Renata Ziemińska

The article presents the concept of epistemic injustice developed by Miranda Fricker (2007, 2017). The term refers to instances in which an individual is assigned an inferior epistemic position and thus is at risk of non-epistemic mistreatment. Fricker discusses testimonial injustice (subconsciously seeing someone as less credible) using the example of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Hermeneutical injustice, which is described as either a gap in knowledge or a harmful interpretation in the collective imagination, is exemplified by sexual harassment and homosexuality. One of the major critiques and developments of the concept of hermeneutical injustice was presented by Arianna Falbo (2022). She argues that the sources of hermeneutical injustice are not limited to gaps in knowledge but also a plethora of misleading concepts which cover up and overpower better concepts. Thus, the mere presence of appropriate concepts is not enough, the absence of harmful concepts is also necessary. The author claims that modifying the concept of epistemic injustice as proposed by Falbo explains why the existence of a nonbinary gender category in the German legal system was not sufficient to reject the binary gender system. Finally, the author discusses an analogous concept of epistemic disobedience from decolonial philosophy1. These discussions result in the claim that epistemic errors, overlooking certain experiences and/or usurping objectivity are the basis of unintentional discrimination.

Artykuł konfrontuje stanowisko Stanisława Judyckiego na temat prawdy ze zjawiskiem post-prawdy. Stanisław Judycki broni koncepcji prawdy radykalnie obiektywnej, lokalizując nośniki prawdziwości w boskim umyśle. Słabą stroną takiego stanowiska jest między innymi brak wyjaśnienia zjawiska post-prawdy. Autorka twierdzi, że trzeba odróżnić prawdę idealną i prawdę społeczną, ponieważ post-prawda jest generowana na poziomie prawdy społecznej i żywi się brakiem rozróżnienia tych dwu warstw. Zjawisko post-prawdy wyjaśnia się na gruncie konsensualnej teorii prawdy (Bufacchi 2021) jako konstruowanie alternatywnego konsensusu, które odbywa się w atmosferze podważania znaczenia prawdy (i jest czymś innym niż kłamstwo lub ignorancja). Autorka uważa, że lepsze w tym kontekście jest pojęcie społecznego konstruktu niż pojęcie konsensusu. Podziela jednak opinię Bufacchiego, że lekarstwem na post-prawdę jest odrzucenie binarnego podziału na prawdę i post-prawdę (prawdy uznawane przez ludzi są też społecznymi konstruktami) oraz zastępowanie w miarę możliwości słowa „prawda” terminami odnoszącymi się do ludzkich ocen i czynności poznawczych.

In debate with scepticism three general strategies may be differentiated: (1) pointing to self-refutation of scepticism; (2) looking for certainty; and (3) modification of the concept of knowledge. The latter strategy has at least three versions: (a) knowledge does not require certainty, (b) knowledge is not broadened by way of deduction, and (c) knowledge does not require the knowledge of knowledge. The first strategy refutes global scepticism, but does not give an example of knowledge and is not efficient in the case of scepticism based on the hypothesis of the malicious scientist. Also the second strategy is only able to refute the typical thesis of global scepticism (knowledge does not exist). Scepticism based on the hypothesis of the malicious scientist is more efficiently refuted in the third strategy. However, separation of knowledge and certainty is only avoiding the problem of scepticism. It is also doubtful if the principle of broadening knowledge by way of deduction may be refuted. Negation of the principle of transparency of knowledge is the most convincing one. After it is refuted, knowledge is possible in the situation when we do not know if we know and we cannot exclude sceptical hypotheses.

This book reconstructs the history of skepticism ranging from ancient to contemporary times, from Pyrrho to Kripke. The main skeptical stances and the historical reconstruction of the concept of skepticism are connected with an analysis of their recurrent inconsistency. The author reveals that this inconsistency is not a logical contradiction but a pragmatic one. She shows that it is a contradiction between the content of the skeptical position and the implicit presumption of the act of its assertion. The thesis of global skepticism cannot be accepted as true without falling into the pragmatic inconsistency. The author explains, how skepticism was important for exposing the limits of human knowledge and inspired its development.

I argue against the exclusive female/male divide, referring to the phenomenon of epistemic injustice in the cases of people with nonbinary gender identities and people with intersex traits. Such people have traits that are counterexamples to the binary female/male model. I have separated female and male traits into nine basic layers, five of which belong to sex and four to gender. In every layer, I have found traits that are neither female nor male, and the application of the model to individuals provides examples of clusters of traits for which one layer is male and another female. Such traits and clusters of traits create the category of the nonbinary. Table 1 provides a sketch of a nonbinary model. The nonbinary category takes its name from the existing category of nonbinary gender identity; however, in the current model, it is a third category of traits, not of people. Under the nonbinary model, the basic gender concepts do not disappear. S is a woman if S is a human being with enough female traits, and the trait of having self-determined female gender identity is sufficient but not necessary.

