Jose M Medina
Northwestern University, Philosophy, Faculty Member
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Drawing on contemporary epistemologies of ignorance, I analyze the American ideology of color blindness as a recalcitrant form of active ignorance that operates at a meta-level. I contend that the meta-ignorance involved in color... more
Drawing on contemporary epistemologies of ignorance, I analyze the American ideology of color blindness as a recalcitrant form of active ignorance that operates at a meta-level. I contend that the meta-ignorance involved in color blindness operates through distorting second-order attitudes about one's cognitive and affective attitudes, resulting in cognitive and affective numbness with respect to racial matters: ignorance of one's racial ignorance and insensitivity to one's racial insensitivity. I contend that the black/white binary that has dominated the American racial imagination has contributed tremendously to establish and maintain meta-blindness about racial differences. I suggest that overcoming the black/white binary demands that we expand current conceptions of racial lucidity and that we go beyond the notions of double consciousness that critical race theorists have defended since Du Bois and Fanon. According to a more expansive social pluralism, lucidity with ...
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Acknowledgements Foreword: Insensitivity and Blindness Introduction. Resistance, Democratic Sensibilities, and the Cultivation of Perplexity A. The Importance of Dissent and the Imperative of Epistemic Interaction B. Resistance,... more
Acknowledgements Foreword: Insensitivity and Blindness Introduction. Resistance, Democratic Sensibilities, and the Cultivation of Perplexity A. The Importance of Dissent and the Imperative of Epistemic Interaction B. Resistance, Perplexity, and Multiperspectivalism C. Overview Chapter 1. Active Ignorance, Epistemic Others, and Epistemic Friction 1.1. Active Ignorance and the Epistemic Vices of the Privileged 1.2. Lucidity and the Epistemic Virtues of the Oppressed 1.3. Resistance, Epistemic Responsibility, and the Regulative Principles of Epistemic Friction Chapter 2. Resistance as Epistemic Vice and as Epistemic Virtue 2.1. The Excess of Epistemic Authority and the Resulting Insensitivity 2.1.1. Epistemic Justice as Interactive, Comparative and Contrastive 2.1.2. Differential Authority, Systematic Injustice, and the Social Imaginary 2.2. The Vice of Avoiding Epistemic Friction, Hermeneuticalal Injustice, and the Problem of Meta-Blindness. 2.3. Striving for Open-Mindedness: Epistemic Friction and Epistemic Counterpoints as Correctives of Meta-Blindness Chapter 3. Imposed Silences and Shared Hermeneutical Responsibilities 3.1. Silences and the Communicative Approach to Epistemic Injustice 3.2. Communicative Pluralism and Hermeneutical Injustice 3.3. Our Hermeneutical Responsibilities with respect to Multiple Publics Chapter 4. Epistemic Responsibility and Culpable Ignorance 4.1. Responsible Agency, Knowledge/Ignorance, and Social Injustice 4.2. Betraying One's Responsibilities under Conditions of Oppression: Social Contextuality, Interconnectedness, and Culpable Ignorance 4.2.A. Pig Heads, Burning Crosses, and Car keys 4.2.B. The Social Division of Cognitive Laziness 4.2.C. Blindness to Differences 4.2.D. Blindness to Social Relationality and the Relevance Dilemma 4.3. Overlapping Insensitivities, Culture-Blaming, and Gender Violence against Third-World Women Chapter 5. Meta-Lucidity, Epistemic Heroes, and the Everyday Struggle Toward Epistemic Justice 5.1. Living Up to One's Responsibilities under Conditions of Oppression: Meta-Lucidity 5.2. Promoting Lucidity and Social Change 5.3. Echoing: Chained Action, "Epistemic Heroes", and Social Networks 5.3.1. Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz: Epistemic Courage, Critical Imagination and Epistemic Friction 5.3.2. Rosa Parks: Counter-Performativity, Chained Agency, and Social Networks Chapter 6. Resistant Imagination and Radical Solidarity 6.1. Pluralistic Communities of Resistence 6.2. Normative Pluralism and Radical Solidarity 6.3. Epistemic Friction and Insurrectionary Genealogies 6.4. Guerrilla Pluralism, Counter-Memories, and Epistemologies of Ignorance 6.5. Resistant Imaginations: Toward a Kaleidoscopic Social Sensibility 6.6. Conclusion: Network Solidarity Coda References
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This paper offers an analysis of how the American criminal justice system sets unfair constraints on the epistemic agency of detained subjects and promotes unfair negative consequences on the exercise of their epistemic agency. In Section... more
This paper offers an analysis of how the American criminal justice system sets unfair constraints on the epistemic agency of detained subjects and promotes unfair negative consequences on the exercise of their epistemic agency. In Section 1, I distinguish three different kinds of agential episte-mic injustices: those that occur when subjects are only believed when they are deprived of epistemic agency (as shown by Jennifer Lackey's analysis of false confessions); those that occur when the subject's exercise of epistemic agency is nullified or diminished by the cancelling or sub-version of the force of their speech acts (illocutionary silencing/flipping); and those that occur when the subject's exercise of epistemic agency is nullified or diminished by being given no uptake or negative and inhibi-tory uptake in a way that short-circuits the perlocutionary effects of their speech acts (perlocutionary silencing/flipping). In Section 2, I discuss ways in which epistemically oppressed subjects can resist agential epistemic injustices by augmenting and protecting their epistemic group agency through what I call epistemic activism, that is, resistant epistemic group action carried out by them collectively and sometimes in coordination with allies.
