Privilege and Position

Epistemic advantage on the margin: A network standpoint Epistemology

“…This paper is part of a recent effort (e.g., Saint‐Croix, 2020; Toole, 2020) at addressing issues facing standpoint epistemology by articulating interpretations of the theory that are neither obviously false nor trivially true, and offering explanations for its claims using novel philosophical methods. First, I precisely interpret a subgroup's epistemic advantages using three measures in my models—the frequency at which a subgroup eventually learns the true belief, the speed at which a subgroup learns the true belief, and the frequency at which a subgroup selects the epistemically better action during the learning process.…”

“…That such situations occur is widely claimed in social epistemology, and some authors (e.g. Mills (2007), Saint-Croix (2020), and Wylie (2003)) regard the unidirectional failure of testimonial reciprocity as a key claim of standpoint epistemology, which is a strand of social epistemology that takes as epistemically salient the social positions (or standpoints) that knowers are situated in. 2 Besides the unidirectional failure of testimonial reciprocity, another key claim of standpoint epistemology, most notably advocated by Hartsock (1983), contends that "certain [socially marginalized] locations themselves foster more accurate beliefs, not only concerning one' s own social position, but also the social and natural world more broadly" (Saint-Croix, 2020, 493, emphasis in the original).…”

“…Together, they constitute a unidirectional failure of testimonial reciprocity. That such situations occur is widely claimed in social epistemology, and some authors (e.g., Mills (2007); Saint‐Croix (2020); Wylie (2003)) regard the unidirectional failure of testimonial reciprocity as a key claim of standpoint epistemology, which is a strand of social epistemology that takes as epistemically salient the social positions (or standpoints) that knowers are situated in.…”

“…Besides the unidirectional failure of testimonial reciprocity, another key claim of standpoint epistemology, most notably advocated by Hartsock (1983), contends that “certain [socially marginalized] locations themselves foster more accurate beliefs, not only concerning one's own social position, but also the social and natural world more broadly” (Saint‐Croix, 2020, 493, emphasis in the original). This claim is often called the inversion thesis , after the inverse relation between knowers' sociopolitical power and epistemic privilege.…”

The Liberation Argument for Inconsistent Mathematics

“…The point is just that there needs be no common ground shared across the community: what remains fixed can vary.61 This is the direction Burton's feminist epistemology seems to suggest[Bur95]. My understanding of standpoint epistemology is greatly influenced by Cat Saint-Croix's formal reconstruction[SC20]. Note that, in order for queer incomaths to contribute to such proposals, inconsistent mathematicians would have to occupy a large variety of subordinate standpoints.62 Suggestions to this effect can be found in the "queering mathematics" literature, on which I will say more in Section 9.…”