An Epistemology of the Oppressed: Resisting and flourishing under epistemic oppression"

The Philosophy Department of the Central European University, the

Institute Vienna Circle and the Unit for Applied Philosophy of Science

and Epistemology (of the Department of Philosophy of the University of

Vienna) are jointly organizing a series of talks this term.

On Thursday June 17th, 3-5pm (CET)

Professor Gaile Pohlhaus (Miami University)

will speak about

An Epistemology of the Oppressed: Resisting and flourishing under

epistemic oppression"

(Further speakers will be Ruth Weintraub and Marta Sznajder.)

The meetings will be online via ZOOM:

https://univienna.zoom.us/j/98767758229?pwd=ZkswaEh4TFNNSzkybDk4RmZOOXh3QT09

You can also log into our meetings through the Zoom application (rather

than by clicking the link above), by using the following credentials:

Meeting-ID: 987 6775 8229

Password: IVC-APSE

Abstract:

In "The Ethics of Uncle Tom's Children" Tommie Shelby notes that an

ethics of the oppressed needs to attend to at least two aspects of

living under conditions of oppression: first, resisting and overturning

the unjust conditions that constitute oppression and second, sustaining

a livable life despite injustice, so that one might live to fight

another day. In this talk I consider whether the same is true for an

epistemology of the oppressed. By "epistemology of the oppressed" I

mean a philosophical account of epistemic life from the perspective of

those who are systematically subject to unjust infringements on their

epistemic agency. Despite a growing body of literature on epistemic

injustice, it strikes me that much of this literature does not yet fully

contribute to an epistemology of the oppressed (but instead is geared

toward an epistemology of "how oppressors oppress and how oppressors

could do better"). Of the literature that does contribute to an

epistemology of the oppressed, most of it seems to contribute to the

first aspect identified by Shelby, resisting and overturning unjust

conditions. Is there also room for thinking about what it means to

flourish, epistemically speaking, when one faces epistemic oppression?

Or is all epistemic flourishing under such conditions reducible to

epistemic resistance so that the conditions that impede one's epistemic

flourishing begin to be overturned?

On behalf of the organizers,

Maria Kronfeldner

Martin Kusch

Iulian Toader