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Elaborating some insights of recent epistemologies of ignorance, this paper focuses on the contextual construction of ignorance and, more specifically, on the case-specific functioning of social ignorance about the conditions in which... more
Elaborating some insights of recent epistemologies of ignorance, this paper focuses on the contextual construction of ignorance and, more specifically, on the case-specific functioning of social ignorance about the conditions in which incarcerated individuals are routinely housed. The central aim of the paper is to show how acts and conditions that the public might otherwise condemn are ‘disappeared’ through explicit and implicit practices of epistemic disqualification that rely upon, and perpetuate, racialized discourses of criminality and infamy. By perpetuating narratives of the imprisoned individual as untrustworthy, irrational, and incomprehensible, prevalent discourses stack the epistemic deck in favor of the status quo and the authorities who maintain it. To analyze this situation, we examine one particular case of epistemic injustice, in which prisoners in the Durham County Detention Facility are disqualified from speaking authoritatively about their own lives. Examining instances of resistance by these prisoners and their allies, we develop the concept of epistemic activism and use it to supplement Karen Jones’s influential theory of the politics of credibility.
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Developing some insights from Ortega and Wittgenstein, this paper provides an analysis of the cognitive comfort and cognitive discomfort that can be associated with different kinds of ignorance. Focusing on the kind of pernicious , active... more
Developing some insights from Ortega and Wittgenstein, this paper provides an analysis of the cognitive comfort and cognitive discomfort that can be associated with different kinds of ignorance. Focusing on the kind of pernicious , active ignorance that is constitutive of insensitivity, I examine the defense mechanisms and resistances that block learning and epistemic growth, constituting " the will not to believe " or " the will to ignorance " . Drawing on the recent literature in the epistemology of ignorance, my paper develops arguments for valuing the role of cognitive discomfort in our epistemic life and for an ethics and an epistemology of discomfort that propose micro-practices of resistance to fight insensitivity. Consistent with some insights that can be found in the philosophies of Wittgenstein and Ortega, this paper contends that insensitivity and self-ignorance have to be resisted by cultivating experiences of perplexity or self-estrangement which allow us to see our own perspective in a new and unfamiliar way, from elsewhere or from the perspectives of those who are very different from us.
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Edited volume on Epistemic Injustice forthcoming in February
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Ignorance is a neglected issue in philosophy. For at least two reasons, this is surprising. First, contrary to what one might expect, it is not clear what ignorance is. Some philosophers say or assume that it is lack of knowledge, whereas... more
Ignorance is a neglected issue in philosophy. For at least two reasons, this is surprising. First, contrary to what one might expect, it is not clear what ignorance is. Some philosophers say or assume that it is lack of knowledge, whereas others claim or presuppose that it is absence of true belief. What is one ignorant of when one is ignorant? And how does ignorance of a specific fact relate to ignorance on some topic or to being an ignorant person (an ignoramus)?
Second, ignorance is of crucial importance in several domains of life, but the roles it plays in those domains have mostly received little attention. In the epistemic realm, ignorance might unexpectedly have some epistemic value, focusing on ignorance sheds new light on knowledge and epistemic justification, and the concept of culpable ignorance returns time and again in religious epistemology. In the moral realm, ignorance is sometimes considered as an excuse, some specific kind of ignorance seems to be implied by a moral character, and ignorance is closely related to moral risk. Finally, ignorance has certain social dimensions: it has been claimed to be the engine of science, it seems to be entailed by privacy and secrecy, and it is widely thought to constitute a legal excuse in certain circumstances. But if the nature of ignorance is more elusive than one would initially think and if ignorance plays a pivotal role in such important realms of life as the epistemic, the moral, and the social domains, then one could hardly wish for a better object of philosophical analysis and discussion.
