In the House of the Hangman One should not Mention the Noose: Jewish Voice for Labour’s Attack on the Equality and Human Rights Commission

In May 2021 Jewish Voice for Labour (“JVL”) published a combative document entitled How the EHRC Got It So Wrong-Antisemitism and the Labour Party. The document criti­cises the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s October 2020 Report of its investiga­tion into antisemitism in the Labour Party. The Commission found the Labour Party responsible for antisemitic conduct giving rise to several unlawful acts in breach of the Equality Act 2010. In addition to its legal findings, it also made critical factual findings, identifying a culture of acceptance of antisemitism in the Labour Party, which suffered from serious failings in leadership, where the failure to tackle antisemitism more effectively was probably a matter of choice. The essence of JVL’s attack on the Commission’s Report is as follows. First, it is said that the Commission did not and could not lawfully investigate antisemitism as such; to the extent that it purported to do so, its findings of unlawfulness are purportedly meaningless. Secondly, JVL claims that the Commission made no finding of institutional antisemitism. Thirdly, by failing to require production of evidence referred to in a certain leaked report, probably prepared by Labour Party officials loyal to Jeremy Corbyn, the Commission is accused of nullifying at a stroke the value of its own Report as a factual account. Fourthly, JVL claims the Commission’s Report is not just legally unten­able, but purportedly a threat to democracy. Finally, JVL claims the Commission’s analysis was not just wrong, but that it exercised its statutory powers in bad faith. This article offers a response to each of the five pillars of JVL’s attack, all of which collapse under scrutiny. As to the first pillar, the article identifies the disappearing of antisemitism as the linchpin of JVL’s argument and shows how JVL’s criticism is underpinned by a political epistemology of antisemitism denialism. As to the second pillar, it shows that the absence of the term “institutional antisemitism” in the Commission’s Report is a semantic quibble. In sub­stance, the Commission found that the conduct under investigation amounted to institu­tional antisemitism. As to the third, the article demonstrates that JVL’s complaint about the Commission’s failure to call for production of the leaked report is perverse because that report constitutes an admission of the correctness of the complaints put before it. More­over, the Corbyn-led Labour Party itself decided that it did not want the Commission to consider that material. As to the fourth pillar, the article shows that far from being a threat to democracy, the Commission’s Report grasps the nettle of antisemitism denial. It con­cludes that continuing to assume and assert that Jews raising concerns about antisemitism are lying for nefarious ends may itself be, and in at least two cases was, a form of unlawful anti-Jewish harassment. As to the fifth, the article rebuts the extraordinary charge that the Commission exercised its powers in bad faith. Rather strikingly, neither JVL nor Jeremy Corbyn was willing to take the Commission on judicial review. The article concludes by considering how the poverty of JVL’s reasoning, coupled with the extravagance of its accu­sations, invites a symptomatic reading of Antisemitism and the Labour Party as a disap­pointing illustration of left-wing melancholia.

The Interested Expert Problem and the Epistemology of Juries

The existence of experts raises a host of interesting questions in social, legal, and political epistemology. This article introduces and discusses interested experts – people who are experts on some topic, but who also have a distinct set of values and preferences regarding that topic, so that they are not well-described as “disinterested” parties. Interested experts raise several distinct problems in social, legal, and political epistemology. Some general questions arise: can we rationally or justifiably form beliefs relying on interested expert testimony? Do they constitute knowledge? Under what circumstances? This article focuses on a specific question in legal epistemology: should interested experts be allowed to serve on juries and, if so, should it be permissible for lawyers to strike them from the pool of potential jurors? My hope is that concentrating on this question will provide insight into the more general questions concerning the epistemology of testimony with respect to interested experts, while also providing concrete recommendations for jury reform to improve the epistemic performance of juries.

Researching higher education in Africa as a process of meaning-making: Epistemological and theoretical considerations

In this article, we argue for a new way of thinking about knowledge construction in African higher education as a basis for developing new theoretical and epistemological insights, founded on inclusivity, epistemic freedom, and social justice. We recognise coloniality as a fundamental problem that needs us to scrutinise our knowledge of decolonisation (about decolonisation itself) and our knowledge for decolonisation (to make change possible). Following Bourdieu (1972), such thinking also requires degrees of vigilance that entail fundamental epistemological breaks, or put differently, it requires epistemological decolonisation as a point of departure. Thus, the future of tertiary education in Africa must be located within a new horizon of possibilities, informed by a nuanced political epistemology and ontology embedded in the complex African experience and visibility of the colonised and oppressed. In short, there can be no social justice without epistemic justice.

