Why should we decolonise knowledge? One popular rationale is that colonialism has set up a single perspective as epistemically authoritative over many equally legitimate ones, and this is a form of...

This paper examines decolonisation as a foundational pathway to the emergence and development of African philosophy. It argues that decolonisation should not be conceived merely as the achievement of political independence, but rather as a comprehensive and ongoing process involving economic, cultural, psychological, and epistemic liberation. By clarifying the concepts of colonisation and decolonisation, the study situates African decolonisation within its historical context and critically analyses its rationale, causes, effects, and persistent challenges. Special attention is (...) given to neocolonialism and internal colonialism as significant impediments to genuine African self-determination. Drawing on the works of Frantz Fanon, Kwame Nkrumah, Walter Rodney, Kwasi Wiredu, Paulin Hountondji, Henry Odera Oruka, John Mbiti, and other prominent scholars, the paper demonstrates that colonial domination extended beyond political and economic control to the sphere of knowledge production and philosophical expression. It contends that African philosophy can only develop authentically within a decolonised intellectual framework that affirms African rationality, conceptual autonomy, and lived cultural experience, while remaining open to critical intercultural engagement. The paper concludes that decolonisation is not a completed historical event but a continuing philosophical imperative essential for Africa’s intellectual freedom and meaningful participation in global philosophical discourse. (shrink)

As a site of colonial conquest, sub-Saharan Africa has experienced colonialism’s historic and continuing harms. One of the aspects of this harm is epistemic. In the analytic philosophical tradition, this harm can partly be theorised in line with the literature on epistemic injustice, although it does not fit squarely. I show this by arguing for what can be understood as a colonial state’s specific manifestation of epistemic injustice. This manifestation takes into account the historical context of colonisation (...) and the continuing coloniality of sub-Saharan African countries. From this, I argue for an approach to remediating this epistemic injustice that relies on the fair-minded pursuit of knowledge. This approach, I briefly argue, gains valuable insights from African epistemological traditions and can be beneficial to other epistemic injustice instances that result specifically from historical cases of oppression. (shrink)

This article presents a discursive critique of the Eurocentric paradigms of knowledge production that characterise much of the underlying logics in the age of neoliberal discourses on resilience, pointing out important areas not given sufficient attention. In particular, it highlights the limits of the modernist ontology of resilience, whereby extremely “vulnerable” African communities are encouraged “to become resilient” to climatic disruption and environmental catastrophe and to “bounce back” as rapidly as possible. The article moves the discussion forward, drawing from critical (...) decolonial approaches, in alignment with Indigenous knowledges, to question and rethink meaningful alternative ontologies, ways of knowing and being, in adaptive governance. I argue that the recognition of the plurality of many worlds, rather than one world, highlighted through critical decolonial understandings of epistemic forms with Indigenous knowledges, can be counterposed to Western universality as an innovative ontology to decentre the world order in the problematic dominant development of resilience thinking. Keywords: resilience; decolonisation; Africa; epistemology; pluriverse; Indigeneity. (shrink)

This paper sets out to accomplish two goals. First, drawing on the Irish perspective, it reconceptualises one of the enduring legacy-based harms of epistemic colonisation, in this case, ‘linguicism’, in terms of ‘hermeneutical injustice’. Second, it argues that otherwise well-meaning attempts to combat epistemic colonisation through the inclusion of marginalised testimony can, in certain circumstances, lead to cases of ‘epistemic exploitation’, which, in turn, can result in ‘ontic burnout’. Both linguicism and epistemic exploitation, this paper theorizes, (...) have the potential to bring about ontic burnout. Here is the plan: to set the scene, section I briefly surveys some key arguments supporting the call for higher education institutions (HEIs) to engage in epistemic decolonising, focusing on the importance of striking a balance between two extremes: (i) abandoning all forms of Eurocentric/colonial knowledge through the elimination of inherited thinking and conceptual schemes which result from colonization, in particular, those which remain in our thinking “owing to inertia rather than to our own reflective choices” (Wiredu 2002, p.56); (ii) the other—pursuing a more positive project where we seek to, “exploit as much as is judicious the resources of indigenous conceptual schemes” (Wiredu 1996: p.136). From here, it moves to consider harms associated with a subset of ‘epistemicide’, that is, ‘linguicism’—a phenomenon where the language and culture of the colonizer become part of the ‘civilising project’ and, in more extreme cases of linguicide, forcibly replaces indigenous languages. Section II then explores the subtleties of harmful by-products deriving from ‘inclusion’, namely that which scholars refer to as ‘epistemic exploitation’. Situations where marginalised scholars are finally ‘at the table but still on the menu’ arise when privileged persons, compel marginalised knowers to educate them [and others] about the nature of their oppression (Berenstain, 2016). Habitual requests to turn themselves inside out for emancipatory principles give rise to a phenomenon known as ontic burnout (Dunne and Kotsonis, 2022, p.9)—“a form of dissociative explanatory fatigue culminating in oppressed persons engaging in a conscious or unconscious decoupling from their socially constructed identity, from the burdens and injustices associated with being a member of a certain social kind”. This harm is, I argue, rarely discussed in the literature and worthy of further analysis. (shrink)

