adequacy) be recognized as both revealing the partiality of those
models in use and as revealing some aspects of natural phenomena
and processes that the latter conceal. These alternative models may
have a variety of forms and a variety of motivations, and they need
not repudiate the aim of control. We engage in scientific inquiry to
direct our interactions with the interventions in the world. . . . If we
aim for effective action in the natural world, something is to be con-
trolled. The issue should be not whether but what and how. Rather
than repudiate it, we can set the aim of control within the larger
context of overall purposes and develop a more refined sense of the
varieties of control made possible through scientific inquiry.

A second consequence for feminist and other oppositional scien-
tists of adopting both the social knowledge thesis and a model-
theoretic analysis of theories is that the constructive task does not
consist in finding the one best or correct feminist model. Rather,
the many models that can be generated from the different subject
positions ought to be articulated and elaborated. Very few will be
exclusively feminist if that means exclusively gender-based or devel-
oped only by feminists. Some will be more appropriate for some
domains, others for others, and some for none. We can't know this
unless models get sufficiently elaborated to be used as guides for
interactions. Thus, this joint perspective implies the advocacy of
subcommunities characterized by local standard. To the extent that
they address a common domain and to the extent that they share
some standards in common, these subcommunities must be in crit-
ical dialogue with each other as well as with those subcommunities
identified with more mainstream science. The point of dialogue
from this point of view is not to produce a general and universal
consensus but to make possible the refinement, correction, rejec-
tion, and sharing of models. Alliances, mergers, and revisions of
standards as well as of models are all possible consequences of this
dialogic interaction.

Understanding scientific knowledge in this way supports at least
two further reflections on knowledge and power. First of all, the
need for models within which we can situate ourselves and the
interactions we desire with the natural world will militate against
the inclusiveness required for an adequate critical practice, if only

-277-