The Contribution of Logic to Epistemic Injustice

ABSTRACT

While much has been said on the connection between dominant rationality standards and systemic oppression, the specific role of logic in supporting epistemic injustice has not received much explicit attention. In this paper I highlight several ways in which it is possible for logic – as a discipline, as a particular system and as a gloss for rational common sense – to be implicated in epistemic injustice. Concrete examples are given for testimonial, content-based, hermeneutical and contributory injustices. I conclude by elaborating on how the need to address these injustices affects the attitudes we should carry toward logic.

KEYWORDS:

• Testimonial injustice
• hermeneutical injustice
• contributory injustice
• logical pluralism

Acknowledgments

Thanks to an anonymous referee, whose detailed comments much improved the paper. Thanks also to Fabio De Martin Polo, Cara-Julie Kather, Emil Eva Rosina and Andrew Tedder for feedback on earlier drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I say ’philosophical logicians’ because mathematical logicians may reduce all this to the relatively uniform and self-contained standards of (logico-)mathematical practice. I leave an exploration of that angle for future work.

2. For a survey of traditions in Indian logic, see Mohanty et al. (2009). On Native American logic, see Eichler (2018) and references therein. On African logic, see Chimakonam (2020).

3. See Anderson (2006) for an enlightening review of how nasty it can get.

4. Anecdotally. But see also respectively Fricker and Jenkins (2017) and Johnson (2021). For more on the notion of hermeneutical injustice and what distinguishes it from other injustices, see e.g. Radi (2022).

5. This is compounded in languages more gendered than English: see e.g. Ashley (2019).

6. Another approach might be to preserve the model while changing how it is being applied. On one hand, I am skeptical that the model would not remain problematic due to its ideological influence; on the other hand, this is arguably still a change in logic (although not in the logic). I leave a detailed exploration of this strategy to future work.

7. For more on Native conceptions of gender, see e.g. Waters (2004b).

8. To be clear, I am not advancing any claim about the deep structure of language here. I do not know whether there is some common logic to all possible human languages at some level. My point is just that surface differences cannot be stepped over on pains of misunderstanding.

9. For pointers on how to teach logic more inclusively, see e.g. Ayim (1995), Waters (2004a), and again Lehan (2015).

10. A more complete discussion of this point would have to address the connection of logic and mathematics, and between alternative logics and alternative mathematics, not to mention the role of classical mathematics in epistemic injustice. I leave this for future work.

11. For more on the role of translations in logical disputes, see Aberdein and Read (2009).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in the context of a Sofja Kovalevskaja Award.

Notes on contributors

Franci Mangraviti

Franci Mangraviti is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Padova. They began their academic career in mathematics, before turning to logic and finally to philosophy. Their PhD dissertation was a philosophical study of so-called inconsistent mathematics, culminating in a reconceptualization of the field as a liberatory activity. They now specialize in philosophy of logic and mathematics, with a focus on alternatives and interactions with feminist philosophy and philosophy of gender.