The focus of this edited collection is on the epistemic dimension of ignorance. This volume addresses such issues as the nature of ignorance, the contextual dimension of ignorance, the epistemic value of ignorance, and social epistemological issues pertaining to ignorance. Together, these topics will add depth and insight into the question of how ignorance should be understood epistemologically. It will be the first in its kind in having as its focus exactly those problems associated with this dimension. It will draw together twelve commissioned chapters that are written by leading philosophers in the field and that represent diverse reflections on a rich topic.
Editors: Martijn Blaauw, Rik Peels
Second, ignorance is of crucial importance in several domains of life, but the roles it plays in those domains have mostly received little attention. In the epistemic realm, ignorance might unexpectedly have some epistemic value, focusing on ignorance sheds new light on knowledge and epistemic justification, and the concept of culpable ignorance returns time and again in religious epistemology. In the moral realm, ignorance is sometimes considered as an excuse, some specific kind of ignorance seems to be implied by a moral character, and ignorance is closely related to moral risk. Finally, ignorance has certain social dimensions: it has been claimed to be the engine of science, it seems to be entailed by privacy and secrecy, and it is widely thought to constitute a legal excuse in certain circumstances. But if the nature of ignorance is more elusive than one would initially think and if ignorance plays a pivotal role in such important realms of life as the epistemic, the moral, and the social domains, then one could hardly wish for a better object of philosophical analysis and discussion.
The focus of this edited collection is on the epistemic dimension of ignorance. This volume addresses such issues as the nature of ignorance, the contextual dimension of ignorance, the epistemic value of ignorance, and social epistemological issues pertaining to ignorance. Together, these topics will add depth and insight into the question of how ignorance should be understood epistemologically. It will be the first in its kind in having as its focus exactly those problems associated with this dimension. It will draw together twelve commissioned chapters that are written by leading philosophers in the field and that represent diverse reflections on a rich topic.
Editors: Martijn Blaauw, Rik Peels
Research Interests:
This book explores the epistemic side of oppression, focusing on racial and sexual oppression and their interconnections. It elucidates how social insensitivities and imposed silences prevent members of different groups from interacting... more
This book explores the epistemic side of oppression, focusing on racial and sexual oppression and their interconnections. It elucidates how social insensitivities and imposed silences prevent members of different groups from interacting epistemically in fruitful ways—from listening to each other, learning from each other, and mutually enriching each other's perspectives. Medina's epistemology of resistance offers a contextualist theory of our complicity with epistemic injustices and a social connection model of shared responsibility for improving epistemic conditions of participation in social practices. Through the articulation of a new interactionism and polyphonic contextualism, the book develops a sustained argument about the role of the imagination in mediating social perceptions and interactions. It concludes that only through the cultivation of practices of resistance can we develop a social imagination that can help us become sensitive to the suffering of excluded and stigmatized subjects. Drawing on Feminist Standpoint Theory and Critical Race Theory, this book makes contributions to social epistemology and to recent discussions of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice, epistemic responsibility, counter-performativity, and solidarity in the fight against racism and sexism.
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In Speaking from Elsewhere, author Jose Medina argues for the critical and transformative power of speech from marginalized locations by articulating a contextualist view of meaning, identity, and agency. This contextualism draws from... more
In Speaking from Elsewhere, author Jose Medina argues for the critical and transformative power of speech from marginalized locations by articulating a contextualist view of meaning, identity, and agency. This contextualism draws from different philosophical traditions (Wittgenstein, pragmatism, and feminist theory) and crosses disciplinary boundaries (philosophy, cultural studies, women's studies, and sociology) to underscore both the diversity of voices and viewpoints and the openness of discursive contexts and practices. Expressing a robust notion of discursive responsibility, Medina contends that, as speakers and members of linguistic communities, we cannot elude the obligation to open up discursive spaces for new voices and to facilitate new dialogues that break silences and empower marginalized voices.
"This is a groundbreaking and genuinely novel contribution to an emerging school of Wittgenstein interpretation. It combines careful attention to the texts with deep and broad connections to issues of general interest as well as of much theoretical concern." -- Naomi Scheman, coeditor of Feminist Interpretations of Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Medina's book defends an original thesis, is extremely readable, and manages to interweave analytic philosophy of language, continental thought, postmodernism, and feminist philosophy with ease and elegance." -- Barbara Fultner, translator of Truth and Justification by Jürgen Habermas
"This is a groundbreaking and genuinely novel contribution to an emerging school of Wittgenstein interpretation. It combines careful attention to the texts with deep and broad connections to issues of general interest as well as of much theoretical concern." -- Naomi Scheman, coeditor of Feminist Interpretations of Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Medina's book defends an original thesis, is extremely readable, and manages to interweave analytic philosophy of language, continental thought, postmodernism, and feminist philosophy with ease and elegance." -- Barbara Fultner, translator of Truth and Justification by Jürgen Habermas
