Epistemic Injustice

PHIL 159A Subject & Catalog Number

Description

Who do we believe, and who do we dismiss? Who tend to get treated as trustworthy, credible sources of information, and who tend not to? Whose voices get amplified and whose get silenced? Whose ideas are taken up and whose are ignored? Whose problems get studied, and who lacks the educational, financial, personal, emotional, or political resources and opportunities to adequately study theirs? Who gets to be ignorant?<br>These are all central questions in the study of epistemic injustice. The growing realization that injustice, marginalization, oppression, and violence can take distinctly epistemic forms and lead to distinctly epistemic wrongs has quickly become one of the most important discussions in epistemology – the study of knowledge and related topics such as learning, understanding, justification, evidence, trustworthiness, and ignorance. In this course, we will look at some of the most influential research on epistemic injustice, including special attention to Miranda Fricker’s seminal work <i>Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing</i>, important historical precursors to it, criticisms of it, and recent literature expanding on our understanding of ways that epistemic injustice can affect us.