TASA 2001 Conference, The University of Sydney, 13-15 December 2001

The Origins of Standpoint Epistemologies:

Feminism, Marx and Lukacs

Bob Ellis
University of South Australia

Rodney Fopp
University of South Australia

Abstract
Feminist standpoint epistemologies has contributed to the understanding of marginal voices, particularly
as they have privileged and valorised the standpoint of women and other groups. This paper examines
the intellectual origins of the feminist standpoint position.

After outlining the perspective using Sandra Harding, Nancy Hartsock and Dorothy Smith, the paper
examines the influence of Lukacs on the feminist standpoint position. The paper then examines their
inheritance from Marx.

It is argued that while there are some similarities between Lukacs and the feminist standpoint position,
they have differing perspectives on the issues of labour, the reason for their rejection of western
rationalism and science, their respective theories of consciousness and the importance of ethics. Finally it
is argued that they have more in common with Marx particularly his view of labour. However, by
broadening labour to conflate Marxs distinction between subsistence labour and other human activity,
the standpoint epistemologists may have limited their own position unnecessarily.

Introduction
Feminist standpoint epistemologies have contributed enormously to the understanding of the
relationship between privileged knowledge and power, the critique of scientific knowledge and
the valorising of perspectives previously discounted. While not without criticism however
(largely for essentialising a position and privileging perspectives), the origins of standpoint are
infrequently examined.

The salient questions here are: Who are the theorists to whom the feminist standpoint
epistemologists refer? To what extent are the standpoint epistemologists dependent on their
intellectual forebears? What are the links between them? Is their analysis similar or dissimilar
to the earlier theorists? Is the standpoint epistemology adversely influenced by the position of
their intellectual antecedents? There are many other questions but the above suffice to
emphasise our interest in the origins of standpoint theorising.
2 Bob Ellis & Rodney Fopp

This paper briefly outlines the position of the feminist standpoint and then responds to
Jamesons claim that the feminist standpoint epistemologists1 show a close connection to
Lukacs (Jameson 1988: 66-71). It is argued that while there are agreements between Lukacs
and the standpoint theorists, particularly in relation to Lukacs critique of western rationalism
(including the positivistic sciences) and labour (Lukacs 1971: 110-149, 183-184), they are most
dependent on Marx. Yet even here, their reading of Marx may not be most conducive to the
position they advance. The paper now turns to a brief outline of the feminist standpoint
position.

Feminist standpoint epistemologies

Some of the most developed accounts of feminist epistemologies appear in the work of Nancy
Hartsock (1983, 1997), Dorothy Smith (1991) and Sandra Harding (1991,1993). Such feminists
are responding to a hierarchy of knowledges in the West and, in particular, those which
privilege the experiences and concomitant knowledges associated with men and discount the
experiences and corresponding knowledges associated with women. Thus, for example, the
dominant conceptions of scientific knowledge and technology, reason and paid, non-domestic
work are socially credited, while knowledge associated with nurturing children and elderly
people and domestic work are socially discredited.

The feminist standpoint epistemologists, inter alia, challenge this knowledge and experiential
hierarchy and begin by emphasising that attitudes, beliefs and values originate in the social
location or cultural experiences of a group or individual (Harding 1991). Although standpoint
epistemologies argue that all knowledge is socially located, they maintain that knowledge
gained from social locations outside or marginal to the socially dominant views challenge the
discourses and practices which legitimate the subjugation and marginalisation of others.

The justification for the feminist standpoints, which rejects the dominant conceptual framework
of western rationalism, is made on the grounds that certain experiences or social activity
provide a less partial and distorted account of the social realm (Harding 1991: 268, 284;
Harding 1995: 209-210; Harding 1993: 24), a more complete understanding (Hartsock 1983:
1, 116), a less partial and perverse understanding (Hartsock 1983: 1, 246) or an enlarged
understanding (Harding 1993: 24). In short, this is a form of knowing that can be relied on in
an ordinary or unproblematic way (Smith1990: 33 34) and which exposes the alienated
knowledge of the relations of the ruling. (Smith 1990: 28).

There, of are course, many questions which such statements evoke. For example, why does the
position from the margin provide a less distorted view? How can a standpoint from a minority
vantage lead to an enlarged understanding? However, the focus of this paper is to examine
antecedents rather than inquire into validity claims.

