Abstract
According to an increasingly influential view in social epistemology, we owe victims of gross human rights violations not only economic and social reparations, but also reparations for the distinctively epistemic wrongs that attend such violations (Lackey 2022). One type of epistemic reparation is honouring victims' 'right to be known' (ibid.) — their right to have their true story known. This talk has two aims. First, I argue that the right to be known cannot be successfully exercised in hermeneutically unjust environments, i.e., environments in which the explanatory and epistemic resources of the oppressed do not feature in the mainstream knowledge economy (Dotson 2012, Fricker 2007). Thus, the successful exercise of the right to be known requires what I call hermeneutical reparations. The second aim of the talk is to sketch three distinct kinds of hermeneutical reparations. If the arguments work, we will have put into dialogue two bodies of scholarship that have, curiously, not yet talked to each other. The dialogue will not only be of mutual theoretical benefit to both, but will also up our chances of attaining epistemic justice.
Speaker Bio
Veli Mitova is Professor in Philosophy and Director of the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science at the University of Johannesburg. She works at the intersection of epistemology, ethics, and social epistemology. She is the author of Believable Evidence (CUP 2017), and the editor of Epistemic Reparations and the Right to Be Known (forthcoming SI of Philosophical Studies), Epistemic Decolonisation (2020) and of The Factive Turn in Epistemology (CUP 2018). Before joining the University of Johannesburg in 2015, Veli taught and researched at Universität Wien, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, Rhodes University (her alma mater), and Cambridge (where she obtained her PhD).
Accompanying Reading Cycle
In addition to the APSE talk by, we want to kindly invite you to our accompanying Reading Circle. It will take place right before the talk in the same room, so:
Time: Thursday, 22.05.2025, 1-3 pm
Location: 3A
We will focus our discussion on a forthcoming article by Veli Mitova:
Mitova, V. (2025). Decolonial Epistemic-Authority Reparations. Episteme. DOI: 10.1017/epi.2025.2
As introduction to Epistemic Reparations, Veli Mitova suggests the following article:
Lackey J. (2022). 'Epistemic Reparations and the Right to Be Known.' Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 96, 54–89.
As introduction to Hermeneutical Injustice:
Fricker, M. (2007). Chapter 7: Hermeneutical Injustice. Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. New York: Oxford University Press.
Introducing the concept of Contributory Injustice:
Dotson, K. (2012). A cautionary tale: on limiting epistemic oppression. Frontiers – A Journal of Women's Studies (1): 24–47.
And the latest reading, distinguishing 3 kinds of Hermeneutical Injustice:
Catala, A. (2025). Chapter 3: Deliberative Impasses, White Ignoring, and Hermeneutical Domination. The Dynamics of Epistemic Injustice: Situating Epistemic Power and Agency. New York: Oxford University Press.
Please send a quick message to vinzenz.fischer@univie.ac.at if you are planning to attend the Reading Cycle!
Feel free to bring your lunch!
