If maureen ford's contribution("Situating Knowledges as Coalition Work," Educational Theory 57, no. 3, pp. 307-324) to the symposium "What Feminist Inquiry Contributes to Philosophy and the Philosophy of Education" is any indication, feminist inquiry has little or nothing to contribute to either philosophy or philosophy of education. On the contrary, Ford wants to hijack epistemology in the interests of her feminist agenda. More specifically, she wants to introduce various "epis-temic publics" that will engage in "coalition work" with other publics adhering to different "feminist epistemologies," all in the interests of gaining hegemony over current philosophy of education. For Ford this is to be accomplished in two steps: (1) redefine epistemology in terms of the "feminist epistemologies" of power and politics that will then serve to underwrite [2] her redefinition of knowledge as feminist "situated knowledges." Far from making any contribution to philosophy and philosophy of education, however, such redefinition and politicization of epistemology and knowledge debase both, rendering them little more than the means by which Ford hopes to achieve the goals of her feminist agenda.
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