Nicolas Nicola

This paper puts forth two claims. First, cancel culture accusations of censorship are components of a practice that embodies a flawed ideology. Second, as components of a practice that embodies a flawed ideology, these accusations contribute to cultivating a hostile epistemic environment. I spell out the first claim with the help of Jason Stanley’s research on flawed ideology. I highlight how a characterization of cancellation that the conservative, right-leaning demographic find problematic in terms of amounting to a form of censorship, preserves desirable outcomes for the privileged group. Drawing on the work of C. Thi Nguyen on hostile epistemology, I spell out the second claim by showing how these accusations exploit our epistemic trust mechanism such that they undermine the uptake of epistemic goods. If the flawed ideology constrains the intelligibility of our actions, then the concept of cancellation becomes problematic. I close by offering a suggestive approach inspired by work in non-ideal epistemology to counteract the flawed ideology.

Testimony is of epistemic and practical significance. It is of epistemic significance because majority of what we know and believe comes from being told. It is of practical significance because our agency can be undermined, bypassed, or overridden owing to systemic prejudices sustained by oppressive social or cultural practices and subsequently our routes to knowledge are either hindered or distorted. Things get more complicated when we introduce and examine how groups and other collectives testify and are recipients of testimony. For instance, group speakers are typically said to represent and reflect the view of the group they are speaking on behalf of. But sometimes because of these oppressive practices, a group speaker’s assertion may deprive or impair its members’ ability to perform certain actions through speech. This dissertation examines the intersection between testimony, collective phenomena, and epistemic harms. One aim is to argue for a view on the nature of testimony that can accommodate various ways collectives testify and are recipients of testimony. In particular, I argue and present a view of testimony as a norm-governed joint activity involving individual or collective participants that commit themselves to a common aim of collaboration. Another aim is to present an epistemology of testimony that tracks our ordinary testimonial practices. In this regard, I argue for a norm view where we have reason to believe what we’re told because of the rules or norms that govern our communicative exchanges. A final aim is to explore the mechanism by which collective speech ensues in an epistemic harm driven by social identity prejudices. I argue for a form of silencing that is distinctive of groups insofar as the silencing occurs because of group dynamics. I call the mechanism underlying this form of silencing “representational impairment”. This dissertation, I hope, will motivate and inspire others to pursue philosophical projects at these intersections and in this spirit, I end by offering suggestions on areas of further development and future direction.