The rapid integration of Machine Learning (ML) systems into the governance, financial, and social infrastructures of the Global South is frequently framed as a neutral imperative of technological development. This article challenges that narrative by analysing ML models not as passive tools, but as active "epistemic artefacts" that function through a mechanism of imposition termed the Algorithmic Gaze. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of panopticism and contemporary decolonial theory, I argue that the Algorithmic Gaze is an "imported epistemology" that encodes (...) the specific cultural values of its creators, primarily the hyper individualism, quantification, and capitalist logic of the Global North, while obscuring them behind a "cultural black box" of technical opacity. The article posits that the uncritical deployment of these systems in African contexts constitutes Algorithmic Coloniality. By extracting data as a raw resource and returning it as a disciplining logic, these systems overwrite local, relational forms of knowledge with an external, atomised metric of value. A case study of fintech in Nairobi illustrates how this gaze redefines "trust" from a communal virtue to a calculated probability, eroding indigenous social fabrics. Moving beyond critique, the article proposes the forging of an African AI Epistemology. Grounded in the philosophical ethic of Ubuntu, which privileges relationality over autonomy, and the integration of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), this framework offers a path toward resistance and re-inscription. I conclude that decolonising AI requires a shift from "data subjects" to "data stewards," advocating for communal data self-determination and the co-creation of hybrid models that reflect a pluriverse of human intelligence. (shrink)

In this article we argue that a discussion on African epistemologies must precede the quest for both the decolonisation of knowledge and curriculum in Africa. Decolonial thought in Africa is significant because it focuses, among other things, on the decolonisation of Western epistemological supremacy within the space where knowledge is produced and transferred. We contend that knowledge acquired through the process of learning must resonate with people’s lived experiences and realities. To meaningfully pursue that involves placing in focus (...) people’s modes of thought and epistemic ideas, in the interpretation of their experiences and the realities around them. This article argues that designing a decolonised curriculum that centres unique African intellectual ideas should be informed by the understanding of African epistemologies, whose principle of epistemic validation is grounded on the idea of interconnectedness in African thought. Considering a decolonial curriculum as an attempt in pursuing ‘centring’ is to align curricula with the modes of knowledge validation in African thought. (shrink)

This article explores ideas of a student-centred curriculum through an oral history project undertaken with minoritised students on an undergraduate health ethics module at a UK HEI. It analyses oral history interviews about student expereinces, reflects on the co-creation of knowledge via collective praxis, and re-thinks what it is to 'centre' students in a socially just classroom, institution, and wider HE sector. Furthermore, it discusses conceptualisations of trustful and dialogic classroom conditions and considers issues of intersectionality, decolonising, resisting the 'mythical (...) norm' and addressing epistemic injustice in HE. (shrink)

This paper sets upon the elaboration of two inter-related enquiries: What do being and otherness look like beyond the margins of metanarrativity? What would the crossing of such margins entail? It takes as its basic assumption that prejudice arises from out of the historicity of being. A thesis of prejudice as a pre-reflexive operation or heuristic of the understanding a subject employs in order to arrive upon the conscious inclination to intuit that p is presented. Furthermore, it is posited that (...) human understanding and rational inquiry are a fortiori grounded upon antecedent onto-phenomenological, hermeneutic and epistemic projects of being disclosed in metanarrativity. Metanarrativity, it is here maintained, constrains the horizon of intelligibility and truth in the discursive encounter of being with the “other” of alterity. It precludes the conditions of possibility for a non- prejudiced and value-neutral view in cross-cultural discourse. As such, it may be argued that an understanding of being and otherness cannot ascend the horizon of intelligibility without the sublating operation of prejudice. Prejudice, it is here argued, is sublating in the sense that it prefigures the possibilities for signification, subverting our interrogations from what is the state of affairs to mere intuitends of the form what it is like. Given that metanarrative discourses are invested in prejudice, it is therefore the task of decoloniality, set upon the cross-cultural discursive encounter between being and alterity, to take the physical appearance of an eschatology of liberation enacted in the everyday, performative praxis of non-domination. (shrink)

