scholarly journals The “All Lives Matter” response: QUD-shifting as epistemic injustice

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Keiser
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Discourse Structure ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Intended Meaning ◽  
Pragmatic Theory ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Question Under Discussion

AbstractDrawing on recent work in formal pragmatic theory, this paper shows that the manipulation of discourse structure—in particular, by way of shifting the Question Under Discussion mid-discourse—can constitute an act of epistemic injustice. I argue that the “All Lives Matter” response to the “Black Lives Matter” slogan is one such case; this response shifts the Question Under Discussion governing the overarching discourse from Do Black lives matter? to Which lives matter? This manipulation of the discourse structure systematically obscures the intended meaning of “Black lives matter” and disincentivizes future utterances of it.

Testimonial Smothering and Domestic Violence Disclosure in Clinical Contexts

Episteme ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jack Warman
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Health Sciences ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Personal Histories ◽  
Domestic Violence And Abuse

Abstract Domestic violence and abuse (DVA) are at last coming to be recognised as serious global public health problems. Nevertheless, many women with personal histories of DVA decline to disclose them to healthcare practitioners. In the health sciences, recent empirical work has identified many factors that impede DVA disclosure, known as barriers to disclosure. Drawing on recent work in social epistemology on testimonial silencing, we might wonder why so many people withhold their testimony and whether there is some kind of epistemic injustice afoot here. In this paper, I offer some philosophical reflections on DVA disclosure in clinical contexts and the associated barriers to disclosure. I argue that women with personal histories of DVA are vulnerable to a certain form of testimonial injustice in clinical contexts, namely, testimonial smothering, and that this may help to explain why they withhold that testimony. It is my contention that this can help explain the low rates of DVA disclosure by patients to healthcare practitioners.

scholarly journals Does False Consciousness Necessarily Preclude Moral Blameworthiness?: The Refusal of the Women Antisuffragists

Hypatia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Lee Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Victim Blaming ◽  
False Consciousness ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Knowledge Practices ◽  
Structural Distortions ◽  
In Virtue Of

Abstract Social philosophers often invoke the concept of false consciousness in their analyses, referring to a set of evidence-resistant, ignorant attitudes held by otherwise sound epistemic agents, systematically occurring in virtue of, and motivating them to perpetuate, structural oppression. But there is a worry that appealing to the notion in questions of responsibility for the harm suffered by members of oppressed groups is victim-blaming. Individuals under false consciousness allegedly systematically fail the relevant rationality and epistemic conditions due to structural distortions of reasoning or knowledge practices, undermining their status as responsible moral agents. But attending to the constitutive mechanisms and heterogeneity of false consciousness enables us to see how having it does not in itself render someone an inappropriate target of blame. I focus here on the 1889 antisuffragist manifesto “An Appeal against Female Suffrage,” arguing that its signatories, despite false consciousness, satisfy both conditions for ordinary blameworthiness. I consider three prominent signatories, observing that the irrationality characterization is unsustainable beyond group-level diagnoses, and that their capacity to respond appropriately to reasons was not compromised. Following recent work on epistemic injustice, I also argue that culpable mechanisms constituted their false consciousness, rendering them blameworthy for the Appeal.

scholarly journals EPISTEMIC INJUSTICE IN THE SPACE OF REASONS

Episteme ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Congdon
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Space Of Reasons ◽  
Miranda Fricker ◽  
Epistemological Framework

AbstractIn 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.

scholarly journals Counterfactuals and Conditional Questions under Discussion

2015 ◽  
pp. 194
Author(s):  
Michela Ippolito
Keyword(s):  
Context Dependence ◽  
Discourse Structure ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
Question Under Discussion ◽  
The Right

In this paper I investigate the issue of the context-dependence of counterfactual conditionals and how the context constrains similarity in selecting the right set of worlds necessary in order to arrive at their correct truth-conditions. I will review previous proposals and conclude that the puzzle of how we measure similarity and thus resolve the context-dependence of counterfactuals remains unsolved. I will then consider an alternative based on the idea of discourse structure and the concept of a question under discussion.

scholarly journals Counterfactuals and Conditional Questions under Discussion

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michela Ippolito
Keyword(s):  
Context Dependence ◽  
Discourse Structure ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Counterfactual Conditionals ◽  
Question Under Discussion ◽  
The Right

In this paper I investigate the issue of the context-dependence of counterfactual conditionals and how the context constrains similarity in selecting the right set of worlds necessary in order to arrive at their correct truth-conditions. I will review previous proposals and conclude that the puzzle of how we measure similarity and thus resolve the context-dependence of counterfactuals remains unsolved. I will then consider an alternative based on the idea of discourse structure and the concept of a question under discussion.

