Description:

Emmalon Davis will speak on Epistemic Injustice in Philosophical Discourse as part of the annual Inclusiveness Lecture Series.

Davis is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York

Abstract

This paper has three aims. First, I argue that there are two forms of testimonial injustice: (1) identity-based testimonial injustice, the phenomenon elucidated by Miranda Fricker in 2007, according to which a speaker’s credibility is assessed in prejudicially deficient ways in virtue of the speaker’s social identity and (2) content-based testimonial injustice, a parallel phenomenon according to which a speaker’s credibility may be judged in prejudicially deficient ways in virtue of the kind of information the speaker attempts to convey (that is, in virtue of gendered or racialized elements of their testimony). Second, I suggest that both identity-based and content-based testimonial injustice are prevalent in philosophical discourse and that the dual presence of these kinds of testimonial injustice disadvantages women and people of color as well as feminist philosophers and philosophers of race (and practitioners of other gendered and racialized philosophies). Finally, I argue that the prevalence of these two forms of testimonial injustice can, in part, explain the underrepresentation of women and people of color in philosophy, as well as the underrepresentation of feminist philosophers and philosophers of race in the discipline.