Applied Epistemology Jennifer Lackey Full Chapter PDF

Applied Epistemology Jennifer Lackey
Visit to download the full and correct content document:

https://ebookmass.com/product/applied-epistemology-jennifer-lackey/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
The Epistemology of Groups Jennifer Lackey
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-epistemology-of-groups-
jennifer-lackey/
Data Science Applied to Sustainability Analysis

Jennifer B. Dunn
https://ebookmass.com/product/data-science-applied-to-
sustainability-analysis-jennifer-b-dunn/
Curriculum, Schooling and Applied Research: Challenges

and Tensions for Researchers 1st ed. Edition Jennifer
Donovan
https://ebookmass.com/product/curriculum-schooling-and-applied-
research-challenges-and-tensions-for-researchers-1st-ed-edition-
jennifer-donovan/
Non-Ideal Epistemology Robin Mckenna
https://ebookmass.com/product/non-ideal-epistemology-robin-
mckenna/
Epistemology 1st Edition Richard Feldman
https://ebookmass.com/product/epistemology-1st-edition-richard-
feldman/
Socially Extended Epistemology J. Adam Carter
https://ebookmass.com/product/socially-extended-epistemology-j-
adam-carter/
Scientific Epistemology: An Introduction Hilary

Kornblith
https://ebookmass.com/product/scientific-epistemology-an-
introduction-hilary-kornblith/
Swarm Jennifer Lyle
https://ebookmass.com/product/swarm-jennifer-lyle/
The Epistemology of Fake News Sven Bernecker
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-epistemology-of-fake-news-sven-
bernecker/
Copyright © 2021. Oxford University Press USA - OSO. All rights reserved.
Applied Epistemology
E N G AG I N G P H I L O S O P H Y
Tis series is a new forum for collective philosophical engagement with
controversial issues in contemporary society.
Disability in Practice
Attitudes, Policies, and Relationships
Edited by Adam Cureton and Tomas E. Hill, Jr
Taxation
Philosophical Perspectives
Edited by Martin O’Neill and Shepley Orr
Bad Words
Philosophical Perspectives on Slurs
Edited by David Sosa
Academic Freedom
Edited by Jennifer Lackey
Lying
Language, Knowledge, Ethics, Politics
Edited by Eliot Michaelson and Andreas Stokke
Treatment for Crime
Philosophical Essays on Neurointerventions in Criminal Justice
Edited by David Birks and Tomas Douglas
Games, Sport, and Play
Philosophical Essays
Edited by Tomas Hurka
Efective Altruism
Philosophical Issues
Edited by Hilary Greaves and Teron Pummer
Philosophy and Climate Change
Edited by Mark Budolfson, Tristram McPherson, and David Plunkett
Edited by
1
J E N N I F E R L AC K EY
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© the several contributors 2021
Te moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2021
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020950719
ISBN 978–0–19–883365–9
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198833659.001.0001
Printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
Contents
List of Contributorsvii
PA RT 1 : I N T R O DU C T IO N
1. Applied Epistemology 3
Jennifer Lackey
PA RT 2 : E P I S T E M O L O G IC A L P E R SP E C T I V E S
2. When Freeing Your Mind Isn’t Enough: Framework Approaches

to Social Transformation and Its Discontents 19
Kristie Dotson and Ezgi Sertler
3. Situated Knowledge, Purity, and Moral Panic 37
Quill R. Kukla
4. Epistemology and the Ethics of Animal Experimentation 67
Mylan Engel Jr.
PA RT 3 : E P I S T E M IC A N D D OX A S T IC W R O N G S
5. A Tale of Two Doctrines: Moral Encroachment and Doxastic

Wronging99
Rima Basu
6. Predatory Grooming and Epistemic Infringement 119

Lauren Leydon-Hardy
PA RT 4 : E P I S T E M O L O G Y A N D I N J U S T IC E
7. Epistemic Degradation and Testimonial Injustice 151

Geof Pynn
8. My Body as a Witness: Bodily Testimony and Epistemic Injustice 171
José Medina and Tempest Henning
vi Contents
PA RT 5 : E P I S T E M O L O G Y, R AC E , A N D
T H E AC A D E M Y
9. Te ‘White’ Problem: American Sociology and Epistemic Injustice 193

Charles W. Mills
10. A Tale of Two Injustices: Epistemic Injustice in Philosophy 215
Emmalon Davis
PA RT 6 : E P I S T E M O L O G Y A N D
F E M I N I S T P E R SP E C T I V E S
11. Rape Culture and Epistemology 253

Bianca Crewe and Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa
12. Feminist Pornography as Feminist Propaganda, and Ideological
Catch-22s 283
Aidan McGlynn
PA RT 7 : E P I S T E M O L O G Y A N D SE X UA L C O N SE N T
13. Epistemic Responsibility in Sexual Coercion and Self-Defense Law 305

Hallie Liberto
14. Sexual Consent and Epistemic Agency 321
Jennifer Lackey
15. Te Epistemology of Consent 348
Alexander A. Guerrero
PA RT 8 : E P I S T E M O L O G Y A N D T H E I N T E R N E T
16. Te Internet and Epistemic Agency 389

Hanna Gunn and Michael Patrick Lynch
17. How Twitter Gamifes Communication 410
C. Ti Nguyen
18. Te Epistemic Dangers of Context Collapse Online 437
Karen Frost-Arnold
19. ‘Yikkity Yak, Who Said Tat?’ Te Epistemology of Anonymous
Assertions457
Veronica Ivy
Index 481
List of Contributors
Rima Basu, Claremont McKenna College
Bianca Crewe, University of British Columbia
Emmalon Davis, University of Michigan
Kristie Dotson, Michigan State University
Mylan Engel Jr., Northern Illinois University
Karen Frost-Arnold, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Alexander A. Guerrero, Rutgers University
Hanna Gunn, University of California, Merced
Tempest Henning, Vanderbilt University
Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, University of British Columbia
Veronica Ivy, College of Charleston
Quill R. Kukla, Georgetown University
Jennifer Lackey, Northwestern University
Lauren Leydon-Hardy, Amherst College
Hallie Liberto, University of Maryland, College Park
Michael Patrick Lynch, University of Connecticut

Aidan McGlynn, University of Edinburgh
José Medina, Northwestern University
Charles W. Mills, City University of New York
C. Ti Nguyen, University of Utah
Geof Pynn, Elgin Community College
Ezgi Sertler, Butler University

PART 1
IN T RODU CT ION
1
Jennifer Lackey
Applied epistemology brings the tools of contemporary epistemology to bear on

particular issues of social concern. While the feld of social epistemology has
fourished in recent years, there has been far less work on how theories of know
ledge, justifcation, and evidence may be applied to concrete questions, especially
those of ethical and political signifcance. Te present volume flls this gap in the
current literature by bringing together essays from leading philosophers in a
broad range of areas in applied epistemology. Te potential topics in applied epis
temology are many and diverse, and this volume focuses on seven central issues,
some of which are general, while others are far more specifc: epistemological
perspectives; epistemic and doxastic wrongs; epistemology and injustice; epis
temology, race, and the academy; epistemology and feminist perspectives; epis
temology and sexual consent; and epistemology and the internet. Some of the
chapters in this volume contribute to, and further develop, areas in social epis
temology that are already active, and others open up entirely new avenues of
research. All of the contributions aim to make clear the relevance and importance
of epistemology to some of the most pressing social and political questions facing
us an agents in the world.
One question that might be taken up in applied epistemology concerns the
power of knowledge or understanding to bring about concrete social change in
the world. In Chapter 2, “When Freeing Your Mind Isn’t Enough: Framework
Approaches to Social Transformation and Its Discontents,” Kristie Dotson and
Ezgi Sertler ask what relationships framework shifs have to social transform
ation. In particular, they explore whether a framework shif might have a radical
causal impact on actual social arrangements. Dotson and Sertler understand
social transformation as concrete changes in the structures and realities that are
being “framed,” where the actual structures or social arrangements are not redu
cible to the frameworks. Tey then turn to an example of a framework approach
to social justice: the framework analysis around “political prisoners,” which is
ofen taken to be a discourse aimed at liberating “political prisoners.” Tey exam
ine whether generating a new understanding of “prisoners” who are “political,”
and shifing our understanding of the current social arrangements, has the poten
tial to bring about change in how “political prisoners” are managed by the states
in question. Dotson and Sertler argue that the conceptual resilience of carceral
Jennifer Lackey, Applied Epistemology In: Applied Epistemology. Edited by: Jennifer Lackey,
Oxford University Press (2021). © Jennifer Lackey. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198833659.003.0001
4 Jennifer Lackey
logic and its practices reveals the signifcant limitations of this approach. “Carceral
logic,” according to Dotson and Sertler, refers to a dominant and epistemologic
ally resilient logic that legitimizes state-centric practices of incarceration, which
are exercised through prisons that impose punitive exclusions through disciplin
ary containment. Tey consider a disaggregation approach, which identifes who a
“political prisoner” is and thus intends to separate this category from other kinds
of “prisoners,” and a comprehensive approach, which holds that all “prisoners” are
in some sense “political prisoners” because the nature of imprisonment is political.
According to Dotson and Sertler, the disaggregation approach strengthens
the assumption that there are correctly imprisoned people by identifying the
category of “political prisoners.” In addition, understanding “political prisoners”
diferently does not guarantee understanding violence, objection, dissidence, and
so on, diferently. Te comprehensive approach, Dotson and Sertler argue, targets
the punitive dimension of the current imprisonment system, leaving the prevent
ive aspect untouched. In this way, delegitimizing the punitive aspect of a resilient
system does not result in delegitimizing the preventive aspect of it and this, in
turn, can legitimize the confnement of all “political prisoners.” Dotson and
Sertler conclude that bringing about social transformations through framework
shifs is dubious, at best, and ought to be rejected, at worst. In the particular case
at hand, they claim that intellectual approaches to social transformation change
neither the structural realities of imprisonment nor the epistemological resilience
of carceral logic.
In Chapter 3, Quill R. Kukla looks at contemporary epistemology in “Situated
Knowledge, Purity, and Moral Panic,” and argues that much of it is driven by a
kind of a moral panic regarding the concern that there are no “pure” epistemic
practices, perspectives, or standards detachable from the social situation of know
ers. While some epistemologists argue that various traditional epistemological
notions, such as knowledge or justifcation, are ineliminably situated, others
respond by carving out smaller spaces of epistemic purity. Kukla argues that this
dialectic is driven in large part by fear rather than by intellectual tension, and that
while epistemic practices are ineliminably situated in multiple ways, this should
not be feared. Given this, Kukla claims that the quest for purity is misguided, and
that the collective goal should be to recognize the fear as a product of ideology,
accepting situatedness as an everyday phenomenon. Kukla concludes by arguing
that an appropriate naturalized, non-ideal epistemology will treat situatedness not
as something mysterious or fearful, but as an empirical fact about our epistemic
practices.
In Chapter 4, “Epistemology and the Ethics of Animal Experimentation,”
Mylan Engel Jr. argues that a close examination of the epistemology of animal
experimentation shows that such research is neither epistemically nor morally
justifed and should be abolished. Engel argues that the only serious attempt at
Applied Epistemology 5
justifying animal experimentation is the benefts argument, according to which