I present the notion of epistemic injustice coined by Miranda Fricker and apply it to the situation of people with intersex traits, especially intersex children who are the subjects of “normalizing” surgery. Several studies from Polish hospitals show that both early “normalizing” surgery and the decision to postpone such surgery can result in harm to an intersex child. For this reason, I claim that “normalizing” surgery is only an expression of the epistemic hermeneutical injustice existing before the surgery and that its source is the lack of an empirically adequate notion of sex characteristics. The binary notion is too simple to grasp intersex traits, and this epistemic dysfunction turns into practical harm. In contrast to Morgan Carpenter, I defend the nonbinary gender category as being important to limiting “normalizing” surgery.

Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz understands skepticism as the thesis that there is no criterion of truth and that the justification of any thesis is impossible. According to Ajdukiewicz, a typical skeptic confuses two levels of justification: the first order justification of a proposition s and the second order justification of the proposition that s is justified. However, the first-order justification is possible without second-order justification. This argument presented by Ajdukiewicz in 1923 heralded the epistemic externalism concerning justification developed by Alvin Goldman in 1980 and the externalist response to skepticism developed by F. Dretske and M. Williams. They all suggested weakening the traditional concept of justification and concluded that if we accept the possibility of justification without self-justification, the skeptical regress is blocked. However, such a response to skepticism is dependent on the externalist notion of justification. Ajdukiewicz had opportunity to use the stronger argument from self-refutation, but he underestimated its utility. The other side of Ajdukiewicz’s relation to skepticism is his radical conventionalism that presupposes some moderate form of skepticism in a broad sense. The article is an attempt to determine what kind of skepticism Ajdukiewicz accepted and what kind he rejected. The conclusion is that Ajdukiewicz is an anti-skeptical fallibilist.

In the history of skepticism there are three types of a relationship between skepticism and atheism: (1) skepticism is beyond the atheism-theism debate (Sextus Empiricus); (2) skepticism is the way to fideism (Montaigne); and (3) skepticism is the way to atheism (Hume). Skepticism lead to all possible practical options in religious matters so it has no practical power and can be combined with all practical choices. In like vein, contemporary skepticism is sometimes neutral towards religion, sometimes hostile to religion and sometimes sympathetic towards religion. However, the irreligious or anti-religious skepticism is dominating in our times. Neutral skepticism is typical for epistemology and the skepticism that is sympathetic towards religion is preserved in some type of the philosophy of religion (Schellenberg). Religious people usually dislike skepticism because they see it as first step towards atheism. But some religious people make radical distinction between reason and faith and in such a case skepticism can be good introduction to faith and religion. Typical skeptic is hesitating about the concept of God, typical atheist has conceptualized God in some way and s/he has determined view that God conceptualized in this way does not exist. The different conceptualizations allow that even atheism of some kind (as negation of theism and personal God) can be connected with the religious attitude (Schellenberg’s skeptical and a-theistic religion).

Two concepts of the internal should be distinguished in the current epistemic internalism/externalism debate: (1) the internal in an introspective sense as what is accessible by introspection and (2) the internal in a biological sense as what is inside the organism's nervous system. When "internal" is meant in the introspective sense, Goldman's process reliabilism is externalist, but when "internal" is taken in the biological sense, Goldman's process reliabilism is internalist. Goldman as a naturalist prefers "internal" in the biological sense, but the concept is unsuitable for presenting the current epistemic internalism/externalism controversy. If one understands "internal" in the introspective sense, Goldman's reliabilism is strongly externalist.

Luca Castagnoli, Ancient Self-Refutation. The Logic and History of the Self- Refutation Argument from Democritus to Augustine, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010, pp. XX+394. Hardback, ISBN 9780521896313. Abstract. In his book Ancient Self-Refutation L. Castagnoli rightly observes that selfrefutation is not falsification; it overturns the act of assertion but does not prove that the content of the act is false. He argues against the widely spread belief that Sextus Empiricus accepted the self-refutation of his own expressions. Castagnoli also claims that Sextus was effective in answering to the self-refutation charge. The achievement of the book is the disperitropécovery that in passages where Sextus seems to embrace the selfrefutation of his expressions (PH 1.14-15), he does not use the term peritropé, technical for self-refutation, but the term perigraphé, which means self-bracketing. Selfbracketing is weakening one’s own thesis, but not overturning it. Castagnoli claims that Sextus embraces the self-bracketing of his expressions, but never accepts their selfrefutation. However, Castagnoli is not right in saying that self-refutation is a shameful mistake for everybody. The mature skeptic cannot even think that self-refutation is wrong, because it would be a dogmatic view. Sextus seems to accept self-refutation at the end of Against the Logicians, where he presents the argument against proof and the metaphor of the ladder (M 8.480-1). Regardless of Sextus’ declarations, we have reason to think that he does not avoid self-refutation in a pragmatic sense. Self-bracketing of his position is not a consistent dialectical strategy, as Castagnoli writes, but the end of a rational discussion. Sextus avoids absolute self-refutation (we cannot falsify what he suggests), but he is unable to avoid pragmatic self-refutation (there is no way to assert his position without contradiction). This is the case even if Sextus refuses to assert his position.

