Expression-Style Exclusion

ABSTRACT

I describe a phenomenon that has not yet been described in the epistemology literature. I label this phenomenon expression-style exclusion. Expression-style exclusion is an example of how social injustice affects whether audiences are in good epistemic states and whether speakers can exercise their epistemic capacities. Expression-style exclusion can cause audiences to have less rather than more understanding of a non-dominant speakers’ argument. And if expression-style exclusion obtains, then non-dominant speakers are less likely to express arguments in expression styles or ways of speaking such that they maximize their audiences’ understanding of them. This phenomenon partly explains the prevalence of white ignorance. I also argue that if expression-style exclusion obtains, then in addition to expressive and assertive speech act kinds, there is a further kind of speech act, namely a speech that aims to cause understanding in one’s audience.

KEYWORDS:

• Epistemic injustice
• race
• understanding
• expression style
• discursive injustice

Acknowledgments

This article has benefited from conversations at the Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, The Graduate Center-Princeton Epistemic Injustice Workshop and meetings of the North American Society of Social Philosophy and the Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress. This article has also benefitted from feedback from Linda Martín Alcoff, Lauren Alpert, Joseph Bendana, Aaron Bentley, Emmalon Davis, Miranda Fricker, Phoebe Friesen, Sanford Goldberg, Amanda Huminski, Annette Martin, Charles Mills, Vincent Peluce, Kate Pendoley, Richard Stillman, Philip Zigman. And I owe a debt of gratitude to two anonymous reviewers whose suggestions greatly improved the quality of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eric Bayruns Garcia

Eric Bayruns Garcia is a Ph.D. candidate at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He specializes in philosophy of race and epistemology. His philosophical work concerns epistemological questions raised by race and racial injustice.