Based on Maldonado-Torres’s formulation of the term, we conceive the decolonial turn as a form of liberating and decolonising reason beyond the liberal and Enlightened emancipation of rationality, and beyond the more radical Euro-critiques that have failed to consistently challenge the legacies of Eurocentrism and white male heteronormativity (often Eurocentric critiques of Eurocentrism). We complement Maldonado-Torres’s account of the decolonial turn in philosophy, theory and critique by providing an analysis of the trajectories of academic philosophy and clarifying the relevance of (...) decolonising philosophy and of the decolonial turn for current efforts in transforming philosophy in face of the challenges of social movements such as the Third World Liberation Front and Black Lives Matter in the United States, and Rhodes Must Fall in South Africa and England. After a brief analysis of the trajectory and current status of philosophy as a discipline in the modern Western research university, we provide examples of the decolonial turn and of decolonising philosophy in three areas: the engagement with (1) Asian and (2) Latin American philosophies, and (3) debates in the philosophy of race and gender. (shrink)

Colonialism’s legacy in South Africa includes persistent economic inequality which, since the country’s universities charge fees, bars many from higher education, perpetuating the marginalisation of those previously disadvantaged by the apartheid regime. In 2015-6, country-wide unrest raged across university campuses, as students protested the yearly cycle of tuition increases under the slogan #FeesMustFall, demanding “free, decolonised education”. Protests ended in December 2017 when the government announced a sliding-scale payment policy alleviating the economic burden for poorer students. This paper sets the (...) #FMF movement and its twin demands within the context of decoloniality, and argues that while free education has been achieved, imagining and implementing decolonised education for South Africa in an increasingly globalised world is a more challenging, elusive goal. (shrink)

This paper briefly highlights a small part of the work being done by Indigenous groups in Canada to integrate science into their ways of knowing and living with nature. Special attention is given to a recent attempt by Mi'kmaw educators in Unama'ki (Cape Breton, Nova Scotia) to overcome suspicion of science among their youth by establishing an 'Integrative Science' (Toqwa'tu'kl Kjijitaqnn, or 'bringing our knowledges together') degree programme at Cape Breton University. The goal was to combine Indigenous and scientific knowledges (...) in a way that protects and empowers Mi'kmaw rights and lifeways. (shrink)

I evaluate the argument advanced in politics and Christian ethics that I term ‘decolonial homophobia’: that decolonisation and LGBT+ affirmation are contradictory because LGBT+ rights are a global Northern phenomenon that is imperialistically imposed on the global South. I suggest one premise of the argument is valid—neo-colonial imposition of LGBT+ rights does happen and should be opposed. However, the overall argument fails because it erases or distorts diverse views and complexities of pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial history, and it tacitly (...) supports ‘homophobic nationalism’ that is oppressive even when advanced in ostensibly decolonial causes. I grant that there are tensions within many current expressions of decolonisation and LGBT+ rights, but argue that Christians should support both decolonisation and LGBT+ rights as intersecting justice issues. I close by suggesting we listen to global Southern LGBT+ activists like Uganda's kuchus on how to navigate this tension and pursue intersectional justice in all societies. (shrink)

Epistemic exploitation occurs when privileged persons compel marginalized persons to educate them about the nature of their oppression. I argue that epistemic exploitation is marked by unrecognized, uncompensated, emotionally taxing, coerced epistemic labor. The coercive and exploitative aspects of the phenomenon are exemplified by the unpaid nature of the educational labor and its associated opportunity costs, the double bind that marginalized persons must navigate when faced with the demand to educate, and the need for additional labor created (...) by the default skepticism of the privileged. I explore the connections between epistemic exploitation and the two varieties of epistemic injustice that Fricker (2007) identifies, testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. I situate epistemic exploitation within Dotson’s (2012; 2014) framework of epistemic oppression, and I address the role that epistemic exploitation plays in maintaining active ignorance and upholding dominant epistemic frameworks. (shrink)

Epistemic modal operators give rise to something very like, but also very unlike, Moore's paradox. I set out the puzzling phenomena, explain why a standard relational semantics for these operators cannot handle them, and recommend an alternative semantics. A pragmatics appropriate to the semantics is developed and interactions between the semantics, the pragmatics, and the definition of consequence are investigated. The semantics is then extended to probability operators. Some problems and prospects for probabilistic representations of content and context are (...) explored. (shrink)

This paper advocates for the introduction of poetic inquiry in Nigerian universities as a powerful approach to decolonizing research and reclaiming indigenous ways of knowing. It highlights the need to challenge outdated colonial concepts of higher education that have suppressed poetry and other indigenous forms of exploration and understanding. It argues that the incorporation of poetic inquiry in Nigerian universities can create inclusive and transformative spaces that foster social justice, cultural affirmation, and knowledge decolonization. The paper draws on literature on (...) decolonial and critical pedagogy to argues that poetic inquiry enables researchers to engage with alternative modes of expression and challenge dominant Western-centric paradigms. It underscores the social and political implications of embracing poetry as a means of reimagining narratives and reshaping power dynamics within academia and society at large. By validating and honouring indigenous knowledge systems, poetic inquiry promotes self-determination and cultural revitalization while bridging the gap between academia and the wider community. The paper offers recommendations on how Poetic Inquiry may be integrated into the curriculum of Nigerian universities. (shrink)

