Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T17:14:54.417Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

EPISTEMIC INJUSTICE IN THE SPACE OF REASONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Matthew Congdon
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, I make explicit some implicit commitments to realism and conceptualism in recent work in social epistemology exemplified by Miranda Fricker and Charles Mills. I offer a survey of recent writings at the intersection of social epistemology, feminism, and critical race theory, showing that commitments to realism and conceptualism are at once implied yet undertheorized in the existing literature. I go on to offer an explicit defense of these commitments by drawing from the epistemological framework of John McDowell, demonstrating the relevance of the metaphor of the “space of reasons” for theorizing and criticizing instances of epistemic injustice. I then point out how McDowell’s own view requires expansion and revision in light of Mills' concept of “epistemologies of ignorance.” I conclude that, when their strengths are used to make up for each others' weaknesses, Mills and McDowell’s positions mutually reinforce one another, producing a powerful model for theorizing instances of systematic ignorance and false belief.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 75 - 93
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alcoff, L. M. 2007. ‘Epistemologies of Ignorance: Three Types.’ In Sullivan, S. & Tuana, N. (eds), Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, pp. 39–58. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Alcoff, L. M. 2010. ‘Epistemic Identities.’ Episteme, 7: 128–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aristotle, . 1984. The Complete Works of Aristotle, Barnes, J. (ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bohman, J. (ed.). 2011. ‘Special Issue: Epistemic Injustice.’ Social Epistemology, 25: 145–261.Google Scholar
Brandom, R. 1994. Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Brandom, R. 2000. Articulating Reasons: An Introduction to Inferentialism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, W. 1995. ‘Postmodern Exposures, Feminist Hesitations.’ In States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity, pp. 30–51. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cormier, H. 2007. ‘Ever Not Quite: Unfinished Theories, Unfinished Societies, and Pragmatism.’ In Sullivan, S. & Tuana, N. (eds), Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, pp. 59–76. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Crary, A. 2001. ‘A Question of Silence: Feminist Theory and Women's Voices.’ Philosophy, 76: 371–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crary, A. 2006. Beyond Moral Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. 1974. ‘On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme.’ Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 47: 5–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, D. 1989. ‘A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge.’ In LePore, Ernest (ed.), Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. 1986. Writings, Huggins, N. (ed.). New York, NY: The Library of America.Google Scholar
Fricker, M. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fricker, M. 2010. ‘Replies to Alcoff, Goldberg, and Hookway on Epistemic Injustice.’ Episteme, 7: 164–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricker, M. 2013. ‘How is Hermeneutical Injustice Related to ‘White Ignorance’?’ Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2: 49–53.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. I. (ed.). 2010. ‘Book Symposium: Miranda Fricker's Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing.’ Episteme, 7: 128–78.Google Scholar
Haslanger, S. 2012. ‘Ideology, Generics, and Common Ground.’ In Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. 1977. Phenomenology of Spirit, Miller, A. V. (trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ibarra, A. (ed.) 2008. ‘Forum on Miranda Fricker's Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing.’ Theoria, 23: 69–86.Google Scholar
Jaeggi, R. 2009. ‘Rethinking Ideology.’ In de Bruin, B. and Zurn, C. (eds), New Waves in Political Philosophy, pp. 63–86. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kukla, R. 2000. ‘Myth, Memory, and Misrecognition in Sellars’ ‘Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind’.’ Philosophical Studies, 101: 161–211.Google Scholar
Mason, R. 2011. ‘Two Kinds of Unknowing.’ Hypatia, 26: 294–307.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. 1996. Mind and World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. 1998a. Mind, Value, and Reality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. 1998b. ‘Some Issues in Aristotle's Moral Psychology.’ In Mind, Value, and Reality, pp. 23–49. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. 1998c. ‘Values and Secondary Qualities.’ In Mind, Value, and Reality, pp. 131–50. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. 1998d. ‘Two Sorts of Naturalism.’ In Mind, Value, and Reality, pp. 167–97. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. 2009a. ‘On Pippin's Postscript.’ In Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars, pp. 185–203. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. 2009b. ‘Sellars on Perceptual Experience.’ In Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars, pp. 3–22. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. 2009c. ‘Why Is Sellars’ Essay Called ‘Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind’?’ In Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars, pp. 221–38. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Medina, J. 2013. The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and Resistant Imaginations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mills, C. 1997. The Racial Contract. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Mills, C. 1998. ‘Alternative Epistemologies.’ In Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race, pp. 21–40. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Mills, C. 2007. ‘White Ignorance.’ In Sullivan, S. & Tuana, N. (eds), Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, pp. 11–38. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Pippin, R. 2005. ‘Postscript: On McDowell's Response to ‘Leaving Nature Behind’.’ In The Persistence of Subjectivity: On the Kantian Aftermath, pp. 206–20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pohlhaus, G. 2012. ‘Relational Knowing and Epistemic Injustice: Toward a Theory of Willful Hermeneutical Injustice.’ Hypatia, 27: 715–35.Google Scholar
Railton, P. 1997. ‘Moral Realism.’ In Darwall, S., Gibbard, A. & Railton, P. (eds), Moral Discourse and Practice: Some Philosophical Approaches, pp. 137–63. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sellars, W. 1997. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Spelman, E. 2007. ‘Managing Ignorance.’ In Sullivan, S. & Tuana, N. (eds), Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, pp. 119–31. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Sullivan, S. and Tuana, N. (eds) 2007. Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, C. 1985a. ‘What Is Human Agency?’ In Human Agency and Language: Philosophical Papers I, pp. 15–44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, C. 1985b. ‘Language and Human Nature.’ In Human Agency and Language: Philosophical Papers I, pp. 214–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, M. 2008. ‘The Representation of Life.’ In Life and Action: Elementary Structures of Practice and Practical Thought, pp. 25–82. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar