Redefining the Wrong of Epistemic Injustice: The Knower as a Concrete Other and the Affective Dimension of Cognition

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper offers an analysis of the primary wrong of epistemic injustice, namely, of the intrinsic harm that constitutes its action itself. Contrary to Miranda Fricker, I shall argue that there is an additional, overlooked dimension of this harm, which consists in a failure to perceive the knower as a concrete other with distinctive needs, features, and perceptions that are always implicit during her epistemic contributions. I shall name this dimension ‘affective’, and I shall consider the harm of epistemic injustice in the broad as simultaneously ‘epistemic-affective’. In Section 1), I explain what I understand as a lack of individuality within feminist epistemology and in Fricker´s theory of epistemic injustice. As a result, in Section 2), I derive my notion of the affective dimension of the knower by drawing from Seyla Benhabib´s notion of the concrete other. Finally, Section 3) and 4) redescribe the primary wrong of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice respectively in terms of the affective wrong of having one´s specific needs and particular contribution as an individual unfairly diminished and downgraded. Overall, this shows that the harm of epistemic injustice should be reconceived as ‘epistemic-affective’.