More Power to Argument

Gudrun-Axeli Knapp’s “More Power to Argument” comments on Sylvia Walby’s critique of the politics of difference and of relativist tendencies in feminist theory. Knapp agrees with the general need for argument, but her response is not a simple endorsement. She examines the architecture of Walby’s text and asks whether it clearly connects three different levels: epistemology, moral and political theory, and practical politics. Without those distinctions, a defense of argument can move too quickly between standards of knowledge and strategies for collective action.

The published abstract identifies three specific criticisms. Knapp questions Walby’s use of the Habermasian idea of argumentation, finds the term “difference” employed inconsistently, and challenges the way theoretical positions are organized into oppositions. Her method is reconstructive: she supplies some of the theoretical backgrounds of the debates Walby invokes so that positions can be compared more precisely. The title therefore works in two directions—more power to rigorous argument, but also more attention to the power relations and conceptual choices within an argument.

This essay is a valuable reminder that rejecting relativism does not settle what counts as a good universal claim. Terms must remain stable enough to do analytical work, and theories should be criticized in their strongest forms rather than as convenient binaries. Read with Walby’s reply and the responses by Phoenix and Felski, Knapp models disagreement as clarification. Feminist solidarity does not require vagueness or forced consensus; it requires arguments whose assumptions, scales, and political consequences can be inspected by those asked to act upon them.