Emilia L. Wilson

This paper concerns the way in which our shared interpretive frames – such as metaphors, narratives, scripts, and stereotypes – may produce misunderstanding in ways that sustain injustice. Interpretive frames guide how we interpret information. I relate the role of frames to structural views of understanding, in order to put forward an analysis of mis-interpretive frames: frames which systematically produce misunderstanding. I contrast mere lack of understanding, in which we lack apparent intelligibility, with cases of more substantive misunderstanding, where one has a mistaken ‘sense’ of understanding. I begin by introducing the structural view of understanding, in order to present a structural characterisation of misunderstanding. I highlight that frames guide how we structure information, and so distorting frames lead to misunderstanding. I highlight two ways in which possessing mis-interpretive frames are distinctively epistemically pernicious: concealed incompetence and epistemic contamination. In the former, the mistaken sense of understanding conferred by grasping an inapt interpretive structure obstructs recognition of one’s own epistemic failures. In the latter, deploying a mis-interpretive frame to interpret new evidence renders it misleading, polluting otherwise valuable epistemic resources. Finally, I show how these distorting frames may obscure and perpetuate injustice via examining naturalisation and normalisation.

The words we use to represent the world shape how we interpret and respond to it; language frames what it represents. In some cases, these frames can have prejudicial effects; for example, ‘workplace flirting’ versus ‘sexual harassment’. This paper examines how specific words and phrases (i.e., lexical frames) may anchor oppressive social practices. That is, by enabling a coordinated ‘way of looking’ at the world, these lexical frames may stabilise cognitive and affective habits which perpetuate wider forms of social coordination, including oppressive practices. I examine how representational resources may become imbued with, and thereby replicate, ideological distortions. I subsequently show that this has important consequences for attempts to address hermeneutical injustice. When one attempts to fill a hermeneutical lacunae by baptising some previously obscured target, one may thereby frame the target in a distorting way. Specifically, one may replicate the distorting frame which anchors the oppressive practice one seeks to resist. Moreover, distorting frames may be especially appealing precisely because of their compatibility with the dominant ideology which offers a mistaken sense of understanding. I argue it is thus crucial to attend to the role of lexical frames in ameliorative projects.

It is common to see fictional depictions in which one character rejects another’s sexual advances but, when their refusal is ignored or overpowered, they seemingly surrender to passion. I term these depictions, which frame this overcoming of refusal as a seduction, eroticized refusal narratives. This paper concerns how these narratives may be harmful: I develop a novel analysis of how these depictions may obstruct recognition of sexual violence. Feminist theorists have long argued that such depictions may promote rape myths and legitimise sexual violence. However, this work has largely neglected scholarship in aesthetics on the persuasive power of narrative. This paper remedies this oversight, analysing how these narratives frame sexual refusal, and connecting research on narrative in aesthetics to social research on ‘rape myths’. I draw on the idea that narrative fiction may equip us with new 'perspectives', an open-ended suite of interpretive dispositions, and argue that eroticised refusal narratives prescribe a perspective on which overcoming sexual refusal is erotic and excusable. I then suggest that these narratives may operate as a kind of illustrative example which 'exemplifies' this perspective, enabling viewers to export it. On this proposal, these narratives are exemplars of a standard 'script' for seduction. This perspective obstructs recognition of sexual violence, by disposing one to notice and produce excuses for ignoring sexual refusal: it thereby operates as an implicit, perspectival rape myth.

Our interpretive resources enable us to make sense of, navigate, and communicate about our shared world. These resources not only carve the world up into categories, but also guide how we, individually and collectively, are oriented towards it. In this thesis, I examine how these resources, and the dispositions they guide, may be harmful. A vital kind of interpretive resources are frames, which equip us with unified perspectives on the world. Perspectives are suites of open-ended interpretive (inquisitive, attentional, inferential, evaluative, and affective) dispositions. Frames thereby guide how we interpret, respond to, and navigate the world. I show that these perspectives are epistemically powerful and indispensable. I argue that flawed perspectives, and the distorting frames that produce them, are deeply pernicious and I examine their relationship to oppression.  

There is growing interest in a category of domestic labour frequently termed ‘emotional labour’. I argue that this labour is, in fact, primarily a form of epistemic labour. I argue that domestic epistemic labour is the target of dual erasure. Firstly, as invisible domestic labour, it is underrecognized and undervalued. Secondly, it is not recognized as epistemic, due to women’s epistemic oppression. ‘Emotional labour’, as a catch-all for feminized labour, perpetuates the dominant ideological conception of emotion as feminine and anti-epistemic. Consequently, popular usage of ‘emotional labour’ attempts to address the first layer of erasure but reinforces the second.