Derek Egan Anderson

This chapter develops a unified theory of intersectionality using the methodology of historical analytic rational reconstruction. I begin by responding to a worry for this methodology: that such a process will inevitably misrepresent what intersectionality is. Then I give a brief history of intersectionality, followed by an analysis of intersectionality as comprised of five aspects: (i) intersectionality as structural oppression, (ii) political intersectionality, or the production of competing political exigencies, (iii) intersectional social identities, (iv) intersectionality as critical theory, and (v) intersectionality as praxis. I focus extensively on the central role of Collins’s (Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Routledge, 2002) concept of a matrix of domination and the way in which an oppressive regime of truth sustains and reproduces the matrix of domination consisting of race- and gender-based structural oppression.

This final chapter explains how an intersectional theory of truth contributes to an epistemology on which some socially and politically situated groups objectively have knowledge and others are objectively in the grip of ignorance due to the function of the oppressive regime of truth. It explains the sense in which political activism and political struggle in solidarity with a group is the only realistic way to gain knowledge of that group’s location in social space, how power operates there, and what is required to establish a more just society with respect to that group’s experiences. These concepts are shown to be compatible with the traditional analytic epistemologist’s concepts of objective truth, justification, and knowledge. Here I explore how a range of epistemic assets can be situated, including knowledge of word meanings, evidence, information, ideology critique, and science.

This chapter first introduces and argues for a constraint on metasemantic theorizing called General Metasemantic Adequacy, which says that any acceptable metasemantic theory must comport with our strongest first-order commitments, including our strongest first-order political commitments. Then, by taking this general principle together with the theory of intersectionality described in Chap. 8, I argue for another more specific constraint on metasemantic theorizing, Intersectional Metasemantic Adequacy. This constraint says that any acceptable metasemantics must comport with first-order truths about intersectionality, including most crucially facts about misinformation, misrepresentation, and the spread of false beliefs that undergird the matrix of domination.

This chapter first develops a Foucauldian theory of power, then applies it to analyze the apparatus that controls the operation of the truth predicate within the social fabric—what Foucault calls the regime of truth. Throughout, I focus on how the operation of power on the functioning of the word “true” within a social fabric beset with inequity and oppression is distinct from truth itself. Whether a sentence is true or false is not decided by the operation of power. Truth itself is not the product of power. But our social epistemic fabric is strongly influenced by power, to the point where political struggle for control over the social epistemic apparatus that controls the operation of the truth predicate cannot be disentangled from our epistemic struggle to generate knowledge of the truth, especially where the truth concerns systems of oppression.

The concept of a metasemantic theory is explained and the historical development of metasemantics as a field of study within analytic philosophy is briefly explored, along with a sociological critique of its reductive naturalistic aims. I go on to argue that an intersectional metasemantics should be anti-reductionist, externalist, and should be what I call an ideal language metasemantics. These views allow us to see the actual semantics for “racism” in English as determined by factors such as what better informed speakers of English would say about the nature of racism and the meaning of “racism.”

This chapter explores the history of model-theoretic semantics, arguing that such theories can provide objective truth conditions for sentences involving “racist” and “woman.” It covers the contributions of Frege, Tarski, and Montague to contemporary formal semantics, at each stage raising considerations about how these theories may interact with subjugated knowledge and power. The concluding section of this chapter argues for the Informed Speaker Constraint, which says that a speaker’s judgments only provide data about the semantics of an expression of a natural language if they can be considered knowledgeable about the elements in the domain of discourse that the expression semantically functions to represent. I also argue that the Informed Speaker Constraint, when applied to politically contested terminology, entails that a science of semantics cannot be politically neutral.

I develop four objections to the semantic corruption model, all premised on the fact that it renders misuses of “racist” and “woman” as true which should come out as false on any acceptable metasemantics. I go on to introduce the basic idea of an epistemic violence model for linguistic hijacking and controlling propositions. On this model, misuses are false but function to propagate misinformation and enable active ignorance that undergirds interlocking systems of oppression. I argue that an adequate theory of misinformation as epistemic violence must presuppose a metasemantics on which political opponents speak a shared language with shared meanings.

This chapter develops a metasemantic theory that satisfies the Intersectional Metasemantic Adequacy constraint. On the proposed theory, the semantics of English expressions are determined by what an ideal version of the English-speaking community would say about the meanings of their expressions. The view that the semantics of English is determined by deference to an ideal community is defended and elaborated, the character of this ideal community is spelled out, and a number of other details are filled in about how the metasemantics works. The metasemantics I develop helps to explain how misinformation can be understood as epistemic violence.

