Since the early 1980s, feminist epistemology has developed into a vibrant area of inquiry which challenges many of the taken-for-granted assumptions of traditional, mainstream theories of knowledge to work towards developing theories and practices that close a persistent gap between theories of knowledge and knowledge that matters to people in real situations. Here I will examine some of the more startling recent developments in feminist epistemology, where—perhaps improbably—epistemologies of ignorance and questions about epistemic injustice have made significant contributions to feminist knowledge projects. Together and separately, they expose the extent to which knowing is a political activity, while maintaining that it can avow its political involvement without dissolving into facile assertions that ‘might is right’.
Poetics of Relation
Published in French in 1990, this book is among the later conceptualizations of postcolonial and racial relations. Glissant (1928–2011) is a novelist, and his attention to politics operates through an interest in linguistics: studying creole languages, he exposes how colonized people transformed the tool of the master, leading to the creation of a new, creolized culture and expression. He reads the long-term effects of the slave trade, where people were forcibly taken from their cultural and linguistic milieu an put in another one, characterized by an extremely violent relation of subjection. In this context, he elaborates the notion of antillanité, as a French West Indies description of the unpredictable linking and blending of cultures and languages, extending and specifying the idea of négritude found in Césaire and Senghor in the 1930s. This complex analysis leads to two seemingly contradictory concepts: first, his idea of opacity argues in favor of untranslatability and of irreducible yet non-hierarchical differences. Second, his poetics of relation leads to an understanding of identity as an extension of the connection to the other. From there, he sketches a new definition of culture, taking into account power dynamics, which is also a departure from the idea of authenticity or autochtony. Against a binary reading of colonialist relations of power, Glissant explores the formation of identities through the process of creolization, where a new language is invented as a mean of resistance, thus undermining any possibility for a pure, uniform identity.
The Location of Culture
This work analyzes the contemporary conditions of culture and criticizes common definitions of identity. Bhabha (b. 1949) makes use of continental philosophy, social sciences and literature (crediting Morrison, Salman Rushdie, and even Anish Kapoor), draws on Said and Spivak, and reads Fanon extensively—blending anti-colonial critique with post-structuralism. His main object is the long-term effects of colonialism on social identities and culture, even after the departure of the colonizers or the abolition of slavery. From an inquiry concerning the effects of the awareness of social positions and the political usages of identity, he finds that culture is characterized by hybridation and going beyond established limits. Against the idea that cultures are fixed traditions belonging to identified communities, Bhabha tries to explain how social meanings are an on-going, dynamic and relational process, underlining contradictions, ambivalence, and two of the main concepts of this book: hybridity (the mixed nature of culture) and mimicry (the adoption of ideas and values from other cultures). In his view, “[d]ifferences in culture and power are constituted through the social conditions of enunciation” (p. 242), meaning that culture needs to be seen as fragmented, unstable and sometimes antagonistic. Bhabha elaborates a definition of the boundary not as a limit, but as the site for theoretical production and artistic creation, exemplified by the proliferation of “post” in contemporary theory (poststructuralism, postmodernism, etc), which he understands as a movement of going beyond, pointing towards a constant invention of oneself.
Elite Capture
Identity politics is everywhere, polarising discourse from the campaign trail to the classroom and amplifying antagonisms in the media. But the compulsively referenced phrase bears little resemblance to the concept as first introduced by the radical Black feminist Combahee River Collective. While the Collective articulated a political viewpoint grounded in their own position as Black lesbians with the explicit aim of building solidarity across lines of difference, identity politics is now frequently weaponised as a means of closing ranks around ever-narrower conceptions of group interests.
But the trouble, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò deftly argues, is not with identity politics itself. Through a substantive engagement with the global Black radical tradition and a critical understanding of racial capitalism, Táíwò identifies the process by which a radical concept can be stripped of its political substance and liberatory potential by becoming the victim of elite capture -deployed by political, social and economic elites in the service of their own interests.
Táíwò’s crucial intervention both elucidates this complex process and helps us move beyond the binary of ‘class’ vs. ‘race’. By rejecting elitist identity politics in favour of a constructive politics of radical solidarity, he advances the possibility of organising across our differences in the urgent struggle for a better world.
Rationality is not coherence
According to a popular account, rationality is a kind of coherence of an agent’s mental states and, more specifically, a matter of fulfilling norms of coherence. For example, in order to be rational, an agent is required to intend to do what they judge they ought to and can do. This norm has been called ‘Enkrasia’. Another norm requires that, ceteris paribus, an agent retain their intention over time. This has been called ‘Persistence of Intention’. This paper argues that thus understood norms of rationality may at times conflict. More specifically, Enkrasia and Persistence of Intention may place demands on the agent that are impossible to fulfil. In these cases, the framework of requirements does not provide us with norms that make us rational. A rival account, according to which rationality is a kind of responsiveness to one’s available reasons, can overcome the problem.
