LFU:online

Familiarity with recent developments in epistemology concerning the relationship between knowledge and social location.

Do our gender, ethnicity, or other aspects of our social location exert any epistemic influence? Do they for example influence the ways in which we can gain knowledge, or the forms of knowledge that are available to us? Might there even be objects of knowledge to which a particular group, due to its social location, has privileged or underprivileged access? Are there particular social structures that lead systematically to “epistemic injustice” against particular social groups? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, then what are the implications on the possibility of objective epistemic norms? The class will discuss these and related questions, with the help of a rich and burgeoning literature produced by international epistemologists. It remains to be seen whether the answers will yield a complete revision to, or just a friendly complement to, traditional epistemology.

Presentations by the teacher, discussions of texts from contemporary literature.

Short essays, presentation, class discussion.

None.