Work

Whose Hermeneutical Marginalization?

Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: According to Miranda Fricker, being hindered from rendering something significant about oneself intelligible to someone constitutes a hermeneutical injustice only if it results from the hermeneutical marginalization of some group to which one belongs. A major problem for Fricker's picture is that it cannot properly account for the paradigm case of hermeneutical injustice Fricker herself takes from Ian McEwan's novel Enduring Love. In order to account properly for this case, I argue that being hindered from rendering something significant about oneself intelligible to someone can constitute a hermeneutical injustice so long as it results from the hermeneutical marginalization of some group – whether or not one belongs to that group. One upshot is that Fricker's distinction between systematic and incidental cases of hermeneutical injustice needs redrawing, and I show how this can be done. Another is that hermeneutical injustice is more widespread than Fricker recognizes.
Source: Episteme
Author: Nick Clanchy
Language: English
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,255
OpenAlex ID: W4364375523
FWCI: 3.766
Cites: 37
Cited by: 11
Related to: 10