"Epistemic Injustice" explores the idea of a distinct level of injustice related to knowledge - an injustice consisting of a wrong committed against someone specifically in their capacity as a knower. Miranda Fricker distinguishes two forms of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice.
Testimonial injustice occurs when prejudice leads a listener to attribute a diminished level of credibility to a speaker's word. Hermeneutical injustice, on the other hand, happens when a gap in collective interpretive resources places someone at a disadvantage in understanding their social experiences.
A central example of this type of injustice is the case of a woman who experiences sexual harassment before we have this critical term, resulting in her inability to fully understand her experience. Regarding each of these forms of epistemic injustice, Fricker develops the idea that our testimonial sensibility needs to incorporate a corrective, anti-prejudicial virtue that can be used to promote a more accurate and democratic epistemic practice.
Epistemology, as traditionally pursued, has been impoverished by the lack of any theoretical framework that contributes to revealing the ethical and political elements of our epistemic behavior. "Epistemic Injustice" shows that the virtue of epistemology provides a general epistemic rationale in which these issues can be fruitfully and robustly discussed.
- Pages: 208
- Dimensions: 13.9x13.9cm
