Rosa Ritunnano

Hermeneutical injustice as a concept has evolved since its original formulation by Miranda Fricker. José Eduardo Porcher has recently proposed the addition of a new form of ‘radical’ hermeneutical injustice, with a case study of psychotic symptoms involving religious content We think there is a form of radical hermeneutical injustice – different to the one described by Porcher. Some interpretations of kinds of experience with religious content can be undermined if one is committed to a metaphysical naturalism.

The significance of critical phenomenology for psychiatric praxis has yet to be expounded. In this paper, I argue that the adoption of a critical phenomenological stance can remedy localised instances of hermeneutical injustice, which may arise in the encounter between clinicians and patients with psychosis. In this context, what is communicated is often deemed to lack meaning or to be difficult to understand. While a degree of un-shareability is inherent to subjective life, I argue that issues of unintelligibility can be addressed by shifting from individualistic conceptions of understanding to an interactionist view. This takes into account the contextual, historical and relational background within which meaning is co-constituted. I conclude by providing a corrective for hermeneutical injustice, which entails a specific attentiveness towards the person’s subjectivity, a careful sensitivity to contingent meaning-generating structures, and a degree of hermeneutical flexibility as an attitude of openness towards alternative horizons of possibility.