Skepticism described by Sextus Empiricus faces the persistent charge that it is an inconsistent, self-refuting view. However, recently its consistency hasbeen defended in three important ways: it is a thesis with weak assertion, it is a practice without any assertion, and it is a process developing over time.The first option is not well supported by Sextus’ texts, where even a weak assertion is not allowed. The second option cannot explain the rationality of skeptical arguments. The third option reveals two levels of Sextan skepticism; however, the developing skeptic has to accept the self-refutation charge, and the mature skeptic takes flight from the charge without any rational answer. I claim that Sextus embraces the self-refutation charge. The mature skeptic’s speech acts are pragmatically inconsistent: their content cannot be asserted without contradiction. As a result, the charge of inconsistency is not answered

Epistemic externalists offer many arguments against skepticism. They modify the skeptic’s concept of knowledge, justification and meaning and point out which of his presuppositions we need not accept. Dretske claims that a skeptic wrongly presupposes that we cannot know if we do not know that we know. But knowledge need not be self-conscious . According to Nozick a skeptic wrongly presupposes the Principle of Closure . He says that although we do not know that we are not brains in a vat, a skeptic does not have the right to use this principle to argue that we do not know things that are obvious. According to Putnam the skeptical hypothesis that we are brains in a vat is incoherent when we use the external theory of meaning. If the meaning of our words depends on a causal relation with our environment, the sentence “I am a brain in a vat” is false or meaningless. Similarly, Davidson says that the external theory of perceptual beliefs excludes global skepticism. According to Williams skepticism simply presupposes a stance opposite to externalism, namely internalism . When we reject internalism, no skeptical argument can be formulated

Luca Castagnoli, Ancient Self-Refutation. The Logic and History of the Self- Refutation Argument from Democritus to Augustine, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010, pp. XX+394. Hardback, ISBN 9780521896313. In his book Ancient Self-Refutation L. Castagnoli rightly observes that selfrefutation is not falsification; it overturns the act of assertion but does not prove that the content of the act is false. He argues against the widely spread belief that Sextus Empiricus accepted the self-refutation of his own expressions. Castagnoli also claims that Sextus was effective in answering to the self-refutation charge. The achievement of the book is the discovery that in passages where Sextus seems to embrace the selfrefutation of his expressions (PH 1.14-15), he does not use the term peritropé, technical for self-refutation, but the term perigraphé, which means self-bracketing. Selfbracketing is weakening one’s own thesis, but not overturning it. Castagnoli claims that Sextus embraces the self-bracketing of his expressions, but never accepts their selfrefutation. However, Castagnoli is not right in saying that self-refutation is a shameful mistake for everybody. The mature skeptic cannot even think that self-refutation is wrong, because it would be a dogmatic view. Sextus seems to accept self-refutation at the end of Against the Logicians, where he presents the argument against proof and the metaphor of the ladder (M 8.480-1). Regardless of Sextus’ declarations, we have reason to think that he does not avoid self-refutation in a pragmatic sense. Self-bracketing of his position is not a consistent dialectical strategy, as Castagnoli writes, but the end of a rational discussion. Sextus avoids absolute self-refutation (we cannot falsify what he suggests), but he is unable to avoid pragmatic self-refutation (there is no way to assert his position without contradiction). This is the case even if Sextus refuses to assert his position.

The paper presents four stages of author’s epistemological experience: Roman Ingarden’s autonomous theory of knowledge, the anti-naturalistic theory of knowledge by Roderick Chisholm, the naturalistic epistemology by Alvin Goldman, and the epistemology of classical problems of truth and skepticism. The conclusion is the following: epistemology should make use of human knowledge results, especially cognitive sciences and reflect on the problem of truth, the challenge of skepticism, the possibility of knowledge and human cognitive condition (science, religion, art). The social role of the epistemologist is not to resolve all these existentially important questions but to be an expert (to know the state of discussion and to deliver his/her opinions)

Academic skepticism is usually interpreted as a type of discourse without an assertion (a dialectical interpretation). I argue against this interpretation. One can interpret Carneades’ notion of approval as our notion of weak assertion and thereby ascribe to him his own views (a non-dialectical interpretation). In Academica Cicero reports the debate about the status of approval as a kind of assent among Carneades’ followers, especially the views of Clitomachus and Philo of Larissa. According to Clitomachus, approving impressions implies acting on them without taking them as true, while according to Philo of Larissa, approval is taking something as true without certainty. In more modern terms, we can say that Philo refers to the notion of weak assertion, and Clitomachus to non-assertion. Thus Clitomachus’ reading correlates with a dialectical reading, and Philo’s reading correlates with a non-dialectical reading. Philo’s reading leads to the interpretation of Carneades as a quasi-fallibilist. It is difficult to establish the precise position of the historical Carneades because he was hesitant in his oral teaching. Still, there is some basis in Carneades’ theory for interpreting approval as weak assertion (comprising three degrees of persuasiveness involving rational consideration of what seems to be truth). My aim in this essay is thus to argue that a quasi-fallibilist and non-dialectical reading is applicable to the historical Carneades.