In her work, Longino discusses the social dimensions of scientific knowledge and the relations of social and cognitive values. She examines feminist and social epistemologies and their implications for scientific pluralism. Rather than suggesting that there is a distinctively female way of knowing, Longino emphasizes the idea of "doing epistemology as a feminist", an approach bringing with it an awareness of the many ways in which a question may be characterized. In her first book,
Science as Social Knowledge (1990), Longino argued for the relevance of
social values, or values which are part of the human context of science, to the justification of scientific knowledge as
objective. In her
contextual empiricism, she argues that observations and
data of the sort taken by scientists are not by themselves evidence for or against any particular
hypotheses. Rather, the relevance of any particular data for any given hypothesis is decided by human beliefs and assumptions about what kinds of data can support what kinds of hypotheses. Moreover, even when the relevance of evidence is decided, there remains a
logical gap between evidence and full justification of interesting
scientific theories (the traditional philosophical problem of
underdetermination of theories). This gap, too, must be bridged by beliefs and assumptions about legitimate reasoning in order for evidence to help us decide which hypotheses to accept as true. Fortunately, the use of diverse perspectives to criticize hypotheses can turn some of those hypotheses into scientific knowledge. Hypotheses become knowledge when they are subjected to scrutiny from diverse perspectives, especially by those with diverse beliefs and values. In contrast to those philosophers who would point to the two evidential gaps above to argue that science is not objective therefore, Longino argues that scrutiny by those with diverse values can instead support the objectivity of science. Accordingly, our values which do not immediately seem to have anything to do with science are crucial to the
objectivity of pieces of scientific knowledge, and science can be objective precisely because it is not value-free. From this viewpoint, dissent is important in testing the adequacy of our grounds for accepting a theory. Open critical dialogue within a community can potentially enable the community to overcome bias. To attain objectivity, science must permit and engage with "transformative criticism". Most recently, in
Studying Human Behavior: How Scientists Investigate Aggression and Sexuality (2013), Longino examines five scientific approaches to human aggression and sexuality in terms of their epistemological frameworks, the types of knowledge that they produce, and their pragmatic goals. She argues that different approaches begin from and build upon different causes, each of them producing partial knowledge about the subject. As such, they cannot be reduced to a single perspective. From her perspective in social epistemology, Longino argues that scientific research will be more useful as a guide to public policy makers if the plurality of different approaches to knowledge is acknowledged. Increasing awareness of the range of perspectives to be examined can benefit policy by more thoroughly informing decisions, and also encourage caution about too quickly adopting policy positions based on a limited perspective. Though her work on the nature of scientific knowledge is broadly
feminist in the sense that it argues for the value of contributions by diverse people (and accordingly the value of the contributions of women) to science, some of Longino's other work has been more explicitly feminist and concerned with women. For example, she has presented and analyzed alternative narratives of female and male-centered accounts of
human evolution, emphasizing the impact of gender-centered assumptions on the formation of theory. Beyond the study of knowledge, her writing has included the analysis of the nature of
pornography and the circumstances under which it is
morally problematic. ==Awards and honors==