This article extrapolates the role of transformative constitutionalism in the decolonisation and Africanisation of legal education in South Africa. In a constitutionally mandated transformative context, the systematic approach to the decolonisation and Africanisation of legal education advanced in this article emanates from the four drivers of curriculum transformation set out in the 2017 document entitled ‘Reimagining curricula for a just university in a vibrant democracy — Work stream on curriculum transformation at the University of Pretoria’. These four drivers (...) are: responsiveness to social context; epistemological diversity; renewal of pedagogy and classroom practices; and an institutional culture of openness and critical reflection. Presently, South African universities do not have an existing national framework for a decolonised and Africanised legal education. The article therefore argues that the UP Document contains valuable guidelines on curriculum transformation of legal education as it resonates well with the objectives of both the National LLB Standard and transformative constitutionalism itself. As result, the universities which offer legal education in conjunction with key stakeholders and role-players in the legal fraternity can incorporate its valuable guidelines in National Review of the LLB programme through a proper design of constitutionally transformed framework for a decolonised and Africanised legal education. (shrink)

Epistemic injustice has become one of the most widely discussed topics in social epistemology, and has revived interest in issues in the intersections between epistemology and ethics and political philosophy. Much of the impetus for this recent explosion of interest has been the influential work of Miranda Fricker; however, Fricker’s framework and terminology for discussing the phenomena and the kinds of examples she’s interested in has not always been cleanly separated from the phenomena themselves. This chapter examines what’s distinctive (...) of Fricker’s treatment of the phenomena she labels epistemic injustice, focusing on the two varieties that her discussion highlights, testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. Once the distinctive elements of Fricker’s treatment are clearer, we will be better placed to assess which of them are plausible and which implausible, and to consider alternative theoretical frameworks for thinking about the phenomena, such as that developed by Kristie Dotson. (shrink)

This paper offers a philosophical appraisal of the role truth commissions might play in addressing the legacy of colonial injustice in contexts that do not fit the paradigmatic model of transitional justice. In recent years, calls for redress in democratic settler states have prompted interest in the extension of transitional justice mechanisms beyond post-conflict or post-authoritarian societies. Yet this extension raises two important challenges. The scope challenge concerns whether transitional justice is conceptually suited to settings without political rupture, while the (...) bootstrapping challenge questions whether institutions shaped by liberal assumptions can adequately respond to structural and ongoing forms of colonial violence. The paper analyses the normative and conceptual stakes of these challenges, drawing on recent work in political theory and Indigenous studies. While acknowledging the limits of the transitional justice paradigm, it argues that truth commissions may still contribute to processes of historical reckoning—particularly by enabling practices of collective unlearning and public confrontation with inherited structures. (shrink)

Epistemic instrumentalists seek to understand the normativity of epistemic norms on the model practical instrumental norms governing the relation between aims and means. Non-instrumentalists often object that this commits instrumentalists to implausible epistemic assessments. I argue that this objection presupposes an implausibly strong interpretation of epistemic norms. Once we realize that epistemic norms should be understood in terms of permissibility rather than obligation, and that evidence only occasionally provide normative reasons for belief, an instrumentalist account (...) becomes available that delivers the correct epistemic verdicts. On this account, epistemic permissibility can be understood on the model of the wide-scope instrumental norm for instrumental rationality, while normative evidential reasons for belief can be understood in terms of instrumental transmission. (shrink)

Epistemic akrasia arises when one holds a belief even though one judges it to be irrational or unjustified. While there is some debate about whether epistemic akrasia is possible, this paper will assume for the sake of argument that it is in order to consider whether it can be rational. The paper will show that it can. More precisely, cases can arise in which both the belief one judges to be irrational and one’s judgment of it are epistemically (...) rational in the sense that both are supported by sufficient evidence. (shrink)

This handbook article gives a critical overview of recent discussions of epistemic authority. It favors an account that brings into balance the dictates of rational deference with the ideals of intellectual self-governance. A plausible starting point is the conjecture that neither should rational deference to authorities collapse into total epistemic submission, nor the ideal of mature intellectual self-governance be conflated with (illusions of) epistemic autarky.