Yet even here there are some intriguing questions. As we shall see, the feminist standpoint
epistemologists invoke Marx and Lukacs. But we ask: what is it in Marx and Lukacs to which
they appeal? The feminist standpoint epistemologists refer to Lukacs' critique of western
science and rationalism, his emphasis on the standpoint of the proletariat, and consciousness.
They also appeal to Marx's analysis of work, and the standpoint of the proletariat. But while
invoking Marx and Lukacs, does their analysis square with what the latter were arguing?
Would an interpretation at variance with the feminist standpoint epistemologists augment or

1
Hereafter feminist standpoint epistemologists may be contracted to standpoint epistemologists or standpoint theorists. In all
cases, this paper refers to feminist epistemologies (unless otherwise stated).
The Origins of Standpoint Epistemologies: Feminism, Marx and Lukacs 3

facilitate their position. This paper attempts to address these questions (however briefly). The
paper now turns to an examination of Lukacs.

Lukacs and the standpoint

It is noteworthy that Jameson claims that the feminist standpoint theory was able to adapt the
central features of Lukacs analysis of reification (Jameson 1988: 66-71).2 Undoubtedly, there
is an obvious connection between the feminist standpoint theorists and Lukacs in that both
privilege a certain position. Another similarity involves the critique of western science and
notions of objectivity. However, there the similarities wane or, at least, the issues become more
complicated.

At first, work or labour may seem to be something that the standpoint theorists and Lukacs
share. In fact, we would argue that the issue is more complex. For the feminist standpoint
theorists labour, activity and practice are the grounds for the privileging of the standpoint of
women (1987: 65). For Lukacs, the perspective of the proletariat is valorised because the
worker becomes an object a thing. In this sense, workers are reified in the labour process as
they become conscious of themselves as an object. According to Lukacs, while the commodity,
the object, in bourgeoisie thought is a quantifiable thing, for the worker labour power structures
the very quality of their existence. The self-consciousness, the self-knowledge, of the workers
reveals that the social realm is structured in every aspect by this commodification (Lukacs 1971:
85, 86, 178) so that even a workers psychological attributes are separated from his total
personality (Lukacs 1971: 88). By becoming aware of itself as a commodity the proletariat
recognises itself as the object of the economic process (Lukacs 1971: 180), as the driving wheel
in the capitalist machine (Lukacs 1971: 187).

This leads to a second difference in emphasis between Lukacs and the standpoint theorists.
While both Lukacs and feminist standpoint theorists critique modern rationalist thought and
scientific epistemologies, the feminist standpoint objection is, inter alia, grounded in the
exclusion of women in the making of knowledge and culture, or the discounting of their real
contribution (Smith 1987: 117; Harding 1991: 138-163).

On this point, Lukacs rejection of western rationalistic and scientific epistemology is based on
the fragmentation of knowledge into spheres. This involved, in particular, the separation of
fact and value, and is and ought, which he regarded as the antimonies of bourgeois
thought and which, in turn, are reflected in the capitalist division of labour, in reality itself.
Within this context culture was fractured and represented by the isolated individual the total
loneliness of human workers.

A third difference in emphasis between Lukacs and the standpoint epistemologies relates to the
theory of consciousness. For the standpoint theorists consciousness (or self-knowledge or
awareness) is the result of an inversion of knowledge due to the diversity of places in the
production process, or different experiences yielding different perspectives. It may also be the
result of being excluded from the ruling culture.

For Lukacs, the salient issue is the workers self-knowledge that they are an object, an
awareness which is the driving the wheel of capitalism. According to Lukacs, this is an
objective possibility by which he means that:

2
Jameson claimed (1988: 66-71) that contemporary feminist standpoint theory was able to restore and make visible again the
central features of Lukacs socio-economic description of reification (1988: 66-68). He also holds that the feminist appropriation
of Lukacs allows for a productive and comparative inquiry into the epistemological potentialities of ... various groups... (1988: 67).
4 Bob Ellis & Rodney Fopp

it becomes possible to infer the thoughts and feelings which men would have in a particular
situation if they were able to assess both it and the interests arising from it in their impact on
immediate action and on the whole structure of society (Lukacs 1971 51).

Thus, for the standpoint theorists the issue is about their exclusion from the making of
knowledge and culture, whereas for Lukacs the standpoint rests on the workers awareness of
their object status.

