FEMINIST RESEARCH METHODS A Content Analysis of Psychology and Social Science Textbooks

This research examined the extent to which research methods textbooks in psychology and general social science discuss feminist challenges and approaches to social science (N = 40 textbooks). Two dimensions were examined. First, within the "nonsexist" dimensions, textbooks were analyzed to determine if they used nonsexist language and if they discussed ways to avoid sexist bias in research. The second dimension was "profeminist." Within this dimension four subdomains receiving considerable attention from feminist researchers were explored: (a) epistemology (or "ways of knowing"); (b) objectivity and subjectivity; (c) the relationship between the researcher and the researched; and (d) qualitative versus quantitative methodologies. Results demonstrated that although the majority of the textbooks did not use sexist language, they did not move much beyond this standard. There was little discussion of feminist challenges to these research issues. When the textbook authors did mention these topics, their analyses were most often inconsistent with feminist approaches.     

Calling Solomon’s Bluff: Ethics,Aspect-Perception and the Unity of the Tractatus

In this paper, I consider how we ought to read the aspect-perception passages in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (TLP) in the light of its ethics. I engage with a recent proposal, of Genia Schönbaumsfeld's, that we should replace the TLP account of aspect-perception with that which Wittgenstein puts forward in the Philosophical Investigations (PI). I show that, far from helping us to grasp the ethical vision contained in the TLP, this proposal obscures it. I go on to draw some conclusions from this as to how to read the TLP in its relation to Wittgenstein's other work.