This paper presents the epistemic practices account, a theory about the nature of epistemic normativity. The account aims to explain how the pursuit of epistemic values such as truth and knowledge can give rise to epistemic norms. On this account, epistemic norms are the internal rules of epistemic social practices. The account explains four crucial features of epistemic normativity while dissolving some apparent tensions between them. The account also provides a unified theory of (...) epistemic and zetetic normativity. (shrink)

This book is about our practice of criticizing one another for epistemic failings. We clearly evaluate and critique one another for forming unjustified beliefs, harbouring biases, and pursuing faulty methods of inquiry. But what is the nature of this criticism? Does it ever rise to the level of blame? The question is puzzling because there are competing sources of pressure in our intuitions about “epistemic blame”, ones not easy to reconcile. The more blame-like a response is, the less (...) at home in the epistemic domain it seems — but the more at home in the epistemic domain a response is, the less blame-like it seems. These competing sources of pressure constitute a puzzle about epistemic blame. The most promising solution to this puzzle focuses on the interpersonal side of epistemic normativity. Members of an epistemic community stand in an “epistemic relationship”, and epistemic blame is a way of modifying this relationship. Understanding epistemic blame as a distinctive kind of relationship modification locates a response that is both robustly blame-like, and entirely at home in the epistemic domain. Epistemic relationships can also illuminate a unique set of issues in the ethics of epistemic blame, ones that mirror corresponding issues in the ethics of moral blame. The book examines the scope of appropriate epistemic blame, standing to epistemically blame, and the value of epistemic blame in our social and political lives. Throughout the investigation, a better understanding of the parallels and points of interaction between the epistemic and other normative domains emerges. (shrink)

This paper provide the first extended discussion in the philosophical literature of the epistemic significance of the phenomenon of “being known” and the relationship it has to reparations that are distinctively epistemic. Drawing on a framework provided by the United Nations of the “right to know,” it is argued that victims of gross violations and injustices not only have the right to know what happened, but also the right to be known—to be a giver of knowledge to others (...) about their own experiences. It is shown that such victims can suffer epistemic wrongs by being rendered invisible, vilified or demonized, or systematically distorted, and that these ways of not being known demand epistemic reparations. While there are traditional reparations that are epistemic in nature, such as memorialization and education, it is argued that there is a prior and arguably more important epistemic reparation—knowing victims of gross violations and injustices in the sense of bearing witness. The paper concludes with a sketch of an epistemological picture to underwrite this notion of epistemic reparations, one that significantly expands the traditional picture by including epistemic duties that are imperfect in nature and concern actions in addition to beliefs. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of the philosophical work on epistemic injustices as it relates to psychiatry. After describing the development of epistemic injustice studies, we survey the existing literature on its application to psychiatry. We describe how the concept of epistemic injustice has been taken up into a range of debates in philosophy of psychiatry, including the nature of psychiatric conditions, psychiatric practices and research, and ameliorative projects. The final section of the paper indicates future directions (...) for philosophical research of epistemic injustices and psychiatry, concerning neurocognitive disorders, identity prejudices in psychiatric illness, concepts of epistemic privilege in psychiatry, and the prospects for combining phenomenological psychopathology and epistemic justice. We argue that much remains to be done in the conceptualization of these epistemic injustices and suggest that this future work should be multidisciplinary in character and sensitive to the phenomenology of psychiatric conditions. (shrink)

Epistemic instrumentalists face a puzzle. In brief, the puzzle is that if the reason there is to believe in accord with the evidence depends, as the instrumentalist says it does, on agents’ idiosyncratic interests, then there is no reason to expect that this reason is universal. Here, I identify and explain two strategies instrumentalists have used to try and solve this puzzle. I then argue that we should find these strategies wanting. Faced with the failure of these strategies, I (...) articulate a heretofore neglected solution on behalf of instrumentalism. (shrink)

I defend ethical hedonism, the view that pleasure is the sole good thing, by arguing that it offers the only answer to an argument for moral skepticism. The skeptical problem arises from widespread fundamental moral disagreement, which entails the presence of enough moral error to undermine the reliability of most processes generating moral belief. We know that pleasure is good through the reliable process of phenomenal introspection, which reveals what our experiences are like. If knowing of pleasure’s goodness through phenomenal (...) introspection is the only reliable way to form our initial moral beliefs, we should accept ethical hedonism. (shrink)

