Kristie Dotson

Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression

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 I agree 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. In this paper, I claim 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.

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.

Environmental Justice, Unknowability and Unqualified Affectability

Environmental injustices often remain unknowable. An important argument for overcoming unknowability suggests that corporeal affectivity is integral for moral knowledge. However, when one begins to consider something like a global community and global environmental justice, corporeal affect becomes difficult to map. We will argue that one must begin to think beyond affectability as embodied emotion to also include affectability as unqualified interdependence when considering a global community. In turn, considering ethics in a global community can aid in identifying strategies to counter several dimensions of unknowability, i.e. present absence or the abjection of difference, in environmental justice situations.

Theorizing Jane Crow, Theorizing Unknowability

Abstract In this essay, I offer an epistemological accounting of Pauli Murray’s idea of Jane Crow dynamics. Jane Crow, in my estimation, refers to clashing supremacy systems that provide targets for subordination while removing grounds to demand recourse for said subordination. As a description of an oppressive state, it is an idea of subordination with an epistemological engine. Here, I offer an epistemological reading of Jane Crow dynamics by theorizing three imbricated conditions for Jane Crow, i.e. the occupation of negative, socio-epistemic space, reduced epistemic confidence, and heightened epistemic disavowal. To this end, Jane Crow seems to require routine epistemic failings. In the end, I propose that an epistemological narrative of Jane Crow may also shed light on why invisibility frames figure so prominently in US Black feminist thought.

On intellectual diversity and differences that may not make a difference

Abstract Calls for diversity in higher education have been ongoing for, at least, a century. Today, the diversity movement in higher education is in danger of being co-opted in the US by a move to make ‘intellectual diversity,’ i.e. the diversity of political opinion, on par with the cultural and historical diversity that one finds within differently racialized populations. Intellectual diversity is thought to track different modes of thinking between conservatives and progressives that need policy interventions to promote and protect. Here I offer an account of a mode of thinking to probe what conservative, libertarian, progressive, and critical theory orientations, as modes of thinking, should show in order to present themselves as tokens of ‘intellectual diversity.’ Ultimately, I gesture to the conclusion that intellectual diversity as a mode of thinking degrades into either infinite particularity or impossible singularity that do little establish a call for policy intervention.

On the way to decolonization in a settler colony: Re-introducing Black feminist identity politics

In this paper, I explain Black feminist identity politics as a practice that is ‘on the way’ to settler decolonization in a US context for the fact that it makes demands that we attend to our “originating” stories and, in doing so, 1) generate potential for difficult coalitions for decolonization in settler colonial USA and 2) promoting a range of refusals (Simpson 2014) that aid in resisting the completion of settler colonialism in North America, which is still an uncompleted project. Ultimately, I claim Black feminist identity politics, properly understood, is a practice that aids in retaining the possibility of decolonization in a settler colonial state by resisting the historical unknowing that facilitates settler futurity. It is not itself settler decolonization, but rather it is “on the way” to such decolonization as it keeps open the need for decolonial futurity.

(1.2) WELL, YES AND NO: A REPLY TO PRIEST

It is rare to have an occasion to discuss one’s ideas with an interlocutor with the generosity and rigor of Graham Priest. I have genuinely enjoyed our exchange and how Priest has pushed me to clarify the scope of my analysis. In contemplating Priest’s reply and our informal correspondence, it has become clear to me that Priest and I share a great many ideas and orientations. For example, we both appear to be allergic to orthodoxy, i.e. gate-keeping that does not let in all “legitimate traders” [4] 1 . So, yes, it would seem that we both hold a concern that professional philosophy has an unpleasant proclivity towards the development and sustenance of orthodoxy. And, I assume, we are both committed to contributing towards understandings of professional philosophy that counter this proclivity. 2