Diversity Reading List

Abstract:

Autism has typically been framed as inherently harmful and at odds with both subjective happiness and objective flourishing. In recent decades, however, the view of autism as inherently harmful has been challenged by neurodiversity proponents, who draw on social and relational models of disability to reframe the harm autistic people face as arising out of the interaction between being autistic and disabling environments. Here we build on the neurodiversity perspective by arguing that autistic thriving has been rendered both invisible and unthinkable by interlocking forms of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. On the view we propose, rather than autism being at odds with the possibility of living a good life as such, We argue that our mainstream conceptions of the good life have excluded autistic manifestations of happiness and flourishing. This leads to an epistemic catch-22-like paradoxical situation whereby one can be recognised as autistic or as thriving, but not both. We then propose four ameliorative strategies that support moving towards broader conceptions of the good human life which will allow us to recognise not just autistic, but also other neurodivergent ways, of living a good human life.

Abstract:

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’.

Publisher's Note: The first major anthology to trace the development, from the early 1800s to the present, of black feminist thought in the United States, Words of Fire is Beverly Guy-Sheftall's comprehensive collection of writings, in the feminist tradition, of more than sixty African American women. From the pioneering work of abolitionist Maria Miller Stewart and anti-lynching crusader Ida Wells-Barnett to the writings of contemporary feminist critics Michele Wallace and bell hooks, black women have been writing about the multiple jeopardies--racism, sexism, and classicm--that have made it imperative for them to forge a brand of feminism uniquely their own.

Abstract: US black feminist thought reflects the interests and standpoint of its creators. Indeed, White men have control over knowledge. And, Black women's ideas have been controlled by White men interpretation of the world. This means that Black feminist thought can best be viewed as subjugated knowledge.

Introduction: ... A definition of Black feminist thought is needed that avoids the materialist position that being Black and/or female generates certain experiences that automatically determine variants of a Black and/or feminist consciousness. Claims that Black feminist thought is the exclusive province of African-American women, regardless of the experiences and worldview of such women, typify this position. But a definition of Black feminist thought must also avoid the idealist position that ideas cna be evaluated in isolation from the groups that create them. Definitions claiming that anyone can produce and develop Black feminist thought risk obscuring the special angle of vision that Black women bring to the knowldege production process.

Abstract: This paper argues that the concept of care is significant not only for ethics, but for epistemology as well. After elucidating caring as a five-step dyadic relation, I go on to show its epistemic significance within the general framework of virtue epistemology as developed by Ernest Sosa, Alvin Goldman, and Linda Zagzebski. The notions of "care-knowing" and "care-based epistemology" emerge from construing caring (respectively) as a reliabilist and responsibilist virtue.

Abstract: I argue that collaborators do not need to reach broad agreement over the justification of a consensus claim. This is because maintaining a diversity of justifiers within a scientific collaboration has important epistemic value. I develop a view of collective justification that depends on the diversity of epistemic perspectives present in a group. I argue that a group can be collectively justified in asserting that P as long as the disagreement among collaborators over the reasons for P is itself justified. In conclusion, I make a case for multimethod collaborative research and work through an example in the social sciences.

Abstract:

Published in French in 1949, it is usually considered the foundational book of second wave feminism, characterized by a shift from the conquering of political rights of first wave feminism (franchise, basic emancipation) to a concern for general equality, at home, in the workplace, etc. Beauvoir's (1908–1986) first question is the very definition of a woman, and her core ideas draw from phenomenology. She elaborates an existential account of being a woman: womanhood does not consist of fixed characteristics, but is a project carried out by a free agent in a material, collective situation, creating meaning through action in a given context. Understanding the category of woman as a collective construction and the result of a series of actions and representations allows for the re-actualization of the Marxist notion of alienation, where women are stranger to themselves, operating on values imposed by men rather than found in a lived practice. In two volumes, Beauvoir seeks to highlight both the cultural, historical and economical background of genders ("Facts and Myths") and the "Lived Experience" resulting from it. Through a reading of Hegel, she rethinks gender categories as a dynamic and unequal process, and from there traces the possibility of a liberation from the perceived secondary character of women. Groundbreaking in feminist and continental philosophy, placed on the catholic Index of forbidden books, it remains a revolutionary work until today.

Abstract:
In search of our highest capacities, cognitive scientists aim to explain things like mathematics, language, and planning. But are these really our most sophisticated forms of knowing? In this paper, I point to a different pinnacle of cognition. Our most sophisticated human knowing, I think, lies in how we engage with each other, in our relating. Cognitive science and philosophy of mind have largely ignored the ways of knowing at play here. At the same time, the emphasis on discrete, rational knowing to the detriment of engaged, human knowing pervades societal practices and institutions, often with harmful effects on people and their relations. There are many reasons why we need a new, engaged - or even engaging - epistemology of human knowing. The enactive theory of participatory sense-making takes steps towards this, but it needs deepening. Kym Maclaren's idea of letting be invites such a deepening. Characterizing knowing as a relationship of letting be provides a nuanced way to deal with the tensions between the knower's being and the being of the known, as they meet in the process of knowing-and-being-known. This meeting of knower and known is not easy to understand. However, there is a mode of relating in which we know it well, and that is: in loving relationships. I propose to look at human knowing through the lens of loving. We then see that both knowing and loving are existential, dialectic ways in which concrete and particular beings engage with each other.

Abstract: Too often, identifying practices of silencing is a seemingly impossible exercise. Here I claim that attempting to give a conceptual reading of the epistemic violence present when silencing occurs can help distinguish the different ways members of oppressed groups are silenced with respect to testimony. I offer an account of epistemic violence as the failure, owing to pernicious ignorance, of hearers to meet the vulnerabilities of speakers in linguistic exchanges. Ultimately, I illustrate that by focusing on the ways in which hearers fail to meet speaker dependency in a linguistic exchange, efforts can be made to demarcate the different types of silencing people face when attempting to testify from oppressed positions in society.