Sunday Speaker – Feminist Standpoint Theory, C.S. Peirce, and Infinite Games – Jordan Scott Davis

Sunday Speaker Topic: Feminist Standpoint Theory, C.S. Peirce, and Infinite Games - Jordan Scott Davis

James Carse offers a distinction between finite games and infinite games: finite games aim to end with a winner, whereas infinite games aim to keep play going. Richard Gilmore of Concordia College has recently used this distinction to differentiate philosophical views. Traditional theories of knowledge and knowing are often read as laying out victory conditions. This is epistemology as a finite game, what John Dewey called the Quest for Certainty. But we might instead understand epistemology as an infinite game: one of ongoing and potentially limitless revision, the creation of ever better questions, and a fundamentally communal rather than individualistic enterprise. This, I suggest, is the more humanistic path.

I want to offer two alternatives to traditional views and show the ways in which they converge. First, I will outline the project of feminist standpoint epistemology. Feminist standpoint epistemology is perhaps the most developed of the various standpoint theories. While its roots can be traced to Hegel and Marx, it has since developed into a diverse family of views concerned with a wide range of communities, experiences, and perspectives. Rather than surveying every variation, I will focus on its central commonalities and some of the motivations for adopting such an approach.

From there, I will turn to Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce was a nineteenth century philosopher, logician, chemist, astronomer, mathematician, and the founder of classical American pragmatism, whose collected writings are expected to fill roughly thirty volumes once fully published. I will cover the basic features of Peirce’s epistemology and show how his views converge with feminist standpoint theory while also providing additional conceptual resources. Finally, I will explain how these views, among others, can be understood as forms of infinite play. In doing so, I hope to encourage us to rethink our relationship to knowledge and to the world, and to consider the possibility of a genuinely humanistic epistemology.

Bio:

Jordan Davis is a lover of wisdom who attained their MA in philosophy at Colorado State University. They are a passionate educator who has been involved in teaching in one form or another for nearly 15 years. In their spare time, they enjoy practicing philosophy by writing on Substack and going to conferences, as well as engaging philosophically in various ways on social media.