This chapter introduces case studies centered on misuses of the words “racist” and “woman.” It argues that assertions involving misuses of politically contested terminology should be understood as false, as spreading misinformation about racism and gender respectively. These judgments are seen to depend on politically contentious background views about racism and gender, which are nevertheless true. I argue that interpreting subversive misuses of “racist” and “woman” as false statements requires denying that such statements are analytically true, which in turn requires us to postulate some kind of metasemantics for politically contested terminology on which political opponents use words with shared meanings despite bitterly disagreeing about their correct applications.

This chapter develops a metasemantic view on which political struggles around racism and gender concepts are metasemantic struggles for control over the meanings of words. Here I introduce the basic framework of a social externalist metasemantics and the role of deference for establishing the meanings of words in use. The semantic corruption model is developed here as an example of the kind of metasemantics I want to argue against, plausible as it may seem. It sets the stage for the arguments given in Chap. 4.

This paper introduces the concept of linguistic hijacking, the phenomenon wherein politically significant terminology is co-opted by dominant groups in ways that further their dominance over marginalized groups. Here I focus on hijackings of the words “racist” and “racism.” The model of linguistic hijacking developed here, called the semantic corruption model, is inspired by Burge’s social externalism, in which deference plays a key role in determining the semantic properties of expressions. The model describes networks of deference relations, which support competing meanings of, for example, “racist,” and postulates the existence of deference magnets that influence those networks over time. Linguistic hijacking functions to shift the semantic properties of crucial political terminology by causing changes in deference networks, spreading semantics that serve the interests of dominant groups, and weakening the influence of resistant deference networks. I consider an objection alleging the semantic corruption model gets the semantic data wrong because it entails those who hijack terms like “racist” speak truly, whereas it’s natural to see such hijacking misuses as false speech about racism. I then respond to this objection by invoking the framework of metalinguistic negotiation proposed by Plunkett and Sundell.

Do psychological traits predict philosophical views? We administered the PhilPapers Survey, created by David Bourget and David Chalmers, which consists of 30 views on central philosophical topics (e.g., epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language) to a sample of professional philosophers (N = 314). We extended the PhilPapers survey to measure a number of psychological traits, such as personality, numeracy, well-being, lifestyle, and life experiences. We also included non-technical ‘translations’ of these views for eventual use in other populations. We found limited to no support for the notion that personality or demographics predict philosophical views. We did, however, find that some psychological traits were predictive of philosophical views, even after strict correction for multiple comparisons. Findings include: higher interest in numeracy predicted physicalism, naturalism, and consequentialism; lower levels of well-being and higher levels of mental illness predicted hard determinism; using substances such as psychedelics and marijuana predicted non-realist and subjectivist views of morality and aesthetics; having had a transformative or self-transcendent experience predicted theism and idealism. We discuss whether or not these empirical results have philosophical implications, while noting that 68% of our sample of professional philosophers indicated that such findings would indeed have philosophical value.

This book investigates the impact of misinformation and the role of truth in political struggle. It develops a theory of objective truth for political controversy over topics such as racism and gender, based on the insights of intersectionality, the Black feminist theory of interlocking systems of oppression. Truth is defined using the tools of model theory and formal semantics, but the theory also captures how social power dynamics strongly influence the operation of the concept of truth within the social fabric. Systemic ignorance, propagated through false speech and misinformation, sustains oppressive power structures and perpetuates systemic inequity. Truth tends to empower marginalized groups precisely because oppressive systems are maintained through systemic ignorance. If the truth sets people free, then power will work to obscure it. Hence, the rise of misinformation as a political weapon is a strategy of dominant power to undermine the political advancement of marginalized groups.

This paper identifies the phenomenon of conceptual competence injustice, a form of epistemic injustice that occurs when a marginalized epistemic agent makes a conceptual claim and is illegitimately regarded as having failed to grasp one or more of the concepts expressed in her testimony. The notion of a conceptual claim is given a deflationary account that is coextensive with the class of a priori knowable claims. This study reveals a form of oppression that severely hinders marginalized epistemic agents who seek to create or communicate conceptual knowledge. Conceptual competence injustice is compared and contrasted with three other forms of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice, hermeneutical injustice, and contributory injustice. The final section investigates a number of damaging effects that conceptual competence injustice has on marginalized persons pursuing a career in academic philosophy.