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epistemic death

đź“– Definitions

"Under conditions of epistemic death, subjects owe nothing to those practices and communities that contribute to their annihilation; epistemic obligations (such as answering questions, telling the truth, sharing information, etc.) are suspended because one should not be expected to cooperate with practices that undermine one’s own status and agency or that of one’s fellows. Moreover, besides relaxing and suspending obligations, epistemic death also creates a right (if not a duty) to fight epistemically by any means necessary (including the right to lie, to hide, to sabotage, to silence others, etc.), demonstrating loyalty and solidarity only with alternatives epistemic communities (communities of resistance)" (Medina 2018, 255).

đź’ˇ Examples

  • "Baldwin described the predicament of the black man in the United States as an “endless struggle to achieve . . . human identity, human authority” after internalizing fear as deep as the marrow of the bone
  • doubt that he was worthy of life, since everyone around him denied it
  • . . . rage, hatred, and murder, hatred for white men so deep that it often turned against him and his own, and made all love, all trust, all joy all life impossible" (Baldwin 1998, 98 as cited by Medina 2018, 254).

đź”— Relations

đź“š References

  • Medina, JosĂ©. 2017. "Epistemic Injustice and Epistemologies of Ignorance." In The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Race, edited by Paul C. Taylor, Linda MartĂ­n Alcoff, Luvell Anderson. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315884424
  • Baldwin, James. 1998. “The Fire Next Time.” In Collected Essays, Edited by Toni Morrison. Penguin Random House.