Everyone agrees that not all norms that govern belief and assertion are epistemic. But not enough attention has been paid to distinguishing epistemic norms from others. Norms in general differ from merely evaluative standards in virtue of the fact that it is fitting to hold subjects accountable for violating them, provided they lack an excuse. Different kinds of norm are most readily distinguished by their distinctive mode of accountability. My thesis is roughly that a norm is epistemic (...) if and only if its violation makes it fitting to reduce epistemic trust in the subject, even if there is no doubt about their sincerity, honesty, or other moral virtues. That is, violations of epistemic norms don’t merit resentment or other forms of blame, but rather deduction of credibility points in internal scorekeeping and related attitudinal and behavioral changes. As Fricker’s work on epistemic injustice shows, such distrust is undesirable from the point of view of an epistemic agent. Consequently, when one manifests epistemic distrust towards a subject in suitable circumstances, it amounts a way of holding her accountable. Since this form of accountability involves no opprobrium, there is good reason to think it is not linked to voluntary control in the same way as moral accountability. Finally, I make use of this account of what makes epistemic norms distinctive to point out some faulty diagnostics in debates about norms of assertion. My aim is not to defend any substantive view, however, but only to offer tools for identifying the right kind of evidence for epistemic norms. (shrink)

This article analyses the phenomenon of epistemic injustice within contemporary healthcare. We begin by detailing the persistent complaints patients make about their testimonial frustration and hermeneutical marginalization, and the negative impact this has on their care. We offer an epistemic analysis of this problem using Miranda Fricker's account of epistemic injustice. We detail two types of epistemic injustice, testimonial and hermeneutical, and identify the negative stereotypes and structural features of modern healthcare practices that generate them. We (...) claim that these stereotypes and structural features render ill persons especially vulnerable to these two types of epistemic injustice. We end by proposing five avenues for further work on epistemic injustice in healthcare. (shrink)

What should we believe if epistemic and practical reasons for belief point in different directions? I argue that there’s no single answer, but rather a Dualism of Theoretical and Practical Reason is true: what we epistemically ought to believe and what we practically ought to believe may come apart, and both are independently authoritative. I argue in particular against recently popular views that subordinate the epistemic to the practical: it’s not the case that epistemic reasons bear on (...) what we ‘just plain ought’ to believe just to the extent we have practical reason to believe epistemically correctly. Why? Because epistemic reasons give rise to authoritative demands independently of the practical pay-off of believing accordingly. This is shown in particular by the fact that it can be fitting to epistemically ‘blame’ us just because we fail to believe as we epistemically ought, even if we don’t have sufficient practical reason to believe so. I also argue that we don’t need to come up with what we ‘just plain ought’ to believe, because contrary epistemic and practical responsibility responses can be simultaneously fitting in conflict cases, and because epistemic and practical ought judgments give rise to different enkrasia requirements, among other things. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical overview of recent work on epistemic blame. The paper identifies key features of the concept of epistemic blame and discusses two ways of motivating the importance of this concept. Four different approaches to the nature of epistemic blame are examined. Central issues surrounding the ethics and value of epistemic blame are identified and briefly explored. In addition to providing an overview of the state of the art of this growing but controversial (...) field, the paper highlights areas where future work is needed. (shrink)

Despite the recent backlash against epistemic consequentialism, an explicit systematic alternative has yet to emerge. This paper articulates and defends a novel alternative, Epistemic Kantianism, which rests on a requirement of respect for the truth. §1 tackles some preliminaries concerning the proper formulation of the epistemic consequentialism / non-consequentialism divide, explains where Epistemic Kantianism falls in the dialectical landscape, and shows how it can capture what seems attractive about epistemic consequentialism while yielding predictions that are (...) harder for the latter to secure in a principled way. §2 presents Epistemic Kantianism. §3 argues that it is uniquely poised to satisfy the desiderata set out in §1 on an ideal theory of epistemic justification. §4 gives three further arguments, suggesting that it (i) best explains the objective normative significance of the subject's perspective in epistemology, (ii) follows from the kind of axiology needed to solve the swamping problem together with modest assumptions about the relation between the evaluative and the deontic, and (iii) illuminates certain asymmetries in epistemic value and obligation. §5 takes stock and reassesses the score in the debate. (shrink)

We present epistemic multilateral logic, a general logical framework for reasoning involving epistemic modality. Standard bilateral systems use propositional formulae marked with signs for assertion and rejection. Epistemic multilateral logic extends standard bilateral systems with a sign for the speech act of weak assertion (Incurvati and Schlöder 2019) and an operator for epistemic modality. We prove that epistemic multilateral logic is sound and complete with respect to the modal logic S5 modulo an appropriate translation. The (...) logical framework developed provides the basis for a novel, proof-theoretic approach to the study of epistemic modality. To demonstrate the fruitfulness of the approach, we show how the framework allows us to reconcile classical logic with the contradictoriness of so-called Yalcin sentences and to distinguish between various inference patterns on the basis of the epistemic properties they preserve. (shrink)