animal experiments are justifed because the benefts that humans receive from
the experiments outweigh the costs imposed on the animal subjects. According to
Engel, the benefts we allegedly receive from animal-based biomedical research
are primarily epistemic in that experimenting on animal models is supposed to
provide us with knowledge of the origin and proper treatment of human disease.
However, Engel argues that animal models are extremely unreliable at predicting
how drugs will behave in humans, whether candidate drugs will be safe in
humans, and whether candidate drugs will be efective in humans. In addition,
Engel shows that animal-based biomedical research has a proven track record of
unreliability when it comes to determining the origin, pathology, and treatment
of human disease. Since methods that are known to be unreliable are not sources
of justifcation, evidence, or knowledge, regardless of whether one espouses
externalism or internalism in epistemology, Engel argues that animal- based
research fails to provide the epistemic benefts needed to justify its continued use.
Given its unreliability, Engel concludes that animal experimentation does not,
and cannot, provide the epistemic benefts needed to outweigh the harms inficted
on the animal subjects involved, and thus animal experimentation is neither epi
stemically nor morally justifed.
One of the more fertile areas of inquiry in applied epistemology concerns epi
stemic and doxastic wrongs, both questions about how to understand them and
examinations of particular instances of such wrongs. In Chapter 5, “A Tale of Two
Doctrines: Moral Encroachment and Doxastic Wronging,” Rima Basu argues on
behalf of two theses whereby morality bears on belief—moral encroachment and
doxastic wronging—and clarifes the relationship that holds between them.
According to moral encroachment, moral features make a diference to whether a
given belief is epistemically justifed, and thus epistemic justifcation is not purely
a matter of the epistemic. Doxastic wronging is the thesis that because beliefs
mediate our interpersonal relations to others, they can be the source of moral
wrongdoing. Basu argues that doxastic wrongs are (i) directed; (ii) committed by
beliefs, rather than the consequences of acting on beliefs; and (iii) wrongs in vir
tue of the content of what is believed. Basu concludes that while moral encroach
ment and doxastic wronging are conceptually distinct, evidenced at least in part
by the fact that some endorse one thesis while denying the other, we should
accept both.
In Chapter 6, “Predatory Grooming and Epistemic Infringement,” Lauren
Leydon-Hardy identifes, develops, and applies a new concept in the epistemo
logical literature—what she calls epistemic infringement. To epistemically infringe
on another is to violate interpersonal social and epistemic norms so as to encroach
upon or undermine that person’s epistemic agency. Epistemically infringing
behavior standardly involves complex projects of deceit, manipulation, and
6 Jennifer Lackey
coercion. Leydon-Hardy focuses on the phenomenon of predatory grooming to

provide a powerful case study of epistemic infringement. Grooming behavior is
familiar from some very high-profle cases of sexual abuse, such as those of Jerry
Sandusky and Larry Nassar. While grooming ofen involves adults preying on
young children, it can also occur between adults, and even among peers. More
precisely, predatory grooming is a process whereby targeted individuals are
primed, coached, or generally readied for conduct that is exploitative in nature.
Drawing on work in forensic psychology, Leydon-Hardy presents a general model
of grooming that involves cycling through phases in a non-linear process that is
called test–operate–test, where groomers “take the temperature” of their victims,
wait for feedback, and then engage in damage control or push boundaries further,
depending on the victims’ reactions. Leydon-Hardy then shows that a central and
entirely ignored dimension of predatory grooming is the epistemic force of this
phenomenon. Indeed, it is only by viewing this exploitative behavior through an
epistemic lens that we can gain a full picture of both the wrongness of the groom
ing and the most efective ways to respond to it. In particular, Leydon-Hardy
argues that grooming aims at masking abuse even by the lights of the abused and
thus crucially involves the cultivation of an unknowingness in its victims. In this
way, grooming is not just a lie or a form of deception, but a sustained campaign of
manipulation and coercion that untethers victims from their own epistemic
resources and from their ability to marshal those resources appropriately.
Tis distinctively epistemic explanation helps explain some of the harms that
victims sufer, such as feeling complicit in their own victimization because of
their relationships with the groomers, or how they struggle with the fact that they
were harmed in plain sight, ofen right under the noses of those who love them
most. Leydon-Hardy also shows how epistemic infringement is unlike any other
concept at work in the area of social epistemology. Most forms of epistemic wrong
discussed in the literature focus on the inability of people to efectively communi
cate their own experiences and beliefs because of various kinds of systematic
prejudice. For instance, testimonial injustice occurs when a speaker receives a
credibility defcit because of a bias that targets his or her social identity; hermen
eutical injustice1 involves a gap in the discursive resources, such as the absence of
the concept of sexual harassment, that prevents a speaker from articulating
aspects of her social experience; and testimonial smothering2 is at work when a
testifer engages in self-silencing because she has reason to believe that she will
not receive uptake. But the distinctively epistemic wrong sufered by victims of
epistemic infringement cannot be captured in any of these already-existing terms
in the philosophical literature. For what is epistemically problematic in grooming
does not in any way involve a credibility defcit, a conceptual lacuna, or a form of
1 See, for instance, Fricker (2007). 2 See Dotson (2011).

self-silencing. Rather, Leydon-Hardy argues that norms of trust are used to turn
victims against themselves as epistemic agents, leaving them untethered to their
own experiences and beliefs. Tis is a unique, and particularly pernicious, epi
stemic wrong.
One of the most important and widely discussed areas of inquiry in the current
philosophical literature is the intersection of epistemology and various kinds of
injustice. In Chapter 7, “Epistemic Degradation and Testimonial Injustice,” Geof
Pynn asks what is the nature of the wrong involved in cases of testimonial injust
ice. More precisely, when a person’s testimony is given less credibility than it
ought to receive, and this is due to a prejudice on the part of the hearer, how
should we understand the wrong that the speaker sufers? Afer raising problems
for accounts that explain the wrong in terms of objectifcation, where speakers are
treated as mere sources of information rather than as informants, and in terms of
derivatization, where speakers are treated as if their epistemic contributions are
solely in support of, and not in tension with, any of our own capacities, Pynn
proposes what he calls a degradation account of the wrong of testimonial injust
ice. Te wrong of testimonial injustice involves epistemic degradation, which
consists in a public violation of a speaker’s epistemic status-linked entitlements.
Drawing on the view that knowledge is the norm governing epistemically proper
assertion, Pynn argues that a knowledgeable speaker whose assertion is rejected
on the basis of an identity-prejudicial credibility defcit sufers a violation of her
entitlement to acceptance. According to Pynn, any violation of the knowledge
norm will tend to represent the testifer as a non-knower, and thus be moderately
degrading. However, where the violation is rooted in a systematic negative iden
tity prejudice, the rejection will also represent the speaker as a non-knower who
is debased in the ways encoded by the stereotype in question. For instance, the
diminished representation may depict a speaker as untrustworthy in virtue of his
blackness or irrational in virtue of her femininity. In this way, the wrong of testimonial
injustice is a distinctive kind of epistemic degradation that excludes victims from the
social and epistemic rank shared by other conversational participants.
José Medina and Tempest Henning examine the role that bodily testimony can
play in social and political epistemology in Chapter 8, “My Body as a Witness:
Bodily Testimony and Epistemic Injustice.” Tey develop an account of how to
understand the testimonial force and content of non-verbal communicative acts,
such as gestures and facial expressions, that depends on three features: the com
municative context, the embodied positionality of the communicator, and the
communicative uptake that the audience gives, or fails to give, to the expressive
behavior of the body. In particular, Medina and Henning argue that under condi
tions of racial oppression, all racialized bodies—non-white as well as white—are
epistemically valued in diferent ways, and thus receive diferent kinds of com
municative uptake. Tis diferential valuing of racialized bodies and their bodily
testimonial expressions, according to Medina and Henning, can result in
8 Jennifer Lackey
testimonial injustice that targets non-white bodily testimony. At the same time,
Medina and Henning argue that bodily group testimony is well suited for culti
vating in-group communicative solidarity and for giving center-stage to in-group
members in testimonial dynamics, and so bodily communication can be used in
resistant testimony. In this way, Medina and Henning conclude that bodily testi
mony can provide a powerful way to circumvent verbal limitations when people
cannot talk openly and safely about certain issues and can provide a powerful
critical tool for resisting epistemic oppression and for creating communicative
solidarity.
In addition to the examination of general epistemic wrongs, epistemological
tools can be applied to concrete issues, such as the role that race plays in academic
disciplines. Trough a careful examination of the treatment of race in American
sociology, Charles W. Mills argues for a radical expansion of the concept of epi
stemic injustice in Chapter 9, “Te ‘White’ Problem: American Sociology and
Epistemic Injustice.” Mills focuses on two senses of racism: the mental/psycho
logical—or racism as sentiment and/or belief—and the institutional/societal—or
racism as structural domination/illicit advantage. According to Mills, a discipline
does not begin ex nihilo, but rather from pre-existing beliefs, concepts, frame
works, and norms, and the atmosphere of the United States of the late nineteenth
century was deeply pervaded with racist assumptions that had originally devel
oped in the colonial period to justify and rationalize African slavery. More gener
ally, Mills argues that in societies characterized by deep structural oppression,
hermeneutical obstacles will be far more extensive and entrenched than a few
missing concepts. Te main axes of social subordination—in this case, “race”—
will act as powerful generators of cognitive distortion in felds. Because of this,
Mills argues that “race” not only has to be rethought in sociology in particular,
and in academic disciplines more broadly, but its linkages also need to be recon
ceived. In addition, Mills shows that the ideological is linked to the material, and thus
social structures and institutions constitute the material base of dominant-group

ideologies and place restrictions on the class of respected cognizers. Given this,
Mills concludes that the academy exemplifes epistemic injustice on a massive
scale, shattering the boundaries typically assigned to the concept.
In Chapter 10, “A Tale of Two Injustices: Epistemic Injustice in Philosophy,”
Emmalon Davis identifes two diferent kinds of testimonial injustice—
identity-based and content-based—and then argues that they can be used to provide
an epistemic explanation for the persistent lack of diversity in academic philosophy.
Identity-based testimonial injustice involves a prejudice or other unjust assess
ment regarding a contributor’s social identity—such as gender, race, ability, and so
on—that infuences an audience’s assessment of the contributor’s epistemic stand
ing, compromising the audience’s willingness to consider or fairly engage the
contributor and contribution. Content- based testimonial injustice involves a
prejudice or other unjust assessment regarding social identity-coded content—

such as gender-coded, race-coded, ability-coded, and so on—of a contributor’s
contribution that infuences an audience’s assessment of the contributor’s epistemic
standing, compromising the audience’s willingness to consider or fairly engage
the contributor and contribution. An example of the former is the rejection of a
speaker’s report simply because she is a woman; an example of the latter is the
dismissal of a speaker’s research simply because it is regarded as the kind of work
women do. Davis argues that both kinds of testimonial injustice are ubiquitous
in academic philosophy and that the prevalence of these injustices provides
signifcant barriers to those targeted that can explain philosophy’s lack of
diversity. In particular, targets of either form of testimonial injustice may have
their contributions dismissed or ignored, be denied opportunities for sharing
their ideas or shaping discussions, have their views attributed to someone else,
and so on. Given that philosophy is a discipline that is carried out largely
through written and spoken discourse, these communicative obstacles can
have profound efects.
Continuing the application of epistemological tools to concrete issues, several
authors in this volume explore the intersection of epistemology and feminist per
spectives. In Chapter 11, “Rape Culture and Epistemology,” Bianca Crewe and
Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa focus on the question of how institutions and individ
uals should respond to sexual assault allegations that haven’t been established in
legal settings. One tempting view, they suggest, is that institutions and individuals
should be deferential to law enforcement, allowing the criminal justice system to
handle the central epistemological dimensions of sexual assault allegations.
However, Crewe and Ichikawa argue that it is crucial to assess this response
within the broader social and political context in which sexual assault occurs,
including cultural attitudes about sexual assault, women’s credibility, and mis
ogynist assumptions about access and entitlement to women’s bodies. In particu
lar, Crewe and Ichikawa maintain that deference to the law should be theorized
within the context of rape culture, which is a cultural environment in which sex
ual assault and sexualized violence is an expected type of interaction. Moreover,
the political and ideological afliations of legal systems themselves impact
whether sexual assault is reported and the corresponding responses. For instance,
Crewe and Ichikawa argue that when individuals testify that they were sexually
assaulted, their testimony is ofen considered to be less reliable than most other
testimony, as they are frequently regarded as either lying or deluded.
Turning to the connection between knowledge and action, Crewe and Ichikawa
consider whether an argument on behalf of deference to the law might be
grounded in the connection between knowledge and action, which can be cap
tured in the connection between knowledge and reasons for action. On this view,
one’s reasons constitute all and only that which one knows. Accordingly, if there is
10 Jennifer Lackey
a doubt, even one that is unwarranted, then one does not know, and hence one
does not have a reason to act. By way of response, Crewe and Ichikawa argue that
in cases of unwarranted doubts, it is still the case that one should know, and thus
inaction is epistemically impermissible. Tus, deference to the law cannot be jus
tifed through the connection between knowledge and action.
Afer considering and rejecting a further response drawing on pragmatic
encroachment, Crewe and Ichikawa explore the complex relationship between
feminist epistemology and contextualism. Contextualism about knowledge
ascriptions is the view that sentences containing “knows” are context sensitive.
According to Crewe and Ichikawa, a contextualist can tell a simple and plausible
story about diferential standards for action in criminal contexts and other con
texts, such as in a university setting: one can count as “knowing” that someone
has committed a serious ofense in a conversation about how the university ought
to respond to it, without counting as “knowing” it in a conversation about
whether the state ought to incarcerate the perpetrator. Tey conclude by noting
that, given contextualism, the fexibility of knowledge ascriptions comes along
with signifcant social power, and that the decision to employ some standards
rather than others is a political one. Furthermore, they argue that this power
tends to be wielded in a way that protects the interests of the status quo. In this
way, they conclude that their project can be seen as a continuation of the work of
feminist philosophers who argue that the “view from nowhere” is in fact ofen a
view from a very particular and situated location.
In Chapter 12, Aidan McGlynn explores whether feminist pornography might
have a positive epistemic function in efectively countering the propagandic
power of mainstream pornography in “Feminist Pornography as Feminist
Propaganda, and Ideological Catch-22s.” McGlynn understands pornography as
sexually explicit materials that have the primary purpose of sexually arousing
their audience and propaganda as media or speech that acts to spread ideology,
where ideological attitudes are characteristically insensitive to evidence. McGlynn

