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Abstract
This paper identifies the phenomenon of conceptual competence injustice, a form of epistemic injustice that occurs when a marginalized epistemic agent makes a conceptual claim and is illegitimately regarded as having failed to grasp one or more of the concepts expressed in her testimony. The notion of a conceptual claim is given a deflationary account that is coextensive with the class of a priori knowable claims. This study reveals a form of oppression that severely hinders marginalized epistemic agents who seek to create or communicate conceptual knowledge. Conceptual competence injustice is compared and contrasted with three other forms of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice, hermeneutical injustice, and contributory injustice. The final section investigates a number of damaging effects that conceptual competence injustice has on marginalized persons pursuing a career in academic philosophy.
Notes
1. To elaborate the case further: the white male student’s understanding is focused on the natural kind term “water” and he thereby thinks that natural kind terms are names for substances, and so as names they are prime examples of rigid designators (terms that designate the same thing in every possible world), whereas the presenter has other natural kind terms in mind such as “tiger” and has noticed that the extension of such natural kind terms is different from world to world, since e.g. the actual number of tigers is not necessary.
2. In the present context I will treat this account as giving necessary and sufficient conditions on an event’s being an instance of competence injustice; however, in keeping with Dotson’s (Citation2012b) caution against closed conceptual structures and the possibility that such structures may further epistemic oppression, I consider this definition of competence injustice to be a tentative first formulation and likely subject to revision by myself or others.
3. Thanks to Stacey Goguen for bringing this important ambiguity to my attention.
4. There are a number of additional forms of competence that should be distinguished from the form of competence that is at issue in the present essay. One is communicative competence (Canale and Swain Citation1980), which is discussed as a theoretical basis for models of communicative approaches to teaching second languages. Communicative competence is determined by three more basic forms of competence: grammatical competence or knowledge of the rules of grammar, sociolinguistic competence or knowledge of the rules of language use in a social setting, strategic competence or the ability to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to performance variables or insufficient competence in another domain. A later version of this model (Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei, and Thurrell Citation1995) includes another kind of competence, discourse competence, concerned with the ability to link ideas across different sentences in a discourse. Chomsky’s (Citation1965) notion of competence (opposed to performance) should also be distinguished from conceptual competence; Chomsky’s notion of competence is the body of knowledge that would allow an ideal speaker of a language to produce grammatical expressions and distinguish grammatical from ungrammatical expressions. None of these forms of competence are at issue in episodes of conceptual competence injustice.
5. By relying on a deflationary account of conceptual claims, the present account of conceptual competence injustice avoids commitment to any particular theory of concepts, conceptual truth, or conceptual knowledge.
6. This may be a collection of one.
7. This notion of credibility is deflationary to the same extent that the notion of a conceptual claim is deflationary, and thus avoids any commitment to any substantive theory of what counts as conceptual knowledge.
8. This differs from the definition Fricker (Citation2007) gives. I do not assume that testimonial injustice must be caused by prejudice on the part of the hearer, as Fricker does, for the same reasons that I take such causal etiology to be inessential for competence injustice. I also assume that unduly low judgments of credibility only count as injustices when they are perpetrated against marginalized persons.
9. Perhaps it should go without saying, but I pause to stress: in cases where a marginalized person unduly doubts her own credibility or competence, she should not be thought of as “oppressing herself.” Such a person is the victim of structural oppression and should not be thought of as having violated any duty to honor her own rationality or as harming herself in virtue of having internalized oppressive norms of credibility ascription.
10. Fricker (Citation2007), 148.
11. Fricker (Citation2007), 153, 154.
12. Collins (Citation2002) discusses ways in which important hermeneutical resources are passed down within the marginalized communities that developed them, as when black mothers pass on their knowledge to their daughters concerning the nature of oppression faced by black women. However, such knowledge is not always available to all who need it, both within a given marginalized community and across different communities. It is part of the function of a matrix of domination that such resistance knowledge should be suppressed.
13. The present paper owes its existence in large part to Dotson’s criticisms.
14. Dotson (Citation2012b, 32).
15. Smith (Citation1979, 23).
16. Smith (Citation1993, 655).
17. Dotson (Citation2012b, 33).
18. See Eric Schliesser, “On boy-wonders in philosophy,” online at: http://www.newappsblog.com/2013/09/on-boy-wonders-in-philosophy.html.