Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T06:07:24.526Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Harms and Wrongs in Epistemic Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2018

Simon Barker ,
Charlie Crerar  and
Trystan S. Goetze
Simon Barker*
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
Charlie Crerar*
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Trystan S. Goetze*
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
*
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This volume has its roots in two recent developments within mainstream analytic epistemology: a growing recognition over the past two or three decades of the active and social nature of our epistemic lives; and, more recently still, the increasing appreciation of the various ways in which the epistemic practices of individuals and societies can, and often do, go wrong. The theoretical analysis of these breakdowns in epistemic practice, along with the various harms and wrongs that follow as a consequence, constitutes an approach to epistemology that we refer to as non-ideal epistemology. In this introductory chapter we introduce and contextualise the ten essays that comprise this volume, situating them within four broad sub-fields: vice epistemology, epistemic injustice, inter-personal epistemic practices, and applied epistemology. We also provide a brief overview of several other important growth areas in non-ideal epistemology.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 84: Harms and Wrongs in Epistemic Practice , November 2018 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2018 

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

1 The distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory in political theory is typically traced to Rawls’, John A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972)Google Scholar. Mills, Charles W. offers a powerful defence of the significance of non-ideal theory within political philosophy in his ‘“Ideal Theory” as Ideology’, Hypatia 20 (2005), 165–184Google Scholar.

2 Battaly, Heather, ‘Virtue Epistemology’, Philosophy Compass 3 (2008), 639–663CrossRefGoogle Scholar; John Turri, Mark Alfano, and John Greco, ‘Virtue Epistemology’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/epistemology-virtue/>.

3 Some relatively early exceptions to virtue epistemology's focus on the positive include: Swank, Casey, ‘Epistemic Vice’, in Axtell, Guy (ed.) Knowledge, Belief, and Character: Readings in Contemporary Virtue Epistemology (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 195–204Google Scholar; Fricker, Miranda, Epistemic Injustice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For discussion of why vice has been overlooked in the virtue epistemological literature, see Charlie Crerar, ‘Motivational Approaches to Intellectual Vice’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy (Forthcoming).

4 A further, arguably related, non-ideal approach to virtue epistemology is represented by the situationist challenge, which employs psychological evidence to argue that true epistemic virtues are, in fact, vanishingly rare. See, for example, Alfano, Mark, Character as Moral Fiction (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Olin, Lauren and Dorris, John M., ‘Vicious Minds’, Philosophical Studies 168 (2014), 665–692CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fairweather, Abrol and Alfano, Mark (eds.), Epistemic Situationism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Cassam, Quassim, ‘Vice Epistemology’, The Monist 99 (2016), 159–180CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other prominent works in vice epistemology include: Battaly, Heather, ‘Epistemic Virtue and Vice: Reliabilism, Responsibilsm, and Personalism’ in Mi, Chienkuo, Slote, Michael, and Sosa, Ernest (eds.), Moral and Intellectual Virtues in Chinese and Western Philosophy: The Turn Towards Virtue (New York, NY: Routledge, 2016), 99–120Google Scholar; Kidd, Ian James, ‘Charging Others with Epistemic Vice’, The Monist 99 (2016), 181–197CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tanesini, Alessandra, ‘“Calm Down Dear”: Intellectual Arrogance, Silencing, and Ignorance’, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 90 (2016), 71–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Cassam, Quassim, ‘Vice Ontology’, Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 6 (2017), 20–27, at 20Google Scholar.

7 Battaly, Heather, ‘Can Closed-Mindedness be an Intellectual Virtue?’, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 84 (2018), 23Google Scholar.

8 Battaly, ‘Can Closed-Mindedness be an Intellectual Virtue?’, 29.

9 Tanesini, Alessandra, ‘Caring for Esteem and Intellectual Reputation: Some Epistemic Benefits and Harms’, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 84 (2018), 49Google Scholar.

10 Tanesini, ‘Caring for Esteem and Intellectual Reputation’, 53.

11 Dotson, Kristie, ‘Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression’, Social Epistemology 28 (2014), 115–38, at 115CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Examples of early articulations of this kind of idea are found in Frye, Marilyn, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (Berkeley, CA: The Crossing Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Lorde, Audre, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, (Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in Nelson, C. & Grossberg, L. (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 271–313CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Collins, Patricia Hill, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2009), 1st ed. published 1991Google Scholar; Code, Lorraine, Rhetorical Spaces: Essays on Gendered Locations (London: Routledge, 1995)Google Scholar; Mills, Charles W., The Racial Contract (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Lugones, María, Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition Against Multiple Oppressions (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003)Google Scholar. Types of epistemic oppression other than epistemic injustice have been discussed in, for example, Dotson, Kristie, ‘Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing’, Hypatia 26 (2011), 236–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Medina, José, The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and Resistant Imaginations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berenstain, Nora, ‘Epistemic Exploitation’, Ergo 3 (2016), 569–90Google Scholar.

