Epistemological Turns in Science: Anti-Cartesian Manifestations in Woman on the Edge of Time and “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Susan Bordo observes that in the Seventeenth century, under the influence of the French philosopher and scientist Rene Descartes, science undergoes a process of masculinization. The process finds its ultimate manifestation in modernism and its globalization claims. Sandra Harding, an American philosopher of science calls for an anti- Cartesian standpoint in science so as to overcome the shortcomings of objectivity in the received view of science. She contends that claims of neutrality in science have made an obstacle in the way of conception of objectivity and the phenomenon has reversely obstructed the science way forward. In her book The Science Question in Feminism (1986) Harding appreciates Marge Piercy s novel Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) and credits it as a book which provides a better intuitive grasp of the theory . Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the famous American novelist and writer of the appreciated The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), together with Marge Piercy, target the shortcomings of objectivity in science. Their literary works depict the biases of the gendered science and consequently deflate the concept of neutrality. In this paper, I trace the biased notions of science in the mentioned two literary works, applying Bordo and Harding s ideas regarding epistemological standpoint.