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

Author(s):  
Mark Alfano ◽  
Joshua August Skorburg

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.

Episteme ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jack Warman

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.


Hypatia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Lee Wilson

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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 662-700
Author(s):  
Jean Chrysostome K. Kiyala

Abstract This empirical study examines the impact of epistemic injustice on child soldiers while exploring the potential of the Baraza structure – a local jurisprudence in the Democratic Republic of Congo – to pursue the “the best interests of the child” principle, particularly in the process of holding young soldiers accountable. Epistemic injustice, conceptually developed by Miranda Fricker, consists of “testimonial injustice”, when the hearer gives a deflated level of credibility to a speaker’s word due to prejudice; “hermeneutical injustice”, which takes place when a structural breach in collective interpretive imagination resources unfairly disadvantages a person or social group when trying to render intelligible their social experiences; and “distributive epistemic injustice”, which happens when “epistemic goods” (education and information) are inequitably distributed. The research outcomes suggest that Baraza jurisprudence has the potential to avert epistemic injustice, and to promote a non-discriminatory treatment of accused former child and adolescent soldiers.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
David S. Evans ◽  
Alexis Pirchio

AbstractMobile money schemes have grown rapidly in some developing countries but failed in many more. This paper reports the results of an empirical study of mobile money schemes in 22 developing countries chosen based on prior evidence to include roughly equal numbers of successes and failures. It uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative evidence to determine why some countries succeeded in launching mobile money schemes and others failed. The analysis is guided by multi-sided platform economics and in particular recent work on the role of ignition and critical mass. It finds among other things heavy regulation, and in particular an insistence that banks play a central role in the schemes, which is generally fatal to igniting mobile money schemes.


Episteme ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Congdon

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.


2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chia-Yu Hsu ◽  
Chen-Fu Chien ◽  
Kuo-Yi Lin ◽  
Chen-Yu Chien

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