is specifcally interested in feminist pornography that aims to (i) guarantee appro
priate standards of health and safety for those involved in its making, and to
minimize the chances that they have been victims of human trafcking; and/or
(ii) present a more egalitarian picture of gender and sexuality through, for
instance, placing an emphasis on explicit consent, female sexual agency, and so
on. Te central question McGlynn takes up, then, is whether feminist pornog
raphy might be an efective vehicle for a more egalitarian, positive view of human
sexual relations. McGlynn argues against this use of feminist pornography,
particularly the proposals made by A. W. Eaton and Catarina Dutilh Novaes,
showing that they leave us in what he calls an “ideological Catch-22 situation”:
either feminist pornography has the power to reshape our sexual desires and
attitudes, but we are lef without an explanation of how to persuade consumers of
mainstream pornography to watch feminist pornography rather than mainstream

pornography prior to that reshaping; or the propagandic force of pornography is
seen as lying in the way it exploits and spreads pre-existing sexist ideology,
leaving it a mystery how feminist pornography could bring about a shif in
sexual ideology, even in principle. McGlynn concludes that mainstream
pornography plays a distinctive role in the lives of its audience, and it is unclear
how we can replace it with feminist pornography without censorship or some
other kind of practically—and possibly morally—problematic intervention
into people’s lives.
While there is a great deal of work in the philosophical literature on the nature
of sexual consent, very little has been done on its epistemic dimensions. Tree
authors in this volume take up this issue and, in so doing, lay the groundwork for
a much-needed expansion of our understanding of sexual consent. In Chapter 13,
“Epistemic Responsibility in Sexual Coercion and Self- Defense Law,” Hallie
Liberto focuses on a kind of responsibility that is epistemic in nature: the respon
sibility to gather information so as to be appropriately epistemically positioned to
act on one’s beliefs. She then explores how to assign and respond to the adjudica
tion of this kind of epistemic responsibility in cases of sexual coercion and
self-defense in criminal law. In particular, Liberto argues that it is problematic to
assess whether those accused of sexual coercion and unjustifed killing had rea
sonable beliefs, or whether they acted as reasonable people would act. For
instance, feminists have long noted the problems that arise when juries are asked
to gauge the reasonableness of fear when applying a “reasonable man” standard
and have suggested that courts appeal to a “reasonable woman” standard in deter
mining the actus reus of criminal cases in sexual assault and coercion. However,
drawing on the work of Hubin and Healey, Liberto argues that a “reasonable
woman” standard will not help in the prosecution of rape cases, as a “reasonable
man” standard would still need to be applied in order to establish the mens rea of
sexual ofenses. Liberto then presents an alternative suggestion by Hubin and

Healey, the “reasonable expectation from state” (REfS) standard, which asks: what
is it reasonable for the state to expect of a person? Liberto argues that a REfS
standard is preferable to the “reasonable person” standard currently used and
should be adopted for adjudicating both self-defense and sexual coercion cases.
One advantage of the REfS standard is that it goes some way towards preventing
racism: instead of being asked what a reasonable man would believe about a
woman’s consent, for instance, the jury would be asked if the man had met the
reasonable expectations of the state to be sure of the woman’s consent—expect
ations that would be the same whether the victim was black or white. Liberto
concludes that, in contrast to Hubin and Healey, the expectations of the state
need to be outlined ahead of time and be made known to the public in both sex
ual coercion and self-defense cases.
12 Jennifer Lackey
In Chapter 14, “Sexual Consent and Epistemic Agency,” Jennifer Lackey exam
ines sexual consent in the context of the widely accepted thesis that knowledge is
sufcient for epistemically permissible action; that is, the view according to which
if someone knows a given proposition, then it is epistemically permissible for that
person to act on it. To the extent that this is denied, it is argued that either more
or less than knowledge is required, such as certainty or justifed belief. In this
chapter, Lackey shows that being able to act on knowledge that someone has con
sented to sex provides an interesting challenge to this framework. In particular,
Lackey argues that someone may know that another consents to sex and yet it
may still be epistemically impermissible to act on this knowledge. Tis is clearest
when the knowledge of the consent in question is secondhand, rather than frst
hand. When this happens, the problem is not that more, or less, than knowledge
is needed to warrant action, but, rather, that a particular kind of epistemic sup
port is required, one that involves testimony from the consentee herself. Tis is
due to the fact that the consentee is uniquely positioned with respect to the ques
tion of her own consent, both agentially and epistemically. Lackey further argues,
however, that it doesn’t follow from this that knowing frsthand that another con
sents to sex is sufcient for it to be epistemically permissible to act on this know
ledge. For someone might also have background beliefs, either in general or about
another in particular, that function as defeaters for such action. Tus, a single
instance of testimony granting consent needs to be viewed in a broader evidential
framework, one where this piece of evidence alone might not be enough to war
rant action on this occasion. In this way, Lackey defends the total evidence view of
the epistemology of sexual consent. Te upshot of these considerations is that
determining whether sexual consent has been given, especially in light of how
high the stakes can be, requires that agents be epistemically responsible, where
this can go beyond what is required in standard cases of action.
In Chapter 15, “Te Epistemology of Consent,” Alexander A. Guerrero exam
ines two diferent dimensions of consent. In Part 1 of the chapter, Guerrero

focuses on the nature of consent—that is, the question of what it is for an agent,
A, to consent to some state of afairs, SA. According to the attitudinal view, spe
cifc mental attitudes are both necessary and sufcient for consent. In particular,
A consents to SA if, and only if, A has an attitude of afrmative endorsement
toward SA. While Guerrero doesn’t provide a defense of the attitudinal view in
this chapter, he argues that reluctance to endorse it is ofen due to a failure to
appreciate that another agent, B, can non-culpably act as if A consents to SA only
if B justifably believes that A has an attitude of afrmative endorsement towards
it. Tis leads to Part 2, where Guerrero takes a close look at the epistemological
dimensions of justifable belief that another person has consented to some state of
afairs. He argues that moral stakes matter when the epistemology of consent is
concerned in at least one of the following two ways: (i) the moral stakes or con
text matter to whether B justifably believes, or knows, that A consents to SA; or
(ii) the moral stakes or context matter to whether it is morally objectionable for B
to act based on justifed belief or knowledge that A consents to SA and whether B
is non-culpable for acting as if “A consents to SA” is true. Guerrero goes on to
show that in some cases where consent is at issue, the moral stakes are high and
thus require that B possess more or stronger evidence in order to justifably
believe, or non-culpably act as if, A consents. Since cases for which sexual con
sent and consent to medical treatment are at issue are also ones in which there are
high moral stakes, Guerrero concludes that B must possess more or stronger evi
dence in order to justifably believe, or non-culpably act as if, A consents in
these cases.
In the fnal section of this volume, epistemic dimensions of the internet, both
general and specifc, are explored. In Chapter 16, “Te Internet and Epistemic
Agency,” Hanna Gunn and Michael Patrick Lynch examine the connection
between epistemic agency and the internet. Tey begin by identifying two condi
tions that are true of responsible epistemic agency: frst, responsible epistemic
agents aim to develop epistemic virtues, merit, and capacities that help them to
responsibly change their epistemic environment, as well as the capacities that
enable them to recognize and respect these epistemic traits in others. Second,
responsible epistemic agents treat other epistemic agents with a form of respect
that demonstrates a willingness to learn from them. Gunn and Lynch then high
light three ways in which the internet has led to the “democratization” of know
ledge. In particular, it (i) makes bodies of knowledge more widely available; (ii)
makes knowledge production more inclusive; and (iii) is used in ways that expand
epistemic participation, and thus enhance epistemic agency, through the develop
ment of challenge-specifc prizes. At the same time, Gunn and Lynch show that
the very ways in which the internet makes information and knowledge more
widely available can also undermine our ability to be responsible epistemic agents
and may even undermine epistemic agency itself. One way this happens is that
the accessibility of information itself can lead to increased epistemic arrogance

which, in turn, can give rise to testimonial injustice by unjustifably discounting
the credibility of others. Since showing such respect is one of the features of being
an epistemically responsible agent, epistemic arrogance can undermine respon
sible epistemic agency. In addition, Gunn and Lynch argue that the personaliza
tion of online spaces can unwittingly lead users into echo- chambers and
flter-bubbles and away from a diverse range of epistemic perspectives, and fake
news and information pollution can make for a hostile online epistemic environ
ment. Tis makes it difcult for online users to fulfll their epistemic obligations.
Finally, Gunn and Lynch show that online anonymity can undermine both the
responsible acquisition and dissemination of knowledge through testimony.
C. Ti Nguyen explores our interaction on a specifc online platform in
Chapter 17, “How Twitter Gamifes Communication,” arguing that by ofering
immediate, vivid, and quantifed evaluations of conversational success, Twitter
14 Jennifer Lackey
gamifes communication and, in so doing, changes the nature of the activity. A