Production of Subjectivities in a Division of Applied Psychology

This paper aims at discussing the different ways in which subjectivities are produced by psychological practices, with a focus on clinical practice. This research is conceptually based on Isabelle Stengers’ and Vinciane Despret’s Political Epistemology and Bruno Latour’s and John Law’s Actor-Network Theory. For these authors, scientific knowledge is produced not as a representation of reality through well-formed sentences, but as modes of articulation between researchers and investigated entities. To investigate these modes of articulation produced by clinical practices, we observed the modes of articulation present in specific psychological techniques with regard to their users, especially in a therapeutic environment. These techniques follow a wide range of therapeutic approaches (psychoanalysis, cognitive behavioral therapy, Gestalt therapy and institutional analysis) are currently being observed at the DPA (Division of Applied Psychology) at UFRJ (Federal University from Rio de Janeiro) through interviews and an ethnographic approach. Furthermore, we will discuss processes related to interns and patients. With regard to the interns, we observed a very complex and almost impossible mode of negotiation with respect to the practices, concepts and duration of therapy among the therapy groups at DPA. Their education in these different therapeutic approaches can be likened to a process of purification: beyond the discussion of some basic concepts, much of the interns’ education consists in the constant criticism of other approaches. It is also very rare to observe students who practice more than one approach: beyond the pragmatic problem in articulating very different practices, there is a constant process of critique between both groups to which the intern belongs. With regard to patients it was possible to perceive two response patterns: 1) Canonical answers about what therapy is and what its goals are, demonstrating docility regarding the psychologist’s authority. 2) Answers with a more inquisitive position about psychology, with an underlying understanding that it is a way of seeing the world, a philosophy of life, thus presenting a more recalcitrant position. In this case patients link therapy to very diverse practices, and they do so in a very active way, in a process that resembles what Foucault calls the techniques of the self (a group of practices and exercises used actively by someone aiming to transform themselves into an ethical being). We can find such techniques among patients in various practices, e.g. writing in diaries, the singular appropriations of the discourse of the therapists, and even exercises of self-questioning and problematization of the instances of collective life, such as prejudice, stereotypes and subliminal messages. Thus, we can define patients in various ways, but not as passive and patient creatures.

Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy Volume 7

This is the seventh volume of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. Since its revival in the 1970s political philosophy has been a vibrant field in philosophy, one that intersects with jurisprudence, normative economics, political theory in political science departments, and just war theory. OSPP aims to publish some of the best contemporary work in political philosophy and these closely related subfields. The chapters in this volume address a range of central topics and represent cutting-edge work in the field: the philosophy of work; political epistemology and social critique; the duty to save; politics, truth, and respect; perfectionist duties; public reason; autonomy-based arguments for democracy; and strict compliance.

Introduction

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book. It has three goals. First, it situates the field of political epistemology within its broader historical context and explains why this area of research is especially significant for contemporary politics. Second, this chapter provides an overview of the main themes in the book: the role of truth and knowledge in politics; epistemic problems for democracy; and disagreement and polarization. Third, it provides a summary of each chapter in the book. The introduction concludes by drawing connections across the various topics and chapters in this book.

Political Epistemology and Social Critique

Under conditions of ideology, a standard model of normative political epistemology—relying on a domain-specific reflective equilibrium—risks status-quo bias. Social critique requires a more critical standpoint. What are the aims of social critique? How is such a standpoint achieved and what grounds its claims? One way of achieving a critical standpoint is through consciousness raising. Consciousness raising offers a paradigm shift in our understanding of the social world; but not all epistemic practices that appear to “raise” consciousness are warranted. However, under certain conditions sketched in the chapter, consciousness raising produces a warranted critical standpoint and a pro tanto claim against others. This is an important epistemic achievement, yet under conditions of collective self-governance, there is no guarantee that all warranted claims can be met simultaneously. There will be winners and losers even after legitimate democratic processes have been followed.

Political Epistemology

As current events around the world have illustrated, epistemological issues are at the center of our political lives. It has become increasingly difficult to discern legitimate sources of evidence, misinformation spreads faster than ever, and the role of truth in politics has allegedly decayed in recent years. It is therefore no coincidence that political discourse is currently saturated with epistemic notions like “post-truth,” “fake news,” “truth decay,” “echo chambers,” and “alternative facts.” This book brings together leading political philosophers and epistemologists to explore ways in which the analytic and conceptual tools of epistemology bear on political philosophy, and vice versa. It is organized around three broad themes: truth and knowledge in politics; epistemic problems for democracy; and disagreement and polarization. This book investigates topics such as: the extent and implications of political ignorance, the value of democratic deliberation, the significance of epistemic considerations for political legitimacy, the epistemology of political disagreement, identity politics, political bullshit, and weaponized skepticism. A premise underlying the development of political epistemology is that, beyond a certain point, progress on certain foundational issues in both political philosophy and epistemology cannot be achieved without sharing insights across fields. By bringing political philosophers into conversation with epistemologists, this volume promotes more cross-pollination of ideas while also highlighting the richness and diversity of political epistemology as a newly emerging field.