology. Lukacs states that all knowledge is product of interaction between a knowing subject and the world. Knowledge is inevitably shaped by social context of the knowing subject. Thus, truth is product from the interaction from subject and social and cultural context. The truth is not justified by it correspondent to the reality, rather because by it coherence with another warranted statement. However, religious concept is primarily symbol and metaphor that have projected by self consciousness. If empirically women experience is privilege, it mean superior for male self-consciousness. Second, stand point theory related women concrete experience of discrimination and repression in the genuine female point view or authentic experience of women. It also justify that all women religious experience and give advantage to judge all knowledge claims. The next feminist postmodernism, it has similar spirit with feminist philosophy to deconstruct the traditional epistemology. Postmodernism is skeptical toward the idea of universal basis of reason, science, progress, or even subject. Gender are seen as social and linguistic construction, limited in time and space, that is, determined by existing ideas and conception about what ‘man’ and ‘woman’ mean, and by the social and discursive practices which create gender. Thus the different combination and or syntheses of the three approaches do occur, not least contemporary practical, qualitative empirical research.
Women are inherently equal with men. The emergence of gender movement in philosophy deployed to an awareness that our realities today, women not acknowledge all their existences. I think, their epistemology is still debatable, but however, women are part of men life, nobody could life without another.[]