“design for communication” is the designed technology that ofers points and
scores. On Nguyen’s view, “gamifcation” occurs when a player interacts with
design for gamifcation and in fact adopts these points and scores as the primary
motivators during the activity, that is, when the activity becomes something like a
game for them. Nguyen argues that pre-gamifcation, the values of conversation
are complex and many, involving understanding the world, transmitting informa
tion, persuading, connecting to one another, and so on. In contrast, Twitter’s
scoring mechanism invites us to replace these values with another, much simpler
goal: that of maximizing one’s Likes, Retweets, and Follower. As Nguyen argues,
“[g]ames ofer us a momentary experience of value clarity. Tey are a balm for the
existential pains of real life.” But when we gamify conversation in this way, we are
imposing value clarity on a set of complex and nuanced values. Twitter scores,
for instance, make salient the number of users with positive reactions, while
de-emphasizing the quality of any particular interaction. In this way, gamifcation
instrumentalizes the goals of our real-life activities, which is problematic when
the goals themselves are independently valuable. Nguyen concludes by drawing a
connection between gamifcation, echo chambers, and moral outrage porn: all
share a willingness to instrumentalize what shouldn’t be instrumentalized. In par
ticular, echo chambers instrumentalize our trust, moral outrage porn instrumen
talizes our morality, and gamifcation instrumentalizes our goals.
In Chapter 18, “Te Epistemic Dangers of Context Collapse Online,” Karen
Frost-Arnold provides a close analysis of the epistemological challenges posed by
context collapse in online environments and argues that virtue epistemology pro
vides a helpful normative framework for addressing some of these problems.
“Context collapse” is the blurring or merging of multiple contexts or audiences
into one. For instance, Facebook users may collapse multiple contexts of social
relations into one audience when they share a post with all of their Facebook
friends, which may include family members, close friends, acquaintances, work
colleagues, and complete strangers. Te frst epistemic challenge that Frost-Arnold
identifes is that context collapse facilitates online harassment, which causes
epistemic harm by decreasing the diversity of epistemic communities. For
instance, a surreptitiously recorded lecture in a feminism course on a college
campus might be shared on Reddit, leading to the trolling and harassment of the
professor. Te second epistemic problem with context collapse is that it threatens
the integrity of marginalized epistemic communities in which some types of true
belief fourish. For instance, marginalized people may need to create their own
language in which to describe their oppression. Context collapse can disrupt
these epistemic communities and thereby hinder the production of knowledge.
Te third epistemic challenge with context collapse is that it promotes misunder
standing. Understanding relies on background knowledge which, in turn, is ofen
context sensitive. If testimony in one context is imported to another without

shared background knowledge about the setting of the conversation, the speaker
and hearer, past conversations, the goals of the conversation, and so on, then the
hearer may misinterpret the speaker’s utterance. Frost-Arnold then argues that
we can cultivate and promote the epistemic virtues of trustworthiness and discre
tion in order to address some of these problems. When we are trustworthy, we are
motivated to avoid taking advantage of the vulnerability of those who trust us and
when we are discreet, we use good judgment in sharing speech, especially in a
way that is attentive to the costs to others.
Veronica Ivy takes up the issue of the epistemology of anonymous assertions in
Chapter 19, the fnal chapter in this volume—“Yikkity Yak, Who Said Tat? Te
Epistemology of Anonymous Assertions.” According to Sanford Goldberg,3 there
are three central problems with the epistemic status of anonymous assertions.
First, hearers do not have access to the kind of information on which necessary
credibility assessments of speakers are based. Second, and because of this, hearers
lack the sort of counterfactual sensitivity to defeaters, or counterevidence, that
responsible hearers need. And, fnally, since it is clear that hearers can’t hold
speakers responsible for making epistemically defective assertions, speakers lose
their motivation to avoid making them. Ivy argues that Goldberg’s third concern
depends on a “punitive model of assertoric behavior.” According to this model,
speakers generally assert properly only because hearers have the ability to hold
speakers accountable for their assertions and are able to punish them in some
sense when they assert improperly. Ivy argues against this model by showing that
we assert truthfully even when there are no punitive disincentives for lying, and
we feel badly for asserting falsely even when there are no punitive consequences.
In this way, Ivy claims that it is typical for speakers to exhibit pro-social behav
iors—speakers tend to experience an internal duty of honesty and truthfulness
and this is what drives assertoric practices. In contrast to Goldberg, then, Ivy
maintains that speakers should adopt a default attitude of trust toward assertions,
including those that are anonymous. Tis trust is defeasible: if speakers have
strong positive reasons to doubt the assertion, then these reasons serve as defeat
ers. However, Ivy argues that anonymity itself is not a defeater and, thus, that
doubting anonymous assertions is the exception, not the rule. Finally, while using
the social media platform Yik Yak as a model—where fully anonymous unknown
assertions are made—Ivy takes up Goldberg’s frst two concerns and argues that
hearers can form justifed, testimony-based beliefs from anonymous assertions
on either of the main views in the epistemology of testimony.
3 Goldberg (2013, 2015).

16 Jennifer Lackey
References
Dotson, Kristie (2011). “Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing.”

Hypatia 26: 236–57.
Fricker, Miranda (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power & the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Goldberg, Sanford (2013). “Anonymous Assertions.” Episteme 10: 134–51.
Goldberg, Sanford (2015). Assertion: On the Philosophical Signifcance of Assertoric
Speech. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
PART 2
PE R SPE C TIV E S
E PIST E MOLO G IC A L
2
When Freeing Your Mind Isn’t Enough
Framework Approaches to Social Transformation
and Its Discontents
Kristie Dotson and Ezgi Sertler
But enlightenment does not result in real freedom, or even a mental

state of pleasure.
(Angela Davis 1998, “Unfnished Lecture on Liberation—II,” 58)
1. Introduction
As it becomes more and more popular to view social justice issues through
epistemological approaches, it has become important to take stock of what such
approaches hope to accomplish. We defne “epistemological approaches to social
justice” as approaches to social and political problems that highlight epistemic
features of those problems. Framework approaches to social problems can be
defned as a particular intellectual approach where framework transformation is
taken to equate changes in social arrangements. In this chapter, we probe the
transformative potential of framework approaches to social justice.
We have a broad question which we are attempting to pose and respond to in

the course of the chapter. Here we are asking, “What relationships do framework
shifs have to social transformation?” We understand “social transformation” in
modest terms as any signifcant shif in social arrangements. Tere are at least two
ways to understand this opening question. First, we might be posing the question
as to the plausibility of the idea that a framework shif has a radical causal impact
on actual social arrangements. Or, second, we might be querying whether it is
viable to assume that a framework shif is, itself, a shif in social circumstances. In
this chapter, we are concerned primarily with the frst of these two interpret
ations. Specifcally, we probe the basis of the assumption that shifing frameworks
have a profound impact on social transformation. And we are asking this ques
tion because we have our doubts about the plausibility of such an assumption.
Our doubts do not follow from the judgement that framework changes are unim
portant for social transformation. In fact, we might concede that, in a certain
Kristie Dotson and Ezgi Sertler, When Freeing Your Mind Isn’t Enough: Framework Approaches to Social Transformation
and Its Discontents In: Applied Epistemology. Edited by: Jennifer Lackey, Oxford University Press (2021).
© Kristie Dotson and Ezgi Sertler. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198833659.003.0002
20 Kristie Dotson and Ezgi Sertler
sense, a framework shif around a given issue constitutes a change in social

circumstance. What we doubt is that such a shif is a change in social arrangements.
In short, we are concerned about a potential propensity to intellectualize social
transformation so that one might assume that enlightenment is real freedom
(Davis 1998, 58).1
In what follows, we outline a particular approach to social transformation that
implies or assumes a thick causal connection between frameworks and social
transformation that, for us, needs to be reconsidered. To execute this analysis, we
introduce a range of concepts that aid in illuminating the limitations of a particu
lar position towards a thick relationship between malfunctioning frameworks
and social arrangements. We challenge the idea that framework shifs at diferent
levels equate to changes in the social arrangements they aim to reconceptualize.
Ultimately, we claim that framework approaches to social transformation have
two limitations, which include: (i) failing to lead to the epistemological ingenuity
they ofen promise; and even where such ingenuity might be achieved, (ii) leaving
untouched the actual social arrangements that facilitate the circumstances under
analysis.
Tis chapter proceeds in three further sections. In section 2, we explain what
we mean by a framework approach to social transformation. In section 3, we take
an example of a framework approach to social justice in the framework
approaches to understanding “political prisoners” and its potential aims and
aspirations. In this section, we gesture to the limitations of such approaches in
articulating social circumstances as modes of social transformation. Finally, in
section 4, we conclude by responding to a potential objection for this framework
analysis assessing the “work” of framework analyses.
2. A Framework Approach to Social Transformation

Before we ofer an example of a framework approach to social transformation and

what it may or may not accomplish, we will explain what we take to be a frame
work approach to social transformation and the terms we will rely upon through
out the course of this chapter. As such, this section proceeds in two parts. First,
we explain our terminology, i.e. frst-, second-, and third-order frameworks,
conceptual resilience, social arrangements, social circumstances, and social
transformation. Second, we briefy articulate a particular intellectualist approach
1 Here, we refer to an assumption Angela Davis (1998) criticizes in the “Unfnished Lecture on
Liberation—II.” In that article, Davis discusses how Frederick Douglass “has arrived at a consciousness of
his predicament as a slave” (57). Tis consciousness for Davis is “at the same time a rejection of his
predicament” (57–8). However, this consciousness or this enlightenment “does not result in real freedom,
or even a mental state of pleasure” (58). Davis writes: “Referring to his mistress, Douglass says: ‘She aimed
to keep me ignorant, and I resolved to know, although knowledge only increased my misery’ ” (58).
Framework Approaches to Social Transformation 21
to social transformation, i.e. changes in social arrangements as simply framework

transformations.
2.1 Terminology
A framework, here, refers to an interpretative schema that flters the “world out
there” with processes of selection that generate a schedule of salience that actively
maintains and supports the framework itself. In this, we borrow from Snow and
Benford (1992), when they write that a frame is “an interpretative schema that
simplifes and condenses the ‘world out there’ by selectively punctuating and
encoding objects, situations, events, experiences, and sequences of actions within
one’s present or past environment” (e.g. frames to organize the presentations of
opinions and facts) (Snow and Benford 1992, as cited in Boykof 2007, 31).
Frameworks are ofen used to center the points of emphasis that serve to produce
understandings of a given phenomenon or a domain of inquiry. As Entman
(1993) explains, framing “involves selection and salience. To frame is to select
some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient . . . in such a way as
to promote a particular problem defnition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation,
and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (52). As such, high
lighting frameworks as a point of departure is to interrogate what features and
emphases aid in generating “understandings” or “knowledge” about some given
social phenomenon. And frameworks can be said to generate understandings and/
or knowledge at several levels of abstraction. For our purposes, we will introduce
three levels of inquiry with respect to frameworks as a kind of engaged epistemol
ogy, where one is articulating and interrogating frameworks for comprehension
or knowledge production of some domain of inquiry. Tey are frst-, second-, and
third-level framework investigations.
First-level frameworks represent those frameworks that emerge from what

Hortense Spillers (1984) calls frst-order discourse, which expresses “the experi
ences of a community” in real time (89). In other words, a frst-level framework is
simply a framework in operation as it is used to generate understandings of one’s
circumstances or some domain of inquiry.
Second-level frameworks attempt to isolate and make sense of the ways
frst-level frameworks are constructed so that they render reasonable or “com
mon sense” targeted features of those worlds. Tese frameworks primarily focus
on ranges of relevance and schedules of salience that operate like selection criteria
and meaning-making devices for narrating a given phenomenon, happening, or
structure. Tat is to say, a second-level framework analysis targets frst-level
frameworks embedded in frst-level discourse for articulation and analysis.
Tird-level frameworks, which most people identify as, broadly speaking, epi
stemic, attempt to identify what kinds of broad orientations facilitate the ways
both the ranges of relevance and the schedules of salience are organized in
second-level framework analysis. Tese frameworks attempt to organize and
otherwise understand how second-level frameworks are designed and outlined.
As one can guess, a framework analysis is infnitely regressive. For example, our
analysis here might be understood as a third-level framework analysis. We are
concerned with the potential of second-level frameworks to disappear actual
social arrangements. Tere is an open question whether the changes that result
from framework shifs are merely framework deep. Tat is to say, changing the
way we understand social arrangements, for example, may only change our
understanding, not the social arrangements themselves.
Tere are usually one of two assumptions concerning goals that underlie
framework analyses when they are executed for the sake of social justice ends.
Tey include: (i) the assumption that framework analyses have the potential to
change social arrangements; and/or (ii) the assumption that framework analyses
have the potential to alter social circumstances. By social arrangement, we mean
the actual structures and situations in our social, political, and institutional envir
onments about which frameworks are attempting to produce knowledge and/or
understandings. Frameworks with respect to our social worlds, on our account,
are, in part, attempting to ofer understandings and/or knowledge about social
arrangements. As a result, social arrangements are not simply frameworks; they
exceed frameworks and are, in many ways, the point of generating frameworks at
all. For many, poor frameworks can hinder our understanding and knowledge of
social arrangements. Some make the strong assumption, however, that social
arrangements are causally tied to prevailing frameworks.
For others, however, the aim of a framework analysis for social justice is weaker.
Tey may hope that altering a framework concerning some social justice issue
can aid in changing targeted social circumstances. By social circumstances, here,
we are referring to some so-called “fact” or condition related to some event,
arrangement, or happening. Tat is to say, a social circumstance is directly related