The epistemic basic structure of a society consists of those institutions that have the greatest impact on individuals’ opportunity to obtain knowledge on questions they have an interest in as citizens, individuals, and public officials. It plays a central role in the production and dissemination of knowledge and in ensuring that people have the capability to assimilate this knowledge. It includes institutions of science and education, the media, search engines, libraries, museums, think tanks, and various government agencies. This article (...) identifies two demands of justice that apply specifically to the institutions that belong to it. First, the epistemic basic structure should serve all citizens fairly and reliably. It should provide them with the opportunity to acquire knowledge they need for their deliberations about the common good, their individual good, and how to pursue them. Second, the epistemic basic structure should produce and disseminate the knowledge that various experts and public officials need to successfully pursue justice and citizens need to effectively exercise their rights. After arguing for these duties, I discuss what policies follow from them and respond to the worry that these duties have illiberal implications. (shrink)

The epistemic value of models has traditionally been approached from a representational perspective. This paper argues that the artifactual approach evades the problem of accounting for representation and better accommodates the modal dimension of modeling. From an artifactual perspective, models are viewed as erotetic vehicles constrained by their construction and available representational tools. The modal dimension of modeling is approached through two case studies. The first portrays mathematical modeling in economics, while the other discusses the modeling practice of synthetic (...) biology, which exploits and combines models in various modes and media. Neither model intends to represent any actual target system. Rather, they are constructed to study possible mechanisms through the construction of a model system with built-in dependencies. (shrink)

Epistemic injustices are wrongs that agents can suffer in their capacity as knowers. In this article, I offer a conceptualisation of a phenomenon I call anticipatory epistemic injustice, which I claim is a distinct and particularly pernicious type of epistemic injustice worthy of independent analysis. I take anticipatory epistemic injustice to consist in the wrongs that agents can suffer as a result of anticipated challenges in their process of taking up testimony-sharing opportunities. I distinguish my account (...) from paradigmatic cases of epistemic injustice, such as Miranda Fricker’s concepts of testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice; additionally, I differentiate my view from Kristie Dotson’s account of testimonial smothering. I argue, ultimately, that anticipatory epistemic injustice is a useful addition to our current taxonomy of epistemic injustices, as it has promising explanatory potential for a range of non-standard cases of epistemic injustice. (shrink)

I advocate scepticism about epistemic blame; the view that we have good reason to think there is no distinctively epistemic form of blame. Epistemologists often find it useful to draw a distinction between blameless and blameworthy norm violation. In recent years, this has led several writers to develop theories of ‘epistemic blame.’ I present two challenges against the very idea of epistemic blame. First, everything that is supposedly done by epistemic blame is done by (...) class='Hi'>epistemic evaluation, at least according to a prominent view about the social role of epistemic evaluation. Parsimony considerations count against introducing an idle mechanism that does the same work as an existing one. Second, no current theory of epistemic blame includes a plausible account of the force of epistemic blame or the practices that could express it. I conclude that we should give up the notion of epistemic blame. (shrink)

I argue that when we use ‘probability’ language in epistemic contexts—e.g., when we ask how probable some hypothesis is, given the evidence available to us—we are talking about degrees of support, rather than degrees of belief. The epistemic probability of A given B is the mind-independent degree to which B supports A, not the degree to which someone with B as their evidence believes A, or the degree to which someone would or should believe A if they had (...) B as their evidence. My central argument is that the degree-of-support interpretation lets us better model good reasoning in certain cases involving old evidence. Degree-of-belief interpretations make the wrong predictions not only about whether old evidence confirms new hypotheses, but about the values of the probabilities that enter into Bayes’ Theorem when we calculate the probability of hypotheses conditional on old evidence and new background information. (shrink)

The contemporary theory of epistemic democracy often draws on the Condorcet Jury Theorem to formally justify the ‘wisdom of crowds’. But this theorem is inapplicable in its current form, since one of its premises – voter independence – is notoriously violated. This premise carries responsibility for the theorem's misleading conclusion that ‘large crowds are infallible’. We prove a more useful jury theorem: under defensible premises, ‘large crowds are fallible but better than small groups’. This theorem rehabilitates the importance of (...) deliberation and education, which appear inessential in the classical jury framework. Our theorem is related to Ladha's (1993) seminal jury theorem for interchangeable (‘indistinguishable’) voters based on de Finetti's Theorem. We also prove a more general and simpler such jury theorem. (shrink)

Theories of epistemic rationality that take disagreement (or other higher-order evidence) seriously tend to be “modest” in a certain sense: they say that there are circumstances in which it is rational to doubt their correctness. Modest views have been criticized on the grounds that they undermine themselves—they’re self-defeating. The standard Self-Defeat Objections depend on principles forbidding epistemically akratic beliefs; but there are good reasons to doubt these principles—even New Rational Reflection, which was designed to allow for certain special cases (...) that are intuitively akratic. On the other hand, if we construct a Self-Defeat Objection without relying on anti-akratic principles, modest principles turn out not to undermine themselves. In the end, modesty should not be seen as a defect in a theory of rational belief. (shrink)

