ACTIVE FORMS OF HERMENEUTICAL INJUSTICE

Following Fricker's pioneering analysis, hermeneutical injustice research has focused on the existence of lacunas or gaps in the conceptual resources shared by a society. This form of hermeneutical injustice can be considered negative or passive. Against it, some authors have shown that there can be positive or active forms of hermeneutical injustice. In these positive or active varieties of hermeneutical injustice, an agent’s inability to understand her own experiences is not due to the lack of concepts, but to the existence of other concepts that distort the interpretation.

The project will focus on these active forms of hermeneutic injustice. Its starting hypothesis is that the paradigmatic or central cases of hermeneutical injustice are, contrary to what Fricker's analysis suggests, instances of active or positive hermeneutical injustice. Conceptual lacuna are often the result of the blocking or distorting effect of other concepts. Specifically, the working hypothesis is that the presence of impostor concepts, together with impostor uses of other concepts, play a central role in hermeneutic injustice. The notion of impostor concept refers to concepts coined by authorities (e.g., medical or legal authorities) that provide an inadequate understanding of their target experiences and serve to reinforce a system of oppression. Concepts such as drapetomania or hysteria in the 19th century, or crime of passion more recently, would be impostor concepts that obscure, rather than illuminate, slaves' experiences of desire to escape, certain women's discomforts, or gender-based violence as a structural phenomenon, respectively.