to understandings of the social arrangements themselves or the kinds of entail
ments we imagine resulting from existing social arrangements. As a result, some
assume that a shif in framework can have the potential of shifing social circum
stances with respect to some given social arrangement so that what makes sense
about that arrangement is challenged or transformed.
What is important to note is that there are strong and weak aims for frame
work analyses as modes of social justice engagement. Te strong aim includes an
assumption that framework shifs are correlated in some strong sense with poten
tial transformation in social arrangements. In the weaker sense, one makes an
assumption that framework shifs are correlated with potential transformations
in social circumstances. In our estimation, it is hardly surprising that one avenue
of engaged epistemology takes the form of framework analyses for shifs in either
social arrangements or social circumstances. In academic circles, there tends to
be stronger and weaker senses that “writing” and texts change the world. Tis is
one way to make “sense” of that sense.
Our principal example of a framework discussion that aims at shifing our
understanding of social arrangements, where this shif in understanding equates
to a shif in the social arrangements themselves (i.e. the strong assumption) con
cerns attempts to understand and outline the defnition and situations of “polit
ical prisoners.” One of the reasons the framework analyses become so attractive,
specifcally to the “academic” social justice worker, is that there is an assumption
that framework shifs either have the potential to disrupt or discontinue a distor
tive framework analysis or that framework shifs can play a large causal role in
shifing the social arrangements in question.2
Part of what might be assumed as a “doing” in framework analyses is either
directly or potentially compromising the conceptual resilience that frameworks
are thought to take on and, in the strong sense, through that disruption having
the potential to disrupt the actual state of afairs. To say that a framework (or a set
of frameworks) has taken on conceptual resilience is to say that it has a commonly
recognized domain of stability that is difcult to disrupt, (i.e. that the framework(s)
in question ‘just makes sense’ to people). Te hope of some framework analyses is
to disrupt the “sense” some frameworks make so as to make the everyday strange
and open to critical refection. Tat is to say, framework analyses may be thought
to either directly disrupt a domain of stability or shrink the conceptual area
within which a given domain is stable.
Our opening inquiry, restated with these terms in mind, is: “Does a
second-order framework analysis have the potential to directly disrupt or limit
the domain of stability of a frst-level framework, and are these ends also trans
formations of actual, social arrangements?” Tis question is aimed, for us, at
querying the presumed constitutive role of frameworks of social arrangements.
Te broadness and difculty of understanding social arrangements, for
example social and political structures, ofen prompts one to be careful and con
siderate about the frameworks one deploys in understanding them as structures.
Tis carefully considered refection on frameworks, for us, is ofen executed in
second-level framework analyses. For example, when discussing the ways dissent
is framed and criminalized, Jules Boykof (2007) explains:
frames not only overlap and reinforce each other, but also frequently compete . . .
On one level, coverage of dissidence can be seen as a framing contest whereby
diferent social actors and groups present their frames in an efort to gain social
2 One could easily imagine an analysis of our analyses that operates at another level of framework
analysis: either frst, second, third, or a fourth level of analysis. We don’t fnd this problematic. Part of
our concern is a concern over what we imagine framework analysis to be doing (at whatever level),
when it is thought to be “doing” anything at all. As such, we will need to navigate what we imagine to
be “doing” in our own framework analysis and will do so in our conclusion.
currency, the contested topography of public discourse. However, at the end of

the day, the mass media collectively serve as the arbiter of these framing contests
by implementing and synthesizing their own frames. (32)
What ofen happens, in public discourse around social justice issues, like the
importance and preservation of dissent, are framework analyses of prevailing
frameworks.
First-
level frameworks are factored through media that then generate
second-level frames that ultimately adjudicate a “framing contest”, i.e. which frame
will win the day. A second-level framework analysis, in some domains, can be cast
as judge and jury and as having the potential to efectively determine the “state” of
a discourse. We want to ask, however, what is the goal of a second-level framework
approach to transformation for social arrangements themselves? Not for our
understanding of them, but for the actual structures and realities we are attempting
to understand or produce knowledge about? Tere seems to be an assumption
that such framework analyses can counter problematic frst-level frameworks via
attempts to disrupt or challenge the potential or actual resilience of a given
framework. We suppose that part of the rationale for this understanding of the
“work” of second-level discourse analysis concerns the idea that “what you don’t
know can hurt you.” But we are uncertain what kind of work, “knowing” diferently
through diferent frameworks is actually doing, in terms of transformation of
social arrangements, i.e. the strong assumption of the aim of framework analyses.
Transformation of social arrangements, or social transformation, here refers to
concrete changes in the structures and realities that are being “framed,” where the
actual structures or social arrangements are not reducible to the frameworks
because the frameworks never fully illuminate the structures in question.
2.2 Framework Analysis as Social Transformation
Again, what we are probing in this chapter is the notion that a framework analysis
has a direct relationship to social transformation, i.e. transformations of actual
social arrangements. Both authors have run into academics in extended fashion
and in passing who assume that thinking about things diferently will auto
matically result in changes in social arrangements or the social, political, and
institutional realities one is attempting to understand or produce knowledge
about. Tat is to say, we have both run into the strong assumption that framework
transformation is simply social transformation. Tere are several challenges we
would like to pose to this assumption. First, we think that proponents of this
approach to framework activism need to consider that what one knows does not
mean that one knows better. Tat is to say, feeling like one has a better under
standing of social arrangements or structures does not mean that one actually has
a transformative understanding (however we defne such a thing). For instance,

understanding what the prison industrial complex is, how it functions, and what
its problems are (a better understanding) is not adequate for “imagining alterna
tives” to prisons or “envisioning” a social order without prisons (a transformative
understanding) (Davis 2003, 112, 10; Davis 2005; Heiner and Tyson 2017).
Becoming more aware does not equate “epistemological ingenuity” (Heiner and
Tyson 2017, 4). Epistemological ingenuity, here, refers to the ability to construct
understandings and knowledge beyond what is given with diferent frameworks
that are better than the faulty framework one identifes. Second, we also maintain
that what you know can still hurt you because social arrangements are not con
structed of frameworks, even if our understandings of them are so constructed.
In short, targeting frameworks that legitimate3 unjust structures leaves relatively
untouched the material circumstances that may facilitate the social arrangements
in question.
Te second-level framework approach might be necessary for knowing
diferently (or similarly) than a frst-level framework allows, but such an analysis
does not necessarily create the conditions necessary for imagining alternative
frameworks. Specifcally, we wonder what “work” framework analyses do and
what such analyses leave undone and undertheorized. We are probing this line of
inquiry because we also want to understand whether framework analyses
strengthen or weaken the structures they attempt to target.
In what follows, we will construct a case concerning the landscape of frame
work analysis around “political prisoners” which is ofen taken to be a discourse
aimed at liberating “political prisoners.” What we found is that there are at least
two ways in which second-level frameworks are used to imagine liberatory ends,
i.e. a disaggregation approach and a comprehensive approach. Afer outlining
these two second-order framework approaches, we articulate how they may fall
short of disrupting the kind of conceptual resilience they identify around the con
struction of “political prisoners” and, more importantly, how difcult it is to see

how the framework transformation as social transformation assumption is sup
posed to be borne out given that it is a kind of epistemic intervention in a social,
political, and historical situation.
3. Example: “Political Prisoners”/Political

Imprisonment Discussion
We consider an analysis of political imprisonment to be a second-level

framework analysis that targets the framework around imprisonment with

3 Tis legitimation can occur for already-established structures, as well as structures that are in the
process of being established and/or reinforced/stabilized. (We thank our reviewer for clarifying this point.)
political motivations. Tis is because an analysis of political imprisonment usually

aims to disclose how the current social arrangements are constructed in a way to
legitimize imprisonment with political motivations in diferent ways. While doing
so, an analysis of political imprisonment hopes to determine the state of the d iscourse
on imprisonment in a way that challenges the legitimation of criminalization with
political motivations. In other words, a key part of the political imprisonment
discourse lies in a conceptual efort to relocate ‘certain groups of people’ beyond how
the current social arrangements have defned them. And this relocation involves
generating a new understanding of certain incarcerated people as political.
As a framework analysis that hopes to create a frst-level framework shif (i.e.
generate a new understanding/critique of who “political prisoners” are), the polit
ical imprisonment discourse can either have strong or weak aims as a mode of
social justice engagement. Tis is to say that a discussion of political imprison
ment can see the framework shif it creates as a potential transformation in either
social arrangements or social circumstances. In its efort to generate a new under
standing of certain incarcerated people as political, the political imprisonment
discourse criticizes the social circumstances these “prisoners” are in by challen
ging how the existing social arrangements defne, produce, and legitimate these
circumstances. What we want to investigate here is the possible strong aim the
political imprisonment discourse as a framework analysis can have. We want to
question whether these framework analyses have the potential to transform social
arrangements through the frst-level framework shifs they achieve. In other
words, we would like to ask whether understanding “political prisoners” difer
ently can result in concrete changes in the structures or social arrangements that
are being framed.
In what follows, we identify two diferent approaches within a discussion of
political imprisonment. We will call the frst approach the “disaggregation approach,”
and the second one the “comprehensive approach.” Tese two approaches suggest
two diferent second-level framework analyses which try to establish diferent

defnitions of “political prisoners” and diferent ways of delegitimizing imprison
ment with political motivations. We argue that both approaches, in diferent ways,
demonstrate how second-level framework approaches to social transformation
(i.e. framework transformation as a change in social arrangements) have two
limitations: (i) they may not lead to epistemological ingenuity at which they aim;
and (ii) they leave untouched the actual social arrangements that facilitate the
circumstances under analysis.
3.1 Disaggregation Approach
As McEvoy et al. (2007) note, one of the central concerns of the political
imprisonment discussion is “the ways in which such prisoners are defned” (293).
Te question of how to defne ‘what a political prisoner is’ or ‘what a political

crime is’ is crucial for the discussion because it forms the foundation through
which the actions of the imprisoning state can be contested. In other words,
deciding what constitutes ‘the political’ in front of the moniker “prisoner” forms
the basis on which the political imprisonment discussion challenges the ways in
which imprisonment of political crime is legitimized. As a second-level frame
work approach, then, an analysis of “political prisoners” hopes to determine the
state of the discourse for imprisonment by suggesting defnitions of certain incar
cerated people as “politically motivated” or by underlining the political nature of
their acts.
We call this efort to decide ‘who counts as a political prisoner’ the disaggregation
approach. As the name suggests, a disaggregation approach within an analysis of
political imprisonment intends to determine ‘who a political prisoner is’ and
therefore intends to separate the category of “political prisoners” from other kinds
of “prisoners.” Tere are many diferent disaggregation approaches within
political imprisonment analyses: some are more detailed than others. In “Political
Imprisonment and the ‘War on Terror,’ ” McEvoy et al. (2007) suggest “fve broad
and sometimes overlapping categories of inmates as ‘political prisoners’ ” that, we
think, is adequate for our purposes here: “1. prisoners of war, 2. ‘Prisoners of con
science’, 3. Conscientious objectors, 4. Radicalized ‘ordinary’ prisoners, and 5.
Politically motivated prisoners” (294). Tis listing is an attempt to disaggregate
diferent kinds of “prisoners” in order to isolate which sets of “prisoners” are
unduly politically motivated.4
Prisoners of war mostly refer to combatants captured as a result of confict, and
they have been an important discussion within international humanitarian law.
Even though the Geneva Conventions, while trying to regulate international
interstate conficts, provide a defnition of prisoners of war, “who does or does
not qualify as a POW [prisoner of war] has remained highly contested” in practice
(McEvoy et al. 2007, 295). In addition, McEvoy et al. (2007) highlight that when
states deal with internal conficts, they tend to sidestep the Geneva Conventions
because they usually categorize internal conficts as insurrections and would like
to resolve them without any regard to international humanitarian law. As they
further note, the notion of “prisoners of war” seems also important for cases such
as the War on Terror: “Te US administration in particular has invested considerable
energy in denying applicability of the Geneva Conventions and redefning those
detained under the War on Terror as something other than POWs [prisoners of
war]” (2007, 295).
4 As far as we understand, disaggregation approach ofers a new defnitional framework precisely

