Natalia Nealon

This paper explores the role of unconscious attentional processing in the generation of testimonial knowledge. In considering debates between transmission theorists and generativists within the epistemology of testimony, I defend generativism in virtue of its being considerably less limited in scope than the transmission account. However, current generativist accounts largely concern themselves with the role of conscious inference in the generation of testimonial knowledge. In defending a generative account of testimonial knowledge that encapsulates the role of unconscious inference via attentional processing, I seek to expand the scope of epistemic content that can fall under the category “testimonial knowledge”.

When diagnosing psychological disorders, doctors are expected to take the mental anguish of patients and offer fast and accurate explanations. The pressure that comes with this often leaves doctors in need of epistemic shortcuts for faster diagnoses. One such epistemic shortcut is to lean on statistical data when offering a diagnosis. When used justly, doctors consider a patient’s testimony, exhibited symptoms and statistical data relating to the general features of the patient such as age, weight and sex to determine if a patient has a given disorder or illness. Practices such as this have the capacity to yield good results at a quick pace, however, such practices may also be abused. With a focus on gender statistics and psychological diagnoses, I argue that systematic practices of epistemic injustice may occur when the statistical data becomes over-valued and the epistemic privilege of patients to be able to assert their own bodily and mental experiences is ignored. This places patients at risk of misdiagnosis, long-term damage and pain, or even death. It also produces patient mistrust both of themselves and of the medical community, which can carry further repercussions for public health.