12 For a comprehensive overview of work on epistemic injustice, see Kidd, Ian James, Medina, José, and Pohlhaus, Gaile (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice (London: Routledge, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Fricker, Epistemic Injustice, 1.

14 See also Wanderer, Jeremy, ‘Addressing Testimonial Injustice: Being Ignored and Being Rejected’, Philosophical Quarterly 62 (2012), 148–169CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pohlhaus, Gaile, ‘Discerning the Primary Epistemic Harm in Cases of Testimonial Injustice’, Social Epistemology 28 (2014), 99–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Davis, Emmalon, ‘Typecasts, Tokens, and Spokespersons: A Case for Credibility Excess as Testimonial Injustice’ Hypatia 31 (2016), 485–501CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 See also Mason, Rebecca, ‘Two Kinds of Unknowing’, Hypatia 26 (2011), 294–307CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Crerar, Charlie, ‘Taboo, Hermeneutical Injustice, and Expressively Free Environments’, Episteme 13 (2016), 195–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goetze, Trystan S., ‘Hermeneutical Dissent and the Species of Hermeneutical Injustice’, Hypatia 33 (2018), 73–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Pohlhaus, Gaile, ‘Relational Knowing and Epistemic Injustice: Toward a Theory of Willful Hermeneutical Ignorance’, Hypatia 27 (2012), 715–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dotson, Kristie, ‘A Cautionary Tale: On Limiting Epistemic Oppression’, Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies 33 (2012), 24–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Coady, David, ‘Two Concepts of Epistemic Injustice’, Episteme 7 (2012), 101–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hookway, Christopher, ‘Some Varieties of Epistemic Injustice: Reflections on Fricker’, Episteme 7 (2010), 151–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Kotzee, Ben, ‘Educational Justice, Epistemic Justice, and Leveling Down’, Educational Theory 63 (2013), 331–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jenkins, Katharine, ‘Rape Myths and Domestic Abuse Myths as Hermeneutical Injustices’, Journal of Applied Philosophy 34 (2017), 191–205CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Teri Merrick, ‘From “Intersex” to “DSD”: A Case of Epistemic Injustice’, Synthese (forthcoming).

18 Grasswick, Heidi, ‘Understanding Epistemic Trust Injustices’, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 84 (2018), 69Google Scholar.

19 Bailey, Alison, ‘On Anger, Silence, and Epistemic Injustice’, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 84 (2018), 93Google Scholar.

20 See Lugones, Pilgrimages/Pereginajes.

21 For a snapshot of the debate on disagreement, see Feldman, Richard and Warfield, Ted (eds.), Disagreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Christensen, David & Lackey, Jennifer (eds.), The Epistemology of Disagreement: New Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For work on disagreement with and between groups, see Carter, J. Adam, ‘Group Peer Disagreement’, Ratio 27 (2016), 11–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frances, Bryan, Disagreement (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014)Google Scholar; Mattias Skipper and Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen, ‘Group Disagreement: A Belief Aggregation Perspective’, Synthese (forthcoming); Christensen, David, ‘Disagreement and Public Controversy’, in Lackey, Jennifer (ed.), Essays in Collective Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 143–163Google Scholar. For work on deep disagreement, where disagreements in belief can be explained by underlying differences in the norms, principles, and commitments that shape the disputant's epistemic practices, see Kappel, Klemens, ‘The Problem of Deep Disagreement’, Discipline Filosofiche 22 (2012), 7–25Google Scholar; Lynch, Michael P., ‘Epistemic Circularity and Epistemic Disagreement’, in Haddock, Adrian, Millar, Alan and Pritchard, Duncan (eds.), Social Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 262–277CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Alvin Goldman, ‘Epistemic Relativism and Reasonable Disagreement’, in Feldman & Warfield (eds.), Disagreement 187–215. Four examples of recent work taking the debate in new directions are De Cruz, Helen and De Smedt, John, ‘The Value of Epistemic Disagreement in Scientific Practice: The Case of Homo Floresiensis’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 44 (2013), 169–177CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Faulkner, Paul, ‘Agency and Disagreement’, in Reider, Patrick (ed.), Social Epistemology and Epistemic Agency: Decentralizing the Epistemic Agent (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 75–90Google Scholar; Matheson, Jonathan, ‘Disagreement and the Ethics of Belief’, in Collier, James H. (ed.), The Future of Social Epistemology: A Collective Vision (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 139–147Google Scholar; Peter, Fabienne, ‘The Epistemic Circumstances of Democracy’, in Fricker, Miranda and Brady, Michael (eds.), The Epistemic Life of Groups (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 133–149CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 For a summary of the debate on testimony, see Lackey, Jennifer, ‘Testimonial Knowledge’, in Bernecker, Sven and Pritchard, Duncan (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology (New York: Routledge, 2011), 316–325Google Scholar. Recently, a number of robustly inter-personal accounts of testimony have been forwarded, including Moran, Richard, The Exchange of Words: Speech, Testimony, and Intersubjectivity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Faulkner, Paul, Knowledge on Trust (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goldberg, Sanford, Relying on Others: An Essay in Epistemology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also more general discussion of the inter-personal nature of trust, including: Baier, Annette, ‘Trust and Antitrust’, Ethics 96 (1986), 231–260CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Faulkner, Paul, ‘The Practical Rationality of Trust’, Synthese 191 (2014), 1975–1989CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Holton, Richard, ‘Deciding to Trust, Coming to Believe’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 72 (1994), 63–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hawley, Katherine, ‘Partiality and Prejudice in Trusting’, Synthese 191 (2014), 2029–2045CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jones, Karen, ‘Trust as an Affective Attitude’, Ethics 107 (1996), 4–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 For other recent work on the public problem of disagreement, see Jennifer Lackey, ‘The Duty to Object’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (forthcoming); Johnson, Casey Rebecca (ed.), Voicing Dissent: The Ethics and Epistemology of Making Disagreement Public, (New York: Routledge, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Bailey, Olivia, ‘On Empathy and Testimonial Trust’ Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 84 (2018), 139Google Scholar.

25 Olivia Bailey, ‘On Empathy and Testimonial Trust’, 149.

26 Hanna Gunn and Michael P. Lynch, ‘Google Epistemology’, in David Coady (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Applied Epistemology (New York: Routledge, Forthcoming); Heersmink, Richard, ‘A Virtue Epistemology of the Internet’, Social Epistemology 32 (2018), 1–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Rini, Regina, ‘Fake News and Partisan Epistemology’, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 27 (2017) 43–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gelfert, Axel ‘Fake News: A Definition’, Informal Logic 38 (2018), 84–117CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Gardiner, Georgi, ‘In Defence of Reasonable Doubt’, Journal of Applied Philosophy 34 (2017), 221–241CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 For more contributions to applied epistemology, see: Coady, David, What To Believe Now: Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)Google Scholar; Coady, David and Fricker, Miranda (eds.), Special Issue on Applied Epistemology, Social Epistemology 34 (2017)Google Scholar; Coady, David and Chase, James (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Applied Epistemology (New York: Routledge, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Cassam, Quassim, ‘The Epistemology of Terrorism and Radicalisation‘, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 84 (2018), 188Google Scholar.

31 Cassam, ‘The Epistemology of Terrorism and Radicalisation’, 199.

32 See, for instance, Coady, David (ed.), Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006)Google Scholar; Dentith, Matthew, The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)Google Scholar; Feldman, Susan, ‘Counterfact Conspiracy Theories’, International Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (2011), 15–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; M. R. X. Dentith and Brian Keeley. ‘The applied epistemology of conspiracy theories: An overview’ in Coady and Chase (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Applied Epistemology.

33 Harris, Keith, ‘What's epistemically wrong with conspiracy theorising?’, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 84 (2018), 249Google Scholar.

34 Harris, ‘What's epistemically wrong with conspiracy theorising?’, 255.

35 See, for example, Kitcher, Philip, Science, Truth, and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kourany, Janet A., ‘A Philosophy of Science for the Twenty-First Century’, Philosophy of Science 70 (2003), 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Plaisance, Kathryn and Fehr, Carla (eds.), Special Issue: Making Philosophy of Science More Socially Relevant, Synthese 177 (2010), 301–492Google Scholar; McHugh, Nancy Arden, The Limits of Knowledge: Generating Pragmatist Feminist Cases for Situated Knowing (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2015)Google Scholar.

36 Fehr, Carla and Plaisance, Kathryn, ‘Socially Relevant Philosophy of Science: An Introduction’, Synthese 177 (2010), 301–316CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 For a recent collection discussing this and related questions, see Peels, Rik and Blaauw, Martijn (eds.), The Epistemic Dimensions of Ignorance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 See, among others, Smith, Holly M., ‘Culpable Ignorance’, The Philosophical Review 92 (1983), 543–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosen, Gideon, ‘Culpability and Ignorance’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103 (2003), 61–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sher, George, Who Knew? Responsibility Without Awareness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 An exception is Peels, Rik, ‘What Kind of Ignorance Excuses? Two Neglected Issues’, Philosophical Quarterly 64 (2014), 478–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Mills, Charles W., The Racial Contract (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997)Google Scholar. See also Tuana, Nancy and Sullivan, Shannon (eds.), Special Issue: Feminist Epistemologies of Ignorance, Hypatia 21 (2006)Google Scholar; Sullivan, Shannon and Tuana, Nancy (eds.), Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

41 See also Townley, Cynthia, A Defence of Ignorance: Its Value for Knowers and Roles in Feminist and Social Epistemologies (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2011)Google Scholar.

42 See, for example, Naylor, Margery Bedford, ‘Epistemic Justification’, American Philosophical Quarterly 25 (1988), 49–58Google Scholar; Alston, William, ‘The Deontological Conception of Justification’, Philosophical Perspectives 2 (1988), 257–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Feldman, Richard, ‘Voluntary Belief and Epistemic Evaluation’, in Steup, Matthias (ed.), Knowledge, Truth, and Duty: Essays on Epistemic Justification, Responsibility, and Virtue (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 77–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 An exception is Rettler, Lindsay, ‘In Defense of Doxastic Blame’ Synthese 195 (2018), 2205–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar. An argument against there being a distinctively epistemic form of blame is in Kauppinen, Antti, ‘Epistemic Norms and Epistemic Accountability’, Philosophers’ Imprint 18 (2018), 1–16Google Scholar.

44 Burgess, Alexis and Plunkett, David, ‘Conceptual Ethics I’, Philosophy Compass 8 (2013), 1091–1101, at 1096CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Burgess and Plunkett, ‘Conceptual Ethics I’, 1096–7.

46 Cappelen, Herman, Fixing Language: An Essay on Conceptual Engineering, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Burgess and Plunkett, ‘Conceptual Ethics I’.

48 Haslanger, Sally, Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Haslanger, Sally, ‘Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them to Be?’, Noûs 34 (2000), 31–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jenkins, Katharine, ‘Amelioration and Inclusion: Gender Identity and the Concept of Woman’, Ethics 126 (2016), 394–421CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Dembroff, Robin A., ‘What Is Sexual Orientation?’ Philosophers’ Imprint 16 (2016), 1–27Google Scholar; Díaz-León, Esa, ‘Sexual Orientation as Interpretation? Sexual Desires, Concepts, and Choice’, Journal of Social Ontology 3 (2017), 231–248CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Stoljar, Natalie, ‘What Do We Want Law to Be? Philosophical Analysis and the Concept of Law’, in Waluchow, Wil and Sciaraffa, Stefan (eds.), Philosophical Foundations of the Nature of Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

52 See, in addition to works cited in fn. 11 above, Haraway, Donna, ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’, Feminist Studies 14 (1988), 575–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Code, Lorraine, What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and Construction of Knowledge (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Mills, Charles W., ‘Alternative Epistemologies’, in Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 21–39Google Scholar; Alcoff, Linda and Potter, Elizabeth (eds.), Feminist Epistemologies (London: Routledge, 1993)Google Scholar; Said, Edward, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978)Google Scholar; Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, The Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Ermine, Willie, ‘Aboriginal Epistemology’, in Battiste, M. and Barman, J. (eds.), First Nations Education in Canada: The Circle Unfolds, (Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press, 2000), 101–111Google Scholar; Anita Silvers, “Feminist Perspectives on Disability”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/feminism-disability/>, §3.

53 Rooney, Phyllis, ‘The Marginalization of Feminist Epistemology and What That Reveals About Epistemology “Proper”’, in Grasswick, Heidi (ed.), Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), 3–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dotson, Kristie, ‘How is This Paper Philosophy?’, Comparative Philosophy 3 (2012), 3–29Google Scholar; Jenkins, Katharine, ‘“That's Not Philosophy”: Feminism, Academia and the Double Bind’, Journal of Gender Studies 23 (2014), 262–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.