to separate those who can be defned as political prisoners from “regular” prisoners. Tis approach is
(usually) ofered with a critical and/or liberatory point of view, where the states’ treatments of these
kinds of prisoners are criticized, and their conditions are contested.
Prisoners of conscience, frst coined by Amnesty International in 1961, refers to

people who have not “used or advocated violence but is imprisoned because of
who they are (sexual orientation, ethnic, national or social origin, language, birth,
colour, sex or economic status) or what they believe (religious, political or other
conscientiously held beliefs)” (www.amnesty.org/en/what- we-
do/detention).
Conscientious objectors, a category that closely overlaps with prisoners of conscience,5
refers to the cases where people object to mandatory military service on grounds
of conscience. How the category of conscientious objectors is characterized and
whom the conscientious objector status can be granted to depend on how national
criminal codes structure their military service, their alternatives to military service,
and their “permissible parameters of conscientious objection” (McEvoy et al.
2007, 297). For instance, in cases where a conscientious objector is defned as “an
individual who objects to war per se or the use of violence in any form”, troops
who refuse to serve due to “a religious or moral objection to a particular war” are
less likely to be categorized as conscientious objectors (McEvoy et al. 2007, 297).
Radicalized ‘ordinary’ prisoners refer to “individuals imprisoned for non-political
ofences but who become radicalized while in prison” (McEvoy et al. 2007, 297).
McEvoy et al. (2007) suggest that “the transformation of ordinary black prisoners
into political militants” can be used as a prime example of this category (298).
Tis transformation usually occurs when people start seeing their imprisonment
as a result of an “oppressive politico-economic order” and become “conscious of
the causes underlying their victimization” (Davis 1998, 47).6 Te fnal category
McEvoy et al. suggest is politically motivated prisoners. While admitting the fact
that this term can apply to all the cases mentioned above, McEvoy et al. (2007)
note that it has been recently adopted as a more neutral terminology than ‘terrorists’,
considering the baggage the words ‘terrorists’ and ‘terrorism’ carry today (299).
As we can see from this brief discussion, a disaggregation approach tries to
provide tools to categorize certain incarcerated people as political. And one cen
tral aim of this categorization is to question, and perhaps contest, how the state in
question manages/imprisons them. In other words, a disaggregation approach, by
establishing categories of political prisoners versus others, tries to criticize how
imprisonment becomes the way in which states manage and answer to political
motivations. Our question here is not “how to defne ‘political prisoners.’ ” Instead,
we are interested in “what defning ‘political prisoners’ as a separate category”
(frst-level framework shif articulated through a second-level framework analysis)
can do. We wonder whether generating a new understanding of “prisoners” who
are “political” while shifing our understanding of the current social arrangements,
has the potential to accelerate a shif in the social arrangements themselves
5 McEvoy et al. (2007), for instance, note that “Amnesty International recognized members of the
US military who were jailed for refusing to serve in Iraq as prisoners of conscience” (297).
6 Also see Nagel (2015, 44).
(in this case, causing concrete changes in how “political prisoners” are managed
by the states in question). We want to demonstrate why this potential has limita
tions due to the conceptual resilience of carceral logics and its practices.
By carceral logics, we refer to a dominant and an epistemologically resilient
logic that legitimizes only one intelligible schema of understanding and account
ing for how serious harms can be redressed or prevented. Tis schema legitimizes
state-centric practices of incarceration that are exercised through prisons which
regulate punitive exclusions by disciplinary containment. Tis logic is employed
and supported by, and supports and strengthens, the practices and policies of
states and their entities and apparatuses. It can further establish societies’ reliance
on incarceration and confne its capacities for thinking, feeling, imagining, and
acting (Heiner and Tyson 2017; Kim 2015).
As an epistemologically resilient logic that has conceptually resilient frame
works that uphold it, carceral logics are sense-making devices. As an epistemo
logically resilient logic/system, it “upholds” and “preserves” our sense-making
mechanisms or conceptually resilient frameworks. Dotson (2014) argues that
forms of theoretical resilience has two factors: “the scope of the domain for stabil
ity and the magnitude of disturbance required to motivate signifcant change”
(132). Tis is to say that in an attempt aiming to challenge an epistemologically
resilient logic via conceptually resilient frameworks one needs to either directly
disrupt a domain of stability or shrink the stable area of the given epistemo
logical system.
What a disaggregation approach tries to achieve is to limit where and to whom
carceral logics can apply or who a carceral state can legitimately imprison. As a
second-level framework approach, the disaggregation approach tries to shrink
the conceptual area of carceral logics. It does so by introducing a category of
“uncommon criminal,” through the defnition of “political prisoners,” therefore
suggesting a subtraction of those “criminals” from where the carceral logic applies
to. In other words, by defning “political prisoners” and what constitutes political
imprisonment, the disaggregation approach destabilizes a framework where
imprisonment systematically applies to political motivations. However, the intro
duction of the “uncommon criminal,” or the “political prisoners” as a separate
category at the same time tends to restabilize the carceral logics by suggesting a
concept of “common criminals.” Tis is to say that by introducing a category that
is “wrongly” managed or “wrongly” imprisoned, the disaggregation approach seems
to suggest that the punitive approach of carceral logics should not directly apply
to “political prisoners.” Tis suggestion, at the same time, reinforces or strengthens
how the punitive approach is used towards other “prisoners.”
Tis implicit reinforcement of carceral logics suggests that a disaggregation
approach is not a direct disruption to carceral logics or the existing social arrange
ments embodying it. Tis situation becomes clearer when we look at how a
second-level framework analysis through the disaggregation approach calls for
other second-level framework analyses for other frameworks that are currently
controlled by carceral logics and employed by the existing social arrangements.
When we look at McEvoy et al.’s (2007) discussion of separate categories of
“political prisoners,” for instance, we can see that arguing for a new understand
ing of political does not make it quite clear “who a ‘prisoner of war’ is” in practice,
‘who counts as violent,’ ‘what counts as a violent action,’ ‘what it means to be
non-violent as a person but be part of an organization that committed violence,’
‘what constitutes objection, dissidence, moral objection, etc.’ Tat is, a framework
shif aimed at shrinking the domain of stability for a way of understanding
imprisonment and incarceration may only shif the terms of discussion, without
prompting any changes to the social arrangements in question. In fact, we can see
that an introduction of the category of “political prisoners” does not guarantee a
situation where the carceral state will not simply utilize the newly introduced
framework to legitimate persisting and unchanged social arrangements.
Tus, we can see that the disaggregation approach as a second-level framework
analysis targets the imprisonment discourse by suggesting that its legitimation of
imprisoning political actors needs to be questioned. However, this suggestion,
while shrinking the area where the carceral logics apply, which is a kind of shif in
social circumstances, does not create the magnitude of disturbance that is neces
sary to disrupt carceral logics, that are entailed by the social arrangement of mass
incarceration itself.7 Te resilience of carceral logics becomes clear when we real
ize frst, that the category of “political prisoners” strengthens the assumption of
correctly imprisoned people and second, that ‘knowing political prisoners’ difer
ently does not guarantee knowing ‘violence, objection, dissidence, etc.’ diferently.
Tis means that when one conceptual domain shrinks (i.e. disaggregated “prison
ers”), another expands to take up the slack, thereby leaving resilient carceral
logics intact. Tis expansion is non-accidental. It can be predicted as the sense
incarceration continues to make of itself as an epistemologically resilient logic
that, itself, generates varying conceptual resiliency. Tat is, the legitimation forces
of carceral logics and the social arrangements they “make sense of ” are still at
work. Tat is why, we think, the potential of a second-level framework analysis as
a disaggregation approach fails to achieve epistemological resilience. As such,
such eforts never quite reach the epistemological ingenuity some imagine as the
result of their eforts. Tat is to say, it is unclear that the shif to identify “uncom
mon criminals” is better than general criminalization, where better than is the
7 In other words, this scope-shrinking strategy is at the core of the disaggregation approach we
identify here. Tis is to say that an approach that tries to identify tensions and contradictions in the
logic in order to disrupt it and contest the underlying logic itself and not just its scope would not be
categorized under a disaggregation approach. Furthermore, we think that identifying tensions and
contradictions in a logic does not automatically lead to disrupting that logic. As we argue in this chap
ter, disrupting logics is a matter of structures as well. For instance, identifying the tensions and contra
dictions in the logics that structure social arrangements does not lead to disrupting those logics
precisely because functioning social arrangements prevent those logics from being disrupted.
institution of a framework that disrupts epistemological resilience of carceral

logics. Te social arrangements of incarceration, where accountability for serious
harm is largely understood in terms of confnement and deprivation, are undis
turbed with the “uncommon criminal” class; afer all, there are still plenty of
“common criminals” to lock up. It is according to this kind of assessment that we
wonder how a framework shif that fails to achieve epistemological ingenuity has
a hope of catalyzing a shif in the actual social arrangements that have epistemo
logically resilient and widespread logics that coincide with the actual social
arrangements, which are capable of employing and refguring conceptually resili
ent frameworks indefnitely without ever changing their material constitution.8
3.2 Comprehensive Approach
Te comprehensive approach is another second-level framework analysis that

tries to establish a diferent defnition of “political prisoners” and therefore a dif
ferent way of delegitimizing imprisonment of political motivations. Te compre
hensive approach refers to the view that all “prisoners” are in some sense “political
prisoners” because of the fact that the nature of imprisonment is political.
Acknowledging the role imprisonment plays in sustaining and maintaining the
social order demonstrates how imprisonment in general is heavily politicized and
how the nature of crime is political as well (McEvoy et al. 2007, 294). For
instance, when we look at how states approach particular kinds of behavior, as
McEvoy et al. (2007) suggest, we realize that they tend to criminalize the behaviors
of the weak and the poor, while at the same time “condoning” or even “encouraging”
the behaviors of the powerful and the rich (294). As Rodriguez (2006) also argues,
we have to see the relationship between imprisonment and prisons and the
legal framework they function in as part of a “broader process of social
ordering designed to sustain hegemonic defnitions of right and wrong as well

as maintain the existing social order and dominant forms of class and race
relations” (Rodriguez 2006, as cited in McEvoy et al. 2007, 294). While McEvoy
et al. (2007) mention that the approach of “All crime is political crime” has
been criticized and has been attributed a limited analytical utility,9 the
8 One of the assumptions that may underwrite a second-level framework analysis is that a resilient
wide-spread “logic,” e.g. discursive way of understanding current happenings, institutions, and sys
tems, is formed by one conceptually stable domain that can be shrunk or expanded. Tis, it seems to
us, can be doubted. Or, at the very least, one has too simple an understanding of conceptual domains
so that a defnitional intervention looks like it causes more changes than it actually hopes to do.
9 Tey mention both the critique that viewing criminals as all political in nature overlooks/disre
gards the victims of those crimes “who were ofen themselves the poor, women or other vulnerable
groups” and the critique that in cases such as Northern Ireland, “where disputes concerning the political
character of inmates were quite literally matters of life and death,” the idea that all crime is political crime
was not analytically helpful to understanding the specifcs of these situations (McEvoy et al. 2007, 294).
c omprehensive approach is still visible in a context where mass incarceration and

