Epistemic violence, relativism, and objectivity

Abstract

Held (2020) provides an admirable overview of the importance of and challenges associated with epistemic violence. However, likely due to length restraints, she did not attend to an important consideration related to her discussion of epistemic violence: that objective knowledge is not possible. The view that objective knowledge is not possible can be interpreted as a species of relativism. This commentary connects discussions of epistemic violence to an ancient argument against relativism, arguing that those concerned with epistemic violence ought to also be concerned with the potentially dangerous belief that relativism is true.