HOW IS THIS PAPER PHILOSOPHY?

This paper answers a call made by Anita Allen to genuinely assess whether the field of philosophy has the capacity to sustain the work of diverse peoples. By identifying a pervasive culture of justification within professional philosophy, I gesture to the ways professional philosophy is not an attractive working environment for many diverse practitioners. As a result of the downsides of the culture of justification that pervades professional philosophy, I advocate that the discipline of professional philosophy be cast according to a culture of praxis. Finally, I provide a comparative exercise using Graham Priests definition of philosophy and Audre Lordes observations of the limitations of philosophical theorizing to show how these two disparate accounts can be understood as philosophical engagement with a shift to a culture of praxis perspective

Conceptualiser l’oppression épistémique

L’oppression épistémique désigne une exclusion épistémique persistante qui empêche ou limite la contribution d’une personne à la production des savoirs. On hésite à parler d’« oppression épistémique », et cela tient peut-être à la prémisse voulant que les formes épistémiques de l’oppression se ramènent en général à ses formes politiques et sociales. L’auteure convient que de nombreuses formes d’exclusion qui compromettent la capacité d’une personne à contribuer à la production des savoirs peuvent être ramenées à des formes d’oppression politique et sociale, mais il existe néanmoins des formes distinctes et irréductibles d’oppression épistémique. Elle soutient ainsi que la différence fondamentale entre les formes réductibles et irréductibles d’oppression épistémique réside dans le type de résistance à laquelle on fait face dans chaque cas, c’est-à-dire le pouvoir épistémique ou les caractéristiques des systèmes épistémologiques. La distinction entre les formes réductibles et irréductibles d’oppression épistémique permet de mieux comprendre les enjeux que soulève l’emploi de cette expression et la pertinence d’y recourir.Epistemic oppression refers to persistent epistemic exclusion that hinders one’s contribution to knowledge production. The tendency to shy away from using the term « epistemic oppression » may follow from an assumption that epistemic forms of oppression are generally reducible to social and political forms of oppression. While the author agrees that many exclusions that compromise one’s ability to contribute to the production of knowledge can be reducible to social and political forms of oppression, there still exists distinctly irreducible forms of epistemic oppression. Therefore, she claims that a major point of distinction between reducible and irreducible epistemic oppression is the major source of difficulty one faces in addressing each kind of oppression, i.e. epistemic power or features of epistemological systems. Distinguishing between reducible and irreducible forms of epistemic oppression can offer a better understanding of what is at stake in deploying the term and when such deployment is apt.La opresión epistémica se refiere a la exclusión epistémica persistente que impide o limita la contribución de una persona a la producción de conocimiento. Uno duda en hablar de « opresión epistémica » y esto puede deberse a la premisa de que las formas epistémicas de opresión se reducen generalmente a sus formas políticas y sociales. Estoy de acuerdo en que muchas formas de exclusión que comprometen la capacidad de una persona para contribuir a la producción de conocimiento pueden reducirse a formas de opresión política y social, pero existen formas distintas e irreducibles de opresión epistémica. En este texto, sostengo que la diferencia fundamental entre las formas reducibles e irreducibles de la opresión epistémica reside en el tipo de resistencia que se enfrenta en cada caso, es decir, el poder epistémico o las características de los sistemas epistemológicos. La distinción entre formas reducibles e irreducibles de opresión epistémica permite comprender mejor las cuestiones planteadas por el uso de esta expresión y la relevancia de usarla

On the Politics of Coalition

In the wake of continued structural asymmetries between women of color and white feminisms, this essay revisits intersectional tensions in Catharine MacKinnon’s Toward a Feminist Theory of the State while exploring productive spaces of coalition. To explore such spaces, we reframe Toward a Feminist Theory of the State in terms of its epistemological project and highlight possible synchronicities with liberational features in women-of-color feminisms. This is done, in part, through an analysis of the philosophical role “method” plays in MacKinnon’s argument, and by reframing her critique of juridical neutrality and objectivity as epistemic harms. In the second section, we sketch out a provisional coalitional theory of liberation that builds on MacKinnon’s feminist epistemological insights and aligns them with decolonizing projects in women-of-color feminisms, suggesting new directions and conceptual revisions that are on the way to coalition

Epistemic Exclusion Toolbox Workshop Report [Technical report]

Workshop Summary: The Toolbox Dialogue Initiative conducted two workshops with Michigan State University faculty on May 4, 2017 and one with administrators on May 24, 2017. The first faculty workshop –“Group 1” in what follows – comprised white faculty, while the second, “Group 2”, comprised faculty of color. The administrator workshop, “Group 3”, comprised a mixed-race group of administrators. These 3-hour workshops included dialogue structured by prompt-based instruments customized specifically to emphasize epistemic exclusion. The instruments were designed by Michael O’Rourke and Stephanie E. Vasko, with significant input from Nicole Buchanan, Kristie Dotson, and Isis Settles. (See Appendix 1 for the Toolbox instruments and prompts used in each workshop.) The workshops were facilitated by Michael O’Rourke and Stephanie E. Vasko and began with a presentation briefly covering the Faculty Inclusion and Excellence Study, epistemic exclusion, the Toolbox approach, instrument design, and details about the workshop. The dialogue sessions lasted between 50 and 70 minutes and were followed by a co-creation activity. The cocreation activity during the faculty workshops was designed to inform the administration workshop, and the co-creation activity during the administration workshop was intended to inform MSU policy concerning valuing and evaluating scholarship at MSU. The workshops concluded with a debrief discussion and reflection on the process