prison industrial complexes are pressing realities.
As a second-level framework analysis, the comprehensive approach aims for a
diferent shif in our understanding of the existing social arrangements. Unlike
the disaggregation approach, the comprehensive approach, as a second-level
framework analysis, tries to challenge the epistemological resilience of carceral
logics through a direct disruption. Its defnition of political imprisonment, or the
new understanding of “prisoners” it suggests does not aim to shrink the concep
tual area, but rather aims for direct disruption of carceral logics’ domain of stabil
ity. Tis is because claiming that ‘all imprisonment is political’ disputes the
legitimacy of imprisonment in general and contests how carceral logics estab
lishes that legitimacy. By doing so, the comprehensive approach challenges the
punitive capacity of the state by rendering it illegitimate. In other words, if all
incarcerated people are political, the way in which a state punishes gets delegitim
ized. Tis is how the comprehensive approach hopes to challenge the moves of
legitimation that the carceral logics/state has established. However, we argue that
this disruption still might fail to accelerate a shif in the actual social arrange
ments due to the material realities of the prison industrial complex.
Judith Resnik (2010) argues in “Detention, the War on Terror, and the Federal
Courts” that the current carceral logics employed by the United States has both
preventive and punitive confnement regimes (673). Resnik, while analyzing the
“judicial responses to the central challenges, faced daily by governments trying to
maintain peace and security,” highlights how many countries have responded to
terror by “detaining individuals preventively” (584, 679). “Around the world,”
Resnik notes, “countries authorize incapacitation for ‘public protection’ based on
an array of grounds—illegal immigration, sexual predatory behavior, heinous
criminal actions, terrorist threats—that undermine the presumption that it is
conviction and punishment that is required for incarceration” (Resnik 2010, 679).
In other words, this authority to incapacitate, previously exercised in the presence

of conviction and punishment, can now be exercised by claiming that even an
uncertainty about whether a person might infict, or will infict, harm to the
social order/national security/peace can form a “reasonable ground” for author
ities to license forms of preventive detention. It is this exercise of detaining indi
viduals preventively as opposed to punitively that accelerated in the context of
9/11 (also in the context of criminalization of border-crossing, confation of
migrants with terrorists, and criminalizing and silencing political dissent) and
that challenges the comprehensive approach’s aim for disruption (Resnik 2010;
Chang 2002; Fekete 2004).
When the comprehensive approach renders the punitive confnement regime
of the current imprisonment system irrelevant (through redefning political
imprisonment), it does not quite touch upon the preventive aspect of it. Tus, a
move to delegitimize the punitive aspect of a resilient system does not result in
delegitimizing the preventive aspect of it, which in turn can legitimize the
confnement of all “political prisoners” or everyone imprisoned currently or future
detainees. As Resnik (2010) suggests, the current carceral logics and the actual
social arrangements employing it have stepped beyond the idea that confnement
is only used for punitive measures. Tis becomes clear when we look at how the
“uncertainty about which persons have done or will do harm” (584) does not pre
vent the current system from confning individuals. Te carceral logics, as it func
tions and makes sense right now, can justify/justifes a preventive confnement/
detention. In other words, the current social arrangements and its carceral logics
seem to have the capacity to justify “All prisoners are political prisoners” and “All
prisoners are preventatively confned as political prisoners”, while never trans
forming its material functioning. Tis indicates the difculty of epistemological
ingenuity, even when successful, to render change of actual social arrangements.
Furthermore, when legitimizing detaining people “who are suspected to do
something,” states do not have to categorize them as prisoners. Tis is because
preventive detention seems to allow state structures to use carceral logics in a way
that is adapted to manage new groups of people. As a result, even if states accept
that all prisoners are political prisoners, they can still continue categorizing these
(preventively detained) people as not fully prisoners, and thus evade the connec
tion between preventive detention and political imprisonment. Epistemologically
resilient systems that support and are supported by the current structures or
social arrangements can absorb an extraordinary amount of disturbance while
maintaining business-as-usual operations.10
Both disaggregation and comprehensive approaches to political imprisonment
can be categorized as second-level framework analyses that aim to shif our
understanding of the current social arrangements. In other words, both approaches
hope to generate a new understanding of certain “prisoners” as political by dem
onstrating and challenging how the current social arrangements legitimate
imprisonment of political motivations. Tese framework analyses can be, and are,
used as modes of social justice engagement. When used as modes of social justice
engagement, framework analyses can have stronger or weaker claims with respect
to what kinds of shifs or transformation they hope to achieve. We have discussed
above that it seems quite difcult to translate the shif these framework analyses
achieve in our understanding to a shif in the actual social arrangements them
selves. Tis is particularly due to the capacity of epistemologically resilient logics
10 It seems to us that it is not quite clear how the statement “All prisoners are political prisoners”
and a framework approach centered around that statement can answer to the introduction of prevent
ive detention as a new way of categorizing people. Tis is because, on the one hand, carceral logics
located in the existing state structures seems to have the capacity to justify “All prisoners are political
prisoners” and “All prisoners are preventatively confned as political prisoners.” On the other hand, by
categorizing preventively detained people as not really prisoners, carceral logics can also allow the
existing state structures to evade the connection between political imprisonment and preventive
detention.
and the capacity of structures employing them to absorb certain framework shifs
without an actual transformation. It seems important to think about this capacity
given the increasing criminalization of dissent (in various forms) and political
rhetoric of security.
4. Conclusion: An Objection
Epistemological resilience, which is underwritten by actual, social arrangements,

is not primarily constituted of conceptually resilient frameworks, where if one
changes the framework one changes the epistemological resilience. Epistemological
resilience, in our estimation, is shaped by material, social arrangements that gen
erate domains of stability within which conceptual resilience frameworks either
make sense or do not. Tat is, epistemologically resilient logics are made of struc
tural realities. And epistemologically resilience logics ofen make sense of and
promote already existing structural realities that are neither reducible to those
structures nor exhausted by them. As a result, epistemic resources, like frame
works, can change without the epistemological systems, or the social arrange
ments generating them, changing. It is according to these understandings that we
fnd the strong aim of framework analysis for social transformation dubious, at
best, and to be rejected, at worst. Intellectual approaches to transformation in
social arrangements, alone, neither change the structural realities of confnement
nor do they change the epistemological resilience of carceral logics.11
By way of conclusion, we respond to one potential objection to our, primarily,
third-order framework discussion in this chapter. If framework analyses do not
have the potential to efect changes in social arrangements, then why execute this
analysis at all? Here is where we lay our card on the table and admit that we sub
scribe to some version of the weak aim for framework analysis. It is entirely likely
that though enlightenment is not “real freedom,” it is nonetheless a step towards

that goal. A change in conceptual framework is, for us, a change in social circum
stances and has been known to efect real changes for individuals within oppres
sive systems, such as the prison industrial complex. We think here of the successful
11 In fact, as Joy James argues, intellectual approaches can further “defect from real structures of
oppression” (1996, 52). In discussing structural racism, for instance, she highlights that:
racialized identity and speech are endemic to the United States. Yet a focus on these alone
defects from the political and economic aspects of structural racism and white supremacy.
Whether or not anything is publicly said—and no matter how one racially self-identifes—
policies perpetuate dominance and genocide. Racism has come to be understood as a
“form of discourse . . . that can be efectively blocked by means of linguistic taboos;” as
racial epithets become taboo, so does antiracist terminology. (James 1996, 49)
Tis is to say that a mere focus on words, discourses, and frameworks in order to build a “critique” of
state violence overlooks what is required beyond “literary insurgency or rhetorical resistance” when
confronting state violence (James 1996, 23).
and important campaign to free Angela Davis as a “political prisoner.” But this
change in social circumstances was not also a change in social arrangements. So,
though the modest aim of framework analyses (i.e. changes in social circum
stances) is difcult for us to contest, the strong aim of framework analyses (i.e.
simultaneous changes in social arrangements) is difcult to defend.12
References
Boykof, Jules (2007). Beyond Bullets: Te Suppression of Dissent in the United States.
Chico, CA: AK Press.
Chang, Nancy (2002). Silencing Political Dissent: How Post September 11 Anti-Terrorism
Measures Treaten Our Civil Liberties. New York: Seven Stories Press.
Davis, Angela (1998). Te Angela Y. Davis Reader. Edited by Joy James. Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishers.
Davis, Angela (2003). Are Prisons Obsolete? New York: Seven Stories Press.
Davis, Angela (2005). Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons, and Torture.
New York: Seven Stories Press.
Dotson, Kristie (2014). “Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression.” Social Epistemology:
A Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Policy 28(2): 115–38.
Entman, Robert M. (1993). “Framing: Toward Clarifcation of a Fractured Paradigm.”
Journal of Communication 43(4): 51–8.
Fekete, Liz (2004). “Anti-Muslim Racism and the European Security State.” Race &
Class 46(1): 3–29.
Heiner, Brady and Sarah Tyson (2017). “Feminism and the Carceral State: Gender-
Responsive Justice, Community Accountability, and the Epistemology of
Antiviolence.” Feminist Philosophical Quarterly 3(1). Article 3, http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/
fpq/vol3/iss1/3.
12 In this chapter, we aimed to discuss framework directed approaches and how weak they seem
compared to the social arrangements in place. Diferent approaches one might identify through Joy
James and Angela Davis might seem like stronger versions of these approaches. However, we think
that James’s or Davis’s approaches to social transformation are precisely not framework-directed
approaches. Teir approaches criticize the framework-directed approaches and their prioritization
over collective organizing where the confrontation with state policies, resistance, and organizing prac
tices are seen as way more valuable than an emphasis on frameworks. In other words, in James’s or
Davis’s discussions, framework-directed approaches are only valuable when they are part of an activist
framework that ‘materially’ engages with states’ practices and its violence. Tis is not to say that both
James and Davis overlook the importance of building ‘good’ or ‘better’ rhetoric. However, they both
seem to underline the importance of how critiquing bad rhetoric, unless it is embedded in practices of
collective organizing, does not amount to much, and in fact could defect from structures of oppres
sion and their material consequences (see also Davis 2005). We thank our reviewer for calling our
attention to the diferences and similarities between approaches to social transformation one might
identify in Joy James and Angela Davis and framework-directed approaches.
James, Joy (1996). Resisting State Violence: Radicalism, Gender, and Race in the
U.S. Culture. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Kim, Mimi (2015). “Dancing the Carceral Creep: Te Anti-Domestic Violence
Movement and the Paradoxical Pursuit of Criminalization, 1973–1986.” Institute
for the Study of Societal Issues, University of California Berkeley (October 14,
2015), http://escholarship.org/uc/item/804227k6.
McEvoy, Kieran, Kirsten McConnachie, and Ruth Jamieson (2007). “Political
Imprisonment and the ‘War on Terror’, ” in Yvonne Jewkes (ed.), Handbook on
Prisons. Portland, OR: Willan Publishing, 293–323.
Nagel, Mechthild (2015). “Angela Y Davis and Assata Shakur as Women Outlaws:
Resisting U.S. State Violence.” Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women’s &
Gender Studies 13: 43–78.
Resnik, Judith (2010). “Detention, the War on Terror, and the Federal Courts.” Yale
Law School Faculty Scholarship Series, Paper 678, 579–685, http://digitalcommons.
law.yale.edu/fss_papers/678.
Rodriguez, Dylan (2006). Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the US
Prison Regime. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Snow, David A. and Robert D. Benford (1992). “Master Frames and Cycles of Protest,”
in Aldon D. Morris and Carol McClurg (eds), Frontiers in Social Movement Teory,.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 133–55.
Spillers, Hortense J. (1984). “Interstices: A Small Drama of Words,” in Carole S. Vance
(ed.), Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 73–100.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of La farce de la
Sorbonne
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.
Title: La farce de la Sorbonne
Author: René Benjamin
Release date: February 26, 2024 [eBook #73039]
Language: French
Original publication: Paris: Arthème Fayard, 1921
Credits: Laurent Vogel (This file was produced from images

generously made available by the Bibliothèque
nationale de France (BnF/Gallica))
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LA FARCE

DE LA SORBONNE ***
RENÉ BENJAMIN
LA FARCE
DE LA
SORBONNE
« … Cet Asinarium de Paris. »
Victor Hugo.
PARIS
ARTHÈME FAYARD & Cie, ÉDITEURS
18-20, RUE DU SAINT-GOTHARD
DU MÊME AUTEUR
LES SOUTIENS DE LA SOCIÉTÉ
LES JUSTICES DE PAIX, ou LES VINGT FAÇONS DE JUGER DANS

PARIS. (A. Fayard et Cie, éditeurs.)
LE PALAIS ET SES GENS DE JUSTICE. (A. Fayard et Cie, éditeurs.)
PARIS, SA FAUNE ET SES MŒURS
L’HOTEL DES VENTES, avec les dessins de JEAN LEFORT. (A. Fayard et
Cie, éditeurs.)
LA GUERRE
GASPARD. [Prix Goncourt 1915]. (A. Fayard et Cie, édit.)

