Kristie Dotson

In this paper, we analyze the recent public scandal involving Nafissatou Diallo and Dominique Strauss-Kahn to offer an account of the role affectability imbalances play in process-based invisibility. Process-based invisibilities, in this paper, refer to predictable narrative gaps within public narratives that can be aptly described as disappearances. We demonstrate that compromised, complex social identities, maladjusted webs of reciprocity, and a failure to fully appreciate basic affectability in large part cause affectability imbalances. Ultimately, we claim that affectability imbalances and the three imbricated conditions that facilitate such imbalances—complex social identities, reciprocity, and basic affectability—are integral features of process-based invisibility.

This paper answers a call made by Anita Allen to genuinely assess whether the field of philosophy has the capacity to sustain the work of diverse peoples. By identifying a pervasive culture of justification within professional philosophy, I gesture to the ways professional philosophy is not an attractive working environment for many diverse practitioners. As a result of the downsides of the culture of justification that pervades professional philosophy, I advocate that the discipline of professional philosophy be cast according to a culture of praxis. Finally, I provide a comparative exercise using Graham Priest’s definition of philosophy and Audre Lorde’s observations of the limitations of philosophical theorizing to show how these two disparate accounts can be understood as philosophical engagement with a shift to a culture of praxis perspective.