On decolonial revisions of modern social theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
pp. 704-719
Author(s):  
Su-ming Khoo
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Academic Work ◽  
Public Sociology ◽  
New Work ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Civic Spaces ◽  
Critical Project

This review essay discusses decolonial and revisionist approaches to the sociological canon, centring on a major new work, Colonialism and Modern Social Theory by Gurminder Bhambra and John Holmwood (2021). The challenge to ‘classical’ social theory and the demand to reconstitute the theory curriculum come in the context of increased visibility for wider decolonial agendas, linked to ‘fallist’ protests in South Africa, Black Lives Matter and allied antiracist organizing, and calls to decolonize public and civic spaces and institutions such as universities, effect museum restitution, and colonial reparations. The review identifies continuities and complementarities with Connell’s critique of the sociological canon, though Colonialism and Modern Social Theory takes a different tack from Connell’s Southern Theory (2009). Bhambra and Holmwood’s opening of sociology’s canon converges with Connell’s recent work to align a critical project of global and decolonial public sociology with a pragmatic programme for doing academic work differently.

Semantics

2019 ◽  
pp. 46-77
Author(s):  
Bryan R. Weaver ◽  
Kevin Scharp
Keyword(s):  
Formal Semantics ◽  
Semantic Theory ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Pragmatic Theory ◽  
Semantic Framework ◽  
Question Under Discussion ◽  
Neutral Agent

Chapter 3 presents a semantic theory for reasons locutions. The semantic theory pairs a Kaplanian semantic framework with Craige Roberts’s question under discussion (QUD) pragmatic theory. The result is QUD Reasons Contextualism, which specifies eight distinct kinds of contexts of utterance for reasons locutions and the truth conditions for each one. The chapter then explains how each of the six reasons distinctions surveyed in Chapter 1 is related to the semantics for reasons locutions. In particular, the chapter shows that the agent neutral/agent relative distinction is a presemantic distinction, the normative/motivating/explanatory, objective/subjective, and permissive/obligatory distinctions are content distinctions, the adaptive/evaluative/practical and internal/external distinctions are domain distinctions, and the contributory/conclusive/sufficient distinction is a nonsemantic distinction. In addition, the chapter presents an extended example and an analogy with love locutions to illustrate the results. Finally, the chapter suggests a formal semantics for reasons locutions in the style of Kratzer’s semantics for modals.

Ethics and Expert Authority in the Patient–Psychotherapist Relationship

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Guidry-Grimes ◽  
Jamie Carlin Watson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Therapeutic Relationship ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Medical Condition ◽  
Health Conditions ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Shared Decision ◽  
Moral Failure

The consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement contends that individuals diagnosed with mental health conditions are routinely doubted or dismissed when they make claims about their needs, values, and interests. Too many therapists, the claim goes, take a parentalist stance toward their patients. Recent work on expertise shows how some patients can acquire competence with their medical condition sufficient for sophisticated participation in management of their care; that is, they can become “patient experts.” This chapter argues that many psychotherapy patients can become patient experts and, thereby, benefit from robust shared decision making (SDM). In these cases, attitudes of distrust and protectionism can lead to the moral failure of epistemic injustice, thereby harming both the patient and the therapeutic relationship. Drawing on recent literature on epistemic injustice, SDM, and expertise from epistemology, the authors contend that the success of SDM relies largely on the therapist’s appreciation of the varying types and degrees of expertise and epistemic advantage involved in decision making.

scholarly journals Extended Knowledge, the Recognition Heuristic, and Epistemic Injustice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Alfano ◽  
Joshua August Skorburg
Keyword(s):  
Data Mining ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Population Estimation ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Cognitive Agent ◽  
Recognition Heuristic ◽  
Estimation Task ◽  
Cognitive Scaffolding

This chapter argues that the interaction of biased media coverage and widespread employment of the recognition heuristic can produce epistemic injustices. It explains the recognition heuristic as studied by Gigerenzer and colleagues, highlighting how some of its components are largely external to the cognitive agent. Having connected the recognition heuristic with recent work on the hypotheses of embedded, extended, and scaffolded cognition, it argues that the recognition heuristic is best understood as an instance of scaffolded cognition. It considers the double-edged sword of cognitive scaffolding before using Fricker’s (2007) concept of epistemic injustice to characterize the nature and harm of these false inferences, emphasizing the Darfur Inference. Finally, it uses data-mining and an empirical study to show how Gigerenzer’s population estimation task is liable to produce Darfur Inferences. It ends with some speculative remarks on more important Darfur Inferences, and how to avoid them by scaffolding better.

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