Sandra Harding

Harding worked between 1935 and 2025 across philosopher, university teacher, writer, publisher and feminist. This article rests on 18 published texts, 1 digitised documents and 48 scholarly references drawn from named institutional registers. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.

Sandra Harding studied at New York University. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is feminist philosophy, postcolonialism and epistemology. Employment is recorded with University of California, Los Angeles. Distinctions recorded are Jessie Bernard Award and John Desmond Bernal Prize.

• Region — Western philosophy • Era — 20th-century philosophy • Name — Sandra G. Harding • Born — 29 March 1935 • Died — 5 March 2025 • School Tradition — Feminist philosophy, post-colonialism • Main Interests — Epistemology, philosophy of science, standpoint theory • Notable Ideas — Strong objectivity, feminist epistemology

Sandra Harding received her undergraduate degree from Douglass College of Rutgers University in 1956. After 12 years working as legal researcher, editor, and fifth-grade math teacher in New York City and Poughkeepsie, N.Y., she returned to graduate school and earned a doctorate from the Department of Philosophy at UCLA in 1973. Harding's first university teaching job was at The Allen Center of the State University of New York at Albany, an experimental critical social sciences college which was "defunded" by the state of New York in 1976. She then joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Delaware, with a joint appointment to the Women's Studies Program. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 1979, and to full Professor in 1986. From 1981 until she left Delaware in 1996, she held a Joint Appointment to the Department of Sociology. She was Director of the Women's Studies Program at Delaware 1985–1991 and 1992–1993. From 1994 to 1996, she was Adjunct Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at UCLA on a half-time basis. In 1996, she was appointed Director of the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, which is a research institute. She held that position until 2000. Meanwhile, since 1996 she has been a Professor in the Graduate Department of Education and the Department of Gender Studies at UCLA. In 2012, she was appointed Distinguished Professor of Education and Gender Studies. From 2000 to 2005, she also was co-editor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. Harding held Visiting Professor appointments at the University of Amsterdam (1987), University of Costa Rica (1990), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) (1993), and the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok (1994). In 2011 she was appointed a Distinguished Affiliate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Michigan State University, East Lansing. She was a consultant to several United Nations organizations including the U.N. Commission on Science and Technology for Development, the Pan American Health Organization, UNESCO, and the U.N. Development Fund for Women. She was invited to co-edit a chapter of UNESCO's World Science Report 1996 on "The Gender Dimension of Science and Technology". This 56-page account was the first such attempt to bring gender issues in science and technology to such a global-scale and prestigious context. She was invited to contribute a chapter to UNESCO's World Social Science Report 2010 on "Standpoint Methodologies and Epistemologies: a Logic of Scientific Inquiry for People." Harding served on the editorial boards of numerous journals in the fields of philosophy, women's studies, science studies, social research methodology, and African philosophy. Phi Beta Kappa selected her as a national lecturer in 2007. She had lectured at more than 300 colleges, universities, and conferences in North America as well as in Central America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Her books, essays and book chapters have been translated into dozens of languages and reprinted in hundreds of anthologies.

Harding died on March 5, 2025, at the age of 89.

• 1973. "Feminism: Reform or Revolution?" Philosophical Forum (Boston) 5, 271–284 • 1979. "The Social Function of the Empiricist Conception of Mind," Metaphilosophy 10 (Jan 1), 38–47 • 1979. "Is the Equality of Opportunity Principle Democratic?" Philosophical Forum (Boston) 10 (Dec 1), 206–22 • 1982. "Is Gender a Variable in Conceptions of Rationality: A Survey of Issues," Dialectica, 36 (Jan 1): 225–42 • 1983. "Why Has the Sex/Gender System Become Visible Only Now," in Discovering Reality, ed. Sandra Harding and Merrill Hintikka • 1987. "The Method Question," Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 2, 19–35 • 1987. "The Curious Coincidence of Feminine and African Moralities," Women and Moral Theory, ed. Eva Feder Kittay and Diana Meyers • 1990. "Starting Thought From Women's Lives: Eight Resources for Maximizing Objectivity," Journal of Social Philosophy 21(2–3), 140–49 • 1990. "Feminism, Science, and the Anti-Enlightenment Critiques," in Feminism/Postmodernism, ed. Linda Nicholson, 83–106 • 1992. "After Eurocentrism? Challenges for the Philosophy of Science," PSA 1992 Vol. 2, 311–319 • 1993. "Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What Is 'Strong Objectivity'?" in Feminist Epistemologies, ed. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter • 1995. "'Strong Objectivity': A Response to the New Objectivity Question," Synthese, Vol. 104, No. 3, pp. 331–349 • 1998. "Women, Science, and Society," Science, New Series, Vol. 281, No. 5383 (Sep 11 1998), 1599–1600 • 2002. "Must the Advance of Science Advance Global Inequality?" International Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Summer), 87–105 • 2003. "How Standpoint Methodology Informs Philosophy of Social Science," in Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences • 2004. "A Socially Relevant Philosophy of Science? Resources from Standpoint Theory's Controversiality," Hypatia, Vol. 19, No. 1, 25–47 • 2005. "'Science and Democracy:' Replayed or Redesigned?" Social Epistemology, Vol. 19, No. 1, 5–18 • 2006. "Two Influential Theories of Ignorance and Philosophy's Interests in Ignoring Them," Hypatia, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Summer), 20–36 • 2007. "Modernity, Science, and Democracy," in Social Philosophy Today, Volume 22. Philosophy Documentation Center • 2008. "How Many Epistemologies Should Guide the Production of Scientific Knowledge?" Hypatia, Vol. 23, No. 4, 212–219 • 2009. "Postcolonial and Feminist Philosophies of Science and Technology," Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 12, No. 4, p. 410–429 • 2010. "Standpoint Methodologies and Epistemologies: A Logic of Scientific Inquiry for People," World Social Science Report 2010, 173–5 • 2012. "Objectivity and Diversity," in Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education, ed. James Banks • 2017. "Latin American Decolonial Studies: Feminist Issues," Feminist Studies, Vol. 43, No. 3, 624–636 • and Kathryn Norberg, 2005. "New Feminist Approaches to Social Science Methodologies: An Introduction," Signs, Vol. 30, No. 4, 2009–15

Sandra Harding was born on 29 March 1935 in San Francisco. Harding held the nationality of United States. Harding was educated at New York University, which Harding left in 1973. Harding worked as philosopher, university teacher, writer and publisher, and the authority record catalogues a further 1 occupations under the same name, among them feminist. Harding was employed by University of California, Los Angeles. Harding worked in English. Harding is placed by the collections within Western philosophy.

• The Science Question in Feminism, 1986. • Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?: Thinking from Women's Lives, 1991. • Is Science Multicultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies, 1998. • Science and Social Inequality: Feminist and Postcolonial Issues, 2006. • Sciences From Below: Feminisms, Postcolonialities, and Modernities, 2008. • Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research, 2015.

• 2013. Awarded John Desmond Bernal Prize of Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S). • 2012. Appointed Distinguished Professor of Education and Gender Studies. UCLA • 2011. Appointed Distinguished Affiliate Professor of Philosophy, Michigan State University, East Lansing • 2009. Received American Education Research Association (AERA) Award for Distinguished Contributions to Gender Equity in Education Research. • 2007–08. Appointed a Phi Beta Kappa National Lecturer. • 2007. Awarded The Douglass (College) Society Membership. • 2000–05 Co-editor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. • 1990 Woman Philosopher of the Year, Eastern Division Society for Women in Philosophy. • 1989. Elected to membership in Sigma Xi.