Necessary Propositions
I should like to make a few comments on a recent article on necessary propositions by Mr. Norman Malcolm. Not so much because of anything specifically said by Mr. Malcolm as because his article expresses a prevalent view. Mr. Malcolm rejects what may be called the ‘metaphysical’ view of these propositions, viz. that they describe a special realm of necessary facts known by a kind of interior ‘looking’ called intuition or self-evidence. But the main concern of his paper is to reject also the later positivist view that they are ‘really’ verbal…, that they are rules of grammar or commands to use words in certain ways.
‘There is no reason for the necessity of the ultimate principles of deduction.’ Margaret Macdonald on logical necessity
This paper aims at contributing to the recent enterprise of rediscovering Margaret Macdonald’s views, by focusing on her reflections on the necessity of logic, a theme that runs through many of her papers and reviews. We will see both Macdonald’s negative views about what the necessity of logic is not (Section I), and her positive view about what it is and how it supports her claim that it is in fact irrational to ask for a reason for the necessity of the ultimate principles of deduction, such as the Principle of Contradiction (Section II). To show how her view on the necessity of logic is different from others, such as David Lewis’s, we will then consider what she would reply to current rejectors of the Principle of Contradiction (Section III).
Queer feminist logic and contradictions: Or how logic and feminism can be relevant to each other
Work in the field of feminist logic is still rather scarce and the field itself remains a contested area of study, but still, it is developing. One approach concentrates on analyzing logical systems with respect to structural features that may perpetuate sexism and oppression or, on the other hand, features that may be helpful for resist-ing and opposing these social phenomena. Upon this assumption, I want to inves-tigate possible applications of queer feminist views on (philosophy of) logic with respect to a very specific group, namely contradictory logics, i.e., logical systems containing contradictions in their set of theorems. I want to show that, on the one hand, the formal set-up of contradictory logics makes them well-suited from the perspectives of feminist logic and, on the other hand, that queer feminist theories provide a relevant, and so far undeveloped, conceptual motivation for contradictory logics. Thus, bringing together contradictory logics and queer feminist theories may prove fruitful both as a ‘real-life’ motivation for these peripheral logical systems and as a formal basis for a philosophical field that is still characterized by a distrust of formalism.
The Logic of Kant’s Categorical “Imperative”
Introduction: In Kant’s moral philosophy, the imperative is perched precariously between two realms governed by the indicative form of speech. In the Critique of Pure Reason, it reminds us of an intelligible, rational realm beyond that governed by descriptive causal explanation. But in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, it reminds us of the sensible pull of causality that frequently leads us to violate its intelligible principles. Correspondingly, Kant approaches the moral law from two directions in the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. When he is explaining moral motivation, he describes and refers to the moral law as an imperative, because this is the form it takes for causally enmeshed human beings. But when he is analyzing its rational formal structure and situating it within his broader analysis of reason, he formulates the moral law in the indicative mood, because this is the form it takes for perfectly rational beings. The vast majority of Kant’s actual formulations of the moral law in the Groundwork are not in the imperative. Of 47 formulations to be found in the text, only four are in the strict imperative. Of those four, only the first receives extended analysis. Of the remaining 43, 31 are expressed in the indicative mood. So two-thirds of Kant’s formulations of the moral law in the Groundwork are descriptive rather than prescriptive. These serve to buttress his repeated reminder that for agents as members of the intelligible world, the “I ought” becomes an “I will”. In the Groundwork, Kant usually addresses us as members of that world.
“That’s Above My Paygrade”: Woke Excuses for Ignorance
Standpoint theorists have long been clear that marginalization does not make better understanding a given. They have been less clear, though, that social dominance does not make ignorance a given. Indeed, many standpoint theorists have implicitly committed themselves to what I call the strong epistemic disadvantage thesis. According to this thesis, there are strong, substantive limits on what the socially dominant can know about oppression that they do not personally experience. I argue that this thesis is not just implausible but politically pernicious; it is an excuse for ignorance and silence that stifles our ability to address many injustices. Moreover, I argue that if we are to avoid lending support to the SEDT while working within a standpoint theory framework, we must hold that the socially dominant can achieve marginalized standpoints. So, we must hold that men can achieve feminist standpoints, that white women (and men) can achieve black feminist standpoints, and so on.