A final difference between Lukacs and the feminist standpoint epistemologists concerns the
central role ethics played in Lukacs conception of the standpoint. While rarely used in the
feminist standpoint analysis, it is a major theme for Lukacs formulation of the standpoint. For
Lukacs class consciousness is the ethics of the proletariat (Lukacs 1971: 42), where ethics is
defined as praxis which, in turn, is the combination of theory and action, or theory and practice.
Praxis is the proletariats struggle for liberation or freedom which, for Lukacs, requires meeting
those needs beyond the physical. There may be, and some would say there is, at least an ethical
implication in the feminist standpoint position but it is largely under theorised. Lukacs,
however, always maintained the importance of ethics as praxis or action.

The feminist standpoint epistemologies and Marx

The different positions between the feminist standpoint theorists and Lukacs evoke the question:
if they agreed with Lukacs on the idea of a standpoint but have different emphases, is there a
theorist to whom they have a closer affiliation? The answer is Marx; the link is their
understanding of his view of labour. As Smith notes, once we have taken the momentous step
(beginning with what they understood to be Marxs definition of labour) we can begin to take
up the relation established by Marx (Smith 1987: 87). Marxs work is indispensable because
the adoption of the standpoint of the oppressed exposes the real relations between human
beings, because, as Hartsock noted:
material life not only structures but sets limits on understanding of social relations. If
material life is structured in fundamentally opposing ways for two different groups, one can
expect both that the vision of each will represent an inversion of the other and the vision of
the ruling class will be partial and perverse (1983:118).

Feminist standpoint theory contends that there are parallels

between the claims Marx makes for a knowledge based in the class whose labour produces
the conditions of existence for the ruling class, on the one hand, and the claims that can be
made for a knowledge of society from the standpoint of women, on the other (Smith 1987:
79, 81, 87, 144).

According to Smith, there are parallels between Marxs description of the work of the
proletariat and the experience of women, between labour and, for example, the work of women
as they keep house, bare and care for children, look after men when they are sick, provide for
logistics of their bodily existence and work in around professional and managerial scene in an
analogous way. (Smith 1987:83; Hartsock 1983: 231; 1983b: 291).

In short, womens lives, the sustaining activity of women, is seen as analogous to the labour of
the working class that sustains the lives of the ruling (Harding 1991: 123; 1995: 224-225;
Hartsock 1983: 231). Therefore, feminist standpoint theory is to be found in practical activity
itself sensuous human activity, practice (Hartsock 1983: 116-117). The concept of
praxis, or human work, defines what it is to be human (Hartsock 1983: 118-119; Smith 1987:
143-144, 80, 81, 165).
The Origins of Standpoint Epistemologies: Feminism, Marx and Lukacs 5

The origins of the concept of the proletarian standpoint to which feminist standpoint
epistemologies draw is most clearly visible in Marxs Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts
of 1844, the Contribution to The Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Law and The Holy Family.
However, while it might seem a quibble, the phrase proletarian standpoint or standpoint of
the proletariat is not found in these writings although it can be justifiably inferred.

Such phrases as the standpoint of the worker, standpoint of the non-worker (Marx 1975:
279) are found in Marxs works but so are such phrases as the middle class standpoint (Marx
1975: 186) the standpoint of political economy (Marx 1975, 4: 50), the standpoint of the
simple labour process (Marx 1979: 287, 998), the standpoint of the new is human society, or
associated humanity (Marx 1989: 15) and Critical Criticism is the standpoint (Marx 175, 4:
191).

Although Marx does not specifically employ the phrase the proletarian standpoint or standpoint
of the proletariat, it is a reasonable to equate such phrases as identified above with the notion of
the standpoint of the worker. However, the several uses of term cannot be ignored. Therefore
the question arises: What is distinctive about the standpoint of the worker from the other
standpoints to which Marx alludes? The answer to this lies in the epistemological significance
Marx attributes to workers labour.

Marx derives the epistemological significance from Hegels conception of labour as mans act
of self-genesis (Marx 1975, 3: 342). For Marx, the world is nothing but the creation of man
through human labour, nothing but the emergence of nature for man so he has visible,
irrefutable proof of his birth through himself, of his genesis (Marx 1975, 3: 305).

According to Marx, Hegels positive achievementin his speculative logic, is that the definite
concepts, the universal fixed thought-forms in their independence vis--vis nature and mind are
the necessary result of the general estrangement of the human being and therefore also of human
thought (Marx 1975, 3: 343). While this estrangement is the same for the propertied class
and the class of the proletariat the former
class feels at ease and strengthened in this self-estrangement, it recognises estrangement as its
own power, and has in it the semblance of a human existence. The later feels annihilated in
estrangement; it sees in it its own powerlessness and the reality of an inhuman existence
(Marx 1975, 4: 36).

