He Knows, She Doesn’t? Epistemic Inequality in a Developmental Perspective

Abstract

This paper aims at establishing a dialogue between philosophy and psychology about the conditions and the process through which humans build epistemic relationships during ontogenetic development. By the latter term, we mean any form of interaction which is aimed at producing a belief about some relevant aspects of the world, present or absent, past or future and at assessing its degree of epistemic trustworthiness. The paper is built as a dialogue between a philosopher and a psychologist, who present different faces of the problem of epistemic legitimation respectively and discuss the possible ways in which the dialogue can lead to theoretical advancement in understanding the development of the human epistemic subject. The chapter is divided into four sections: in the first section, we outline how we develop ontogenetically as epistemic subjects, and the sense that our epistemic life depends on other people’s words or testimony; in the second section, we deal with the notion of epistemic injustice and epistemic silencing; in the third section, we discuss strategies to counter epistemic silencing and; in the fourth part, we try to elaborate a synthesis and suggest a new beginning.