Recently, various philosophers have argued that we can obtain knowledge via the imagination. In particular, it has been suggested that we can come to know concrete, empirical matters of everyday significance by appropriately imagining relevant scenarios. Arguments for this thesis come in two main varieties: black box reliability arguments and constraints-based arguments. We suggest that both strategies are unsuccessful. Against black-box arguments, we point to evidence from empirical psychology, question a central case-study, and raise concerns about a (claimed) evolutionary rationale (...) for the imagination's reliability. Against the constraints-based account, we argue that to the extent that it works, this does not give rise to knowledge that is distinctively from the imagination. We conclude by suggesting that the imagination's role in raising possibilities, traditionally seen as part of the context of discovery, can in fact play a role in justification, including as a bulwark against certain sorts of skepticism. (shrink)

According to a widely held view, epistemic reasons are normative reasons for belief – much like prudential or moral reasons are normative reasons for action. In recent years, however, an increasing number of authors have questioned the assumption that epistemic reasons are normative. In this article, I discuss an important challenge for anti-normativism about epistemic reasons and present a number of arguments in support of normativism. The challenge for anti-normativism is to say what kind of reasons (...) class='Hi'>epistemic reasons are if they are not normative reasons. I discuss various answers to this challenge and find them all wanting. The arguments for normativism each stress a certain analogy between epistemic reasons and normative reasons for action. Just like normative reasons for action, epistemic reasons provide partial justification; they provide premises for correct reasoning; they constitute good bases for the responses they are reasons for; and they are reasons for which agents can show these responses without committing a mistake. In each case, I argue that the relevant condition is plausibly sufficient for the normativity of a reason, and that normativism is in any case in a much better position to explain the analogy than anti-normativism. (shrink)

This paper argues that underlying social biases are able to affect the processes underlying linguistic interpretation. The result is a series of harms systematically inflicted on marginalised speakers. It is also argued that the role of biases and stereotypes in interpretation complicates Miranda Fricker's proposed solution to epistemic injustice.

In epistemology and in ordinary life, we make many normative claims about beliefs. As with all normative claims, philosophical questions arise about what – if anything – underwrites these kinds of normative claims. On one view, epistemic instrumentalism, facts about what we (epistemically) ought to believe, or about what is an (epistemic, normative) reason to believe what, obtain at least partly in virtue of our goals (or aims, ends, intentions, desires, etc.). The converse view, anti-instrumentalism, denies this, and (...) holds that the facts about what we ought or have reasons to believe are independent of our goals. In this chapter, I present the case for anti-instrumentalism. I lay out a well-known problem for instrumentalism, which is to say exactly what goal (or goals) grounds our epistemic reasons. For each possible answer, the view seems to generate problematic results. I consider some ways of trying to make the instrumentalist view more sophisticated to solve the problem and reject them. I then note a further problem for instrumentalism that applies regardless of what goal the instrumentalist says grounds our epistemic reasons. Finally, I sketch my preferred positive anti-instrumentalist view and argue that it is more theoretically virtuous than instrumentalism in several respects. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Epistemic agents interact with evidence in different ways. This can cause trouble for mutual understanding and for our ability to rationally engage with others. Indeed, it can compromise democratic practices of deliberation. This paper explains these differences by appeal to a new notion: epistemic styles. Epistemic styles are ways of interacting with evidence that express unified sets of epistemic values, preferences, goals, and interests. The paper introduces the notion of epistemic styles and develops a systematic (...) account of their nature. It then discusses the implications of epistemic styles for central questions in epistemology, in particular, for issues surrounding rational engagement and for the debate between virtue epistemologists and epistemic situationists. (shrink)

The normative force of evidence can seem puzzling. It seems that having conclusive evidence for a proposition does not, by itself, make it true that one ought to believe the proposition. But spelling out the condition that evidence must meet in order to provide us with genuine normative reasons for belief seems to lead us into a dilemma: the condition either fails to explain the normative significance of epistemic reasons or it renders the content of epistemic norms practical. (...) The first aim of this paper is to spell out this challenge for the normativity of evidence. I argue that the challenge rests on a plausible assumption about the conceptual connection between normative reasons and blameworthiness. The second aim of the paper is to show how we can meet the challenge by spelling out a concept of epistemic blameworthiness. Drawing on recent accounts of doxastic responsibility and epistemic blame, I suggest that the normativity of evidence is revealed in our practice of suspending epistemic trust in response to impaired epistemic relationships. Recognizing suspension of trust as a form of epistemic blame allows us to make sense of a purely epistemic kind of normativity the existence of which has recently been called into doubt by certain versions of pragmatism and instrumentalism. (shrink)