From the brief discussion of the notion of the standpoint and the central category that labour
performs in Marxs work, feminist standpoint theory seems to be on firm ground when adopting
Marxs concepts of work, experience, activities and practices, and ensuing knowledges of
women. However, a reading of Marx and Engels work does question how far this analogy can
be taken. There seems to be sufficient evidence to suggest that Marx does not equate labour
with work, sensuous activity, experience or practice as do the feminist standpoint theorists.

Marx clearly defined labour as estranged practical activity (Marx and Engels 1975, 3: 275
277). Similarly he suggests that free activity, productive life itself is reduced under capitalism
to labour and becomes merely a means of satisfying the need to maintain physical existence
(Marx and Engels 1975, 3: 276). The distinction between labour and work is defined more
sharply in Capital by the statement that activity which creates use values and is qualitatively
determined is called work as opposed to labour which creates value and is only measured
quantitatively (Marx and Engels 1976, 1: 138). Further, work is defined as purposive activity
(Marx and Engels 1976, 1: 284), which has as its aim the production of use-values (Marx and
Engels 1976, 1: 290). However, under capitalism work as the personal activity of the worker
which creates value becomes value alienated from the worker (Marx and Engels 1976, 1: 988).
6 Bob Ellis & Rodney Fopp

It seems that Marx and Engels intended to make clear a distinction between work as purposive
or free activity which creates use-value, on the one hand, and labour which is estranged, alien
and therefore creates values alien to the worker, on the other. Within this context labour
satisfies merely the need of physical existence or the workers need to the barest and most
miserable level of physical subsistence which, according to Marx, is not the true satisfaction
of a need at all but rather merely a means to satisfy needs external to it (Marx and Engels
1975, 3: 275).

In Marx and Engels discussion of the distinction between labour and work or practical human
activity there also appears the accompanying concept of need. It is by paying attention to the
concept of need that the reason for the distinction becomes clear. Marx had at least two
conceptions of need. The first are those needs that he considered are required for the physical
existence of the worker and may be termed immediate needs (Marx and Engels 1975, 4: 52) or
bodily needs (Marx and Engels 1975, 3: 242).

The second are those needs which are external to such needs and may be defined as those needs
required by human beings (Marx and Engels 1975: 4, 52). In order to attain those needs most
required by human beings people must break their bondage to their bodily needs - they must
cease to be slaves of the body. They must, above all, have time at there disposal for spiritual
creative activity and enjoyment (Marx1975: 3, 243). For Marx the needs of the human being,
the needs of the species being - its character - is the need for free, conscious activity (Marx
and Engels 1975: 3, 275). In this context labour can only be transformed into rich living
sensuous activity by the proletariat becoming conscious of the abstract and estranged nature of
labour. For Marx, where labour determined by necessity and external expediency ends, the
realm of freedom really begins (Marx 1981: 3, 958-959).

Conclusion
This paper aimed to examine the origins of the feminist standpoint epistemologies. The main
concern has not been about the validity of the standpoint epistemologies in general, and the
feminist standpoint theory in particular. The analysis has shown the intellectual debt of the
standpoint theorists to both Lukacs and Marx from which the following conclusions are drawn.

Firstly, the standpoint theorists draw on the legacy of both Lukacs and Marx. Both use the
concept of the standpoint; both privilege their respective standpoints. Secondly, in both cases
the relationship to Lukacs and Marx and the standpoint theorists is more complex than might
first appear.

In relation to Lukacs, the feminist standpoint theorists certainly use the term the standpoint of
women in a similar way to the standpoint of the proletariat used by Lukacs. However, they
depart from Lukacs over their understanding of, and emphasis on, labour. As outlined, Lukacs
did not emphasise labour and work as such but the reification of workers. Unlike Lukacs, and
following Marx, the feminists standpoint theorists emphasised the actual labour of women
which resulted in their unique perspective. Here the feminist standpoint theorists are indebted
to Marx.

But an interesting facet of this inheritance is that their view of labour is actually at variance with
Marxs analysis. In essence, Marx made a distinction between labour, which was necessitated
by the needs of subsistence, and activity, which was not reduced to such labour and met other
needs. In not making the same distinction the feminist standpoint epistemologists seem to have
neglected a conceptual distinction which may have been used to advance their cause.
The Origins of Standpoint Epistemologies: Feminism, Marx and Lukacs 7

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