Hermeneutical Injustice : intrapersonal intelligibility, structural gaslighting and feminist methodology

Abstract

Language and its distortion have long been a topic of feminist epistemology. Within the literature of epistemic injustice, intrapersonal intelligibility refers to a scenario in which a subject suffers from a lack of accurate concepts to represent their own experiences to themselves. I appeal to phenomenological reasons to explain this detachment between concepts and experiences on a local scale. The role of interpersonal intelligibility, or the way social communities correlate certain experiences with concepts, will be mentioned as a foundation of our discussion. Structural gaslighting contributes to the maintenance of oppressive systems such as misogyny. It distorts conceptual resources and causes misapplication of apt concepts; all of which prevent us from aptly understanding and elaborating feminine social and sexual experiences, even in conditions where there is a wealth of conceptual resources. The mechanism of structural gaslighting will explain the situation of interpersonal intelligibility of hermeneutical injustice. I offer an analysis of philosophical methodology later in the thesis as a sum-up of my previous arguments. I comment on the cases of hermeneutical injustice used by Fricker and her prior commitments before her argumentation. I direct such a critique toward a general analytic tradition of feminism. I conclude the thesis with some further thoughts on concepts.