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Longino received her PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1973. She published 2 major books: Science as Social Knowledge in 1990, The fate of knowledge in 2002. She also published influential papers such as Can There be a Feminist Science in 1987, Gender, politics, and the theoretical virtues in 1995 and Cognitive and non-cognitive values in science: Rethinking the dichotomy in 1996.
|Major Contributions=Longino believes in a form of '''contextual empiricism''' which views the epistemic justification itself as context dependent. Longino starts with the problem of '''underdetermination'''. [[CiteRef::Longino (Longino 1990) ]] For any set of observations, there are competing theories that can explain the observed state of affairs. There exists at least two hypotheses that are incompatible and supported by the data and the data itself does not rule out one of the two hypothesis. According to Longino, there exists at least some instances in our chain of justification concerning the theories such that there are no further justifications for using a certain assumption. (Longino, 2015) These '''background assumptions''' inform the scientists about which sort of observation can be used as evidence for a particular theory. They mediate questions such as which theory is to be accepted and which observations can be used as evidence to confirm a particular theory. (Longino, 1995) Longino uses the example of red spots in a girl. (Longino, 1979) It can be taken as evidence for measles or it can equally be used to confirm the hypothesis that the girl has a gastric ailment. What determines which hypothesis will be supported by the data is one’s background assumptions about the relationship between having measles and red spots or having gastric ailment and measles. (Longino, 1979) Thus, background assumptions about what red spot means will determine the hypothesis we will confirm through the empirical evidence of red spots.
Due to lacking further justification, background assumptions bring a form of relativism into science. (Longino, 1990) Without an objective or non-arbitrary means of determining the background assumptions, the influence of subjective and arbitrary background assumptions is inimical to the objective normative accounts of traditional philosophers of science. Non-inferentialist justification that is not based on infallible knowledge, which is practically impossible to attain, implies that there is enough room for arbitrary factors such as personal ideology to influence the choice of a particular background assumption or affect the use of a particular background assumption on confirmation. Longino criticizes this belief on the grounds that background assumptions lead to a form of relativism only if an individualist conception of scientific method and scientific knowledge is presupposed. (Longino 1990) She argues that a method of inquiry is “objective to the degree that it permits '''transformative criticism'''”. (Longino 1990) An '''epistemic community''' requires four conditions for having transformative criticism: (Longino, 1990)