SOUS LE CIEL DE FRANCE. (A. Fayard et Cie, éditeurs.)
LE MAJOR PIPE ET SON PÈRE. (A. Fayard et Cie, édit.)
LES RAPATRIÉS.
GRANDGOUJON. (A. Fayard et Cie, éditeurs.)
LA PAIX
AMADOU, BOLCHEVISTE. (A. Fayard et Cie, éditeurs.)
Copyright by René Benjamin, 1921.

Il a été tiré à part :
Cinquante exemplaires sur papier de Hollande

numérotés de 1 à 50.
Cent exemplaires
sur papier pur fil des papeteries Lafuma
numérotés de 51 à 150.
A JEAN VARIOT
I
OÙ L’AUTEUR,
ENCORE A L’ÂGE INNOCENT,
RENCONTRE
POUR LA PREMIÈRE FOIS
DES SAVANTS
A CHAPEAUX POINTUS
On rajeunit aux souvenirs d’enfance,

Comme on renaît au souffle du printemps.
Béranger.
Aux yeux de beaucoup d’esprits, qui traînent des convictions

comme de vieilles habitudes, la Sorbonne reste une des gloires de la
France. C’est un fétichisme qui me surprend, car ma mémoire ne
garde de mes passages dans cette maison-mère de l’Université, que
des images sans aucun sérieux.
Du lycée où l’on m’instruisit, c’est-à-dire où je transcrivais sur des
cahiers ce qui était imprimé dans mes livres, on m’expédia pour la
première fois à la Sorbonne vers mes quinze ans, afin que je prisse
part à ce qu’on appelait pompeusement le Concours Général. J’en
revois tous les détails avec l’exactitude qu’ont les souvenirs de nos
grands étonnements. Rendez-vous à sept heures du matin, rue
Saint-Jacques, devant la Tour universitaire qui ressemble à celle de
la gare du P.-L.-M. Là s’assemblaient les meilleurs élèves des
meilleurs lycées. Ils parlaient fort, brandissaient des dictionnaires
importants ; ils me choquaient tous par leurs échanges de vanités ;
et je me trouvais soudain une sympathie secrète pour les cancres, si
modestes.
Puis, sur le seuil de la Faculté paraissait le groupe de nos
censeurs. Chacun de nous, à l’appel de son nom, passait devant le
sien, qui lui remettait un droit d’entrée d’un geste si digne que, pour
ma part, j’en restais stupide et le cœur battant. Je montais avec
peine les six étages menant à la salle du Concours… Ouf ! On
atteignait les combles !… Là, des maîtres nous désignaient
gravement une table. Nous étalions nos papiers ; nous sortions un
déjeuner froid, car l’épreuve devait durer jusqu’au milieu de l’après-
midi… Silence… Trois coups de règle… Et un Monsieur, toujours
vieux et toujours triste, décachetait un vaste pli, duquel,
solennellement, il tirait non pas un ordre de mobilisation générale,
mais une simple et ridicule version latine, revue par l’Académie de
Paris, complètement indéchiffrable, ou encore quelque plaisanterie
historique, anatomique, philosophique, de ce genre-ci : Le règne de
Marie Stuart. — La Vessie. — Des particularités de l’idée générale.
Ceci énoncé, commençait le temps douloureux, quatre, six, huit
heures, de bâillements, de langueur, d’ennui mortel et… de jalousie
à voir des pions qui ne faisaient que se promener et lire sur nos
épaules avec des moues avantageuses.
Alors, par rage, il m’arrivait d’être imbécile à dessein et, d’une
plume satanique, d’écrire exprès ce qui me semblait le plus
impersonnel, le plus pédagogique, le plus servilement exact dans les
souvenirs que j’apportais de mes cours. Et je jure — je jure sur la
tête du Recteur, de l’ancien et du nouveau, — que chaque fois que
j’eus ces pensées mauvaises, j’obtins de l’Alma mater qu’est
l’Université, mention ou accessit. En sorte que le Concours Général
devint à bref délai une source de joies pour mon esprit, et qu’à dix-
huit ans, lorsqu’il s’agit d’aller suivre toute une année les cours de la
Sorbonne, j’abordai cette épreuve avec de l’allégresse dans
l’humeur.
Ce fut pourtant une triste année, mais qui s’acheva par une
libération réjouissante. Je ne connus que de pauvres maîtres : M.
Lanson qui, pour féconder nos cerveaux, dictait, des heures
entières, de la bibliographie ; M. Courbaud, qui traduisait les textes
avec l’intelligence toute vive d’un dictionnaire ; M. Gazier et M.
Lafaye, si encuistrés ceux-là, qu’ils étaient intolérables les jours de
mélancolie, mais bouffes les matins de beau temps. — J’eus la
chance que le seul homme d’esprit de la Faculté, Émile Faguet, me
fît passer mes examens. Il me posa trois questions, auxquelles, lui-
même, répondit coup sur coup ; et il se mit avec contentement une
note favorable, grâce à laquelle je fus nommé je ne sais quoi ès-
lettres.
A la prière de ma famille, je me rendis au Secrétariat pour y
demander mon diplôme. Ce lieu spécial était habité par M. Uri, ours
sans usages, qui jouit encore, même à l’étranger, d’un renom
d’impolitesse assez étendu.
Il m’accueillit, les yeux hors de la tête :
— Qu’est-ce que vous voulez, vous, encore ?
Je répondis froidement :
— Vous voir de près.
Et je sortis, lui faisant cadeau de mon diplôme.
Il l’a toujours. Comme je sais qu’il est économe, il pourra, s’il
veut, gratter mon nom dessus, le remplacer par un autre, et le
donner au premier Turc venu.
Quelques années passèrent, lorsqu’un de mes jeunes amis

atteignit l’âge fatal où l’on subit, en Sorbonne, les épreuves du
Baccalauréat.
Son père disait :
— Mon petit, tu es à un tournant de la vie.
Moi je me tournais pour ne pas rire.
Mais comme ils étaient nerveux l’un et l’autre, on proposa de
m’emmener. J’accompagnai donc père et fils à l’amphithéâtre, mot
qui désigne une salle d’examens ou une salle d’autopsie ; et cette
rentrée imprévue dans la Sorbonne me valut une riche journée, dont
j’ai toujours plaisir à conter le détail.
M. Seignobos, professeur d’histoire, petit homme impertinent,
tout en poils, l’œil moqueur et la voix aigre, dont tous les mots
portaient comme des gifles, avait dit à sa victime, dans un
ricanement :
— Qu’est-ce vous savez ?… Savez-vous quelque chose ?…
Savez rien ?… Alors parlez-moi de n’importe quoi !
Le jeune homme avait protesté :
— Mais, Monsieur… je… je veux bien parler de la question
d’Orient…
— Question d’Orient ?… Ah ! Ah !
M. Seignobos en sauta sur sa chaise.
— Eh bien, qu’est c’est l’Orient ?
— Monsieur, l’Orient comprend les pays…
— Pays orientaux ? Oui, lesquels ?
— La Turquie…
— Turquie ? Ah ! Ah ! Et qu’est c’est la Turquie ?
— Monsieur… c’est un grand État… capitale Constantinople…
— Tiens, vraiment ? Et quelle langue parle-t-on dans c’t État ?
— Le…
— Le quoi ?
— Le turc…
— Le turc ? Pas p’ssible ! Et c’t une langue répandue, ça, l’turc ?
— Oui… non, Monsieur.
— Est-ce les Arabes parlent aussi l’ turc ?
— Non… oui, Monsieur.
— Ah ! ils parlent le turc ? Et l’arabe alors ? Quel peuple parle
l’arabe ?
— Monsieur, ce sont…
— Les Turcs ?
— Non, Monsieur. Aussi les Arabes.
— Ah ! aussi les Arabes… Aussi est merveilleux ! Qu’est c’est les
Arabes ?
— Un peuple d’Afrique…
— Voyez-vous ça ! Et alors l’Afrique, où est l’Afrique ? C’t en Asie
l’Afrique ?
— Oh ! non, Monsieur… mais l’Afrique… va jusqu’à l’Asie.
— Et l’Arabie, c’t en Asie ?
— Oui, Monsieur, mais…
— Si c’t en Asie, y a pas de mais…
— Je veux dire… il y a… quand même des Arabes en Algérie.
— Et des Algériens ?
— Aussi.
— Aussi quoi ?
— Enfin… quand on a fait la conquête de l’Algérie…
— Oh, pas de conquêtes, hein, ni de victoires ! Ne nous perdons
pas dans des matricules ou numéros de régiment ! Vous demande
des choses simples… Êtes pas capable répondre… Vais pas passer
à des sujets compliqués. Où ça se trouve-t-il, l’Algérie ?
— Au sud de la France.
— Ah ? Et Marseille ?
— Euh… Marseille est en bas de la France…
— Alors le sud, c’est plus bas que le bas ?
— Monsieur, c’est-à-dire…
— C’t-à-dire ! C’t-à-dire ! Jamais rien vu d’ pareil à vous, sinon
vos semblables ! Suffit, allez ! Asseyez-vous et taisez-vous !
Mon jeune ami regagna sa place. Il était écarlate. Son père lui dit
avec anxiété :
— Eh bien ? Eh bien ?
Il répondit :
— Eh bien, ça y est : je suis fichu !
— Non ?
— Si.
— Mais quelles questions t’a-t-il posées ?
— La Turquie… et Marseille.
— Quoi ?
— Je n’ai rien compris.
— Oh ! C’est ridicule, fit le père. Tu es comme ta mère : aucun
sang-froid !
Sur ces mots, je me souviens que M. Gazier l’appela.
M. Gazier, vieille connaissance ! Je ne pus retenir un « Ah ! » qui
me valut un « Chut ! » du garçon de salle. Alors, je me frottai les
mains en silence.
M. Gazier, dont je n’ai dit qu’un mot, était le contraire de M.
Seignobos. Un simple, sans trace d’ironie, qui croyait à l’Université,
aux examens, et surtout à M. Gazier. Il avait une noble laideur, où se
marquait sa foi. Il regarda ce nouveau candidat avec une sorte
d’appétit. Puis, tout de suite, fiévreusement, il lui tendit un La
Fontaine, et il dit :
— Expliquez-moi la fable : Le Chameau et les Bâtons flottants.
— Oui, Monsieur, répondit docilement notre ami.
— Je vous écoute.
— Le premier qui vit un chameau

S’enfuit à cet objet nouveau.
— Arrêtez ! Qu’est-ce que c’est qu’un chameau ?
— Un cha…? Ah ! Monsieur, un chameau… est… un animal…
avec une bosse…
— Une bosse ? cria M. Gazier. Jamais de la vie ! Deux bosses !
Toujours deux bosses !… Continuez !
— Le second approcha ; le troisième osa faire

Un licou pour le dromadaire.
— Arrêtez ! Qu’est-ce que c’est qu’un dromadaire ?

— Monsieur… euh… un dromadaire… est une sorte de
chameau… avec aussi des bosses…
— Des bosses ? rugit M. Gazier. Jamais de la