An interview at Philosophy Bites:
Testimonial injustice occurs when others fail to treat you seriously as a source of knowledge. In this interview Miranda Fricker, author of a recent book on the topic, explains this concept which lies at the intersection between epistemology and political philosophy.
This interview is from 2007, but I just found out about it via Feminist Philosophers. And here’s a review of her book, Epistemic Injustice:
Epistemology and Ethics have traditionally been kept apart. This book brings them together. Miranda Fricker focuses on two kinds of epistemic injustice: the injustice that occurs when someone is not treated seriously as a possible source of knowledge (testimonial injustice) and the injustice that occurs when a society lacks a conceptual framework for understanding the experiences of someone who has been treated badly (hermeneutic injustice). An example of the first kind is when someone stopped by the police is not believed because he is black; an example of the second type is when someone is a victim of sexual harrassment in a society that still lacks that concept. Both are kinds of epistemic injustice in Fricker’s terms. That is they are harms that an individual suffers that relate to that individual’s potential to give knowledge and to be a subject of social understanding.
I’ve actually listened to this particular episode of David Edmonds and Nigel Wharburton’s “Philosophy Bites” and I must say Miranda Fricker does a poor job at convincing me that there is such a thing as “epistemic injustice;” especially if we are to understand “injustice” to mean something similar to a moral wrong. Let’s consider one of the two aspects of “epistemic injustice” that she points out.
“[T]he injustice that occurs when someone is not treated seriously as a possible source of knowledge (testimonial injustice)… .”
This seems to presuppose that every individual is epistemically reliable in all matters. We of course know this is not the case. So, should we not first determine whether someone is a reliable source of knowledge before they are treated as such?
E.g., would it be prudent of you to take my testimony on the cellular structure of Amoeba proteus, considering I have never evidenced myself to be a reliable source of knowledge about protozoan biology?
Of course, Fricker’s point remains that if a black molecular biologist who specializes in protozoa is not treated as a reliable source of knowledge about Amoeba proteus simply because he is black, then some “wrong” is at hand.
However, the “wrong” here is not of the ethical sort. (Fricker equivocates here about her definition of “harm;” in fact, she fails to define it in any meaningful sense. That aside, why am I obligated to treat you as a reliable source of knowledge? To reiterate, it is earned not given.) Rather, the individual who discards the black biologist’s testimony is guilty of being epistemically irresponsible- nothing more.
I think Deleuze said it best (regarding the work of Foucault):
“In my opinion, you were the first-in your books and in the practical sphere-to teach us something absolutely fundamental: the indignity of speaking for others.”
Mark,
I hope you do not think I am obtuse, but how exactly is the Deleuze quote germane to the present post?
I have thought about it and, while I find the quote well enough, I can’t see how it applies…
Aaron,
As I understand the quote, it refers to an almost direct response to the problem raised in the initial post of:
“the injustice that occurs when someone is not treated seriously as a possible source of knowledge (testimonial injustice) and the injustice that occurs when a society lacks a conceptual framework for understanding the experiences of someone who has been treated badly (hermeneutic injustice).”
Mark,
I would like to press you on this quote and how it pertains. Would you care to expound upon its significance and how exactly it is a direct response to the above excerpt?
Aaron,
The quote comes from a dialogue between Deleuze and Foucault called “Intellectuals and Power (1972–found in a Foucault-compilation called “Language, Counter-Memory and Practice”).
The historical background that is relevant deals with Foucault’s work in the French prison system (“G.I.P.”) with “the object being to create conditions that permit the prisoners themselves to speak”.
Both Deleuze and Foucault roughly sketch out a “history of the function of the intellectual” which previously involved the general intellectual broadly theorizing about something which concerned the masses in order to raise their consciousness.
Both Foucault and Deleuze come out strongly against this “representative” function of the intellectual, in favor of a more “local” and “regional” function of the intellectual–a theoritization that is itself a kind of practice.
As Deleuze says: “A theorising intellectual, for us, is no longer a subject, a representing or representative consciousness.”
Foucault agrees: “The intellectual’s role is no longer to place himself “somewhat ahead and to the side” in order to express the stifled truth of the collectivity; rather, it is to struggle against the forms of power that transform him into its object and instrument in the sphere of “knowledge,” “truth,” “consciousness,” and “discourse.”
As Foucault notes: “In this sense theory does not express, translate, or serve to apply practice: it is practice. But it is local and regional, as you said, and not totalising. This is a struggle against power, a struggle aimed at revealing and undermining power where it is most invisible and insidious. It is not to “awaken consciousness” that we struggle (the masses have been aware for some time that consciousness is a form of knowledge; and consciousness as the basis of subjectivity is a prerogative of the bourgeoisie), but to sap power, to take power; it is an activity conducted alongside those who struggle for power, and not their illumination from a safe distance. A “theory ” is the regional system of this struggle.”
In agreement, Deleuze adds: “A theory is exactly like a box of tools. It has nothing to do with the signifier. It must be useful. It must function. And not for itself.”
This wholesale rejection of the universal “representative” aspect of the intellectual leads to Deleuze’s conclusion: “to appreciate the theoretical fact that only those directly concerned can speak in a practical way on their own behalf.”
Applying this position to the specific prison project, Foucault notes: “And when the prisoners began to speak, they possessed an individual theory of prisons, the penal system, and justice. It is this form of discourse which ultimately matters, a discourse against power, the counter-discourse of prisoners and those we call delinquents-and not a theory about delinquency. ”
Deleuze notes that this reasoning is not restricted to prisons: “f the protests of children were heard in kindergarten, if their questions were attended to, it would be enough to explode the entire educational system. There is no denying that our social system is totally without tolerance; this accounts for its extreme fragility in all its aspects and also its need for a global form of repression.”
And further: “Not only are prisoners treated like children, but children are treated like prisoners. Children are submitted to an infantilisation which is alien to them. On this basis, it is undeniable that schools resemble prisons and that factories are its closest approximation. Look at the entrance to a Renault plant, or anywhere else for that matter: three tickets to get into the washroom during the day. You found an eighteenth-century text by Jeremy Bentham proposing prison reforms; in the name of this exalted reform, be establishes a circular system where the renovated prison serves as a model and where the individual passes imperceptibly from school to the factory, from the factory to prison and vice versa. This is the essence of the reforming impulse, of reformed representation. On the contrary, when people begin to speak and act on their own behalf, they do not oppose their representation (even as its reversal) to another; they do not oppose a new representativity to the false representativity of power.”
And now, I am off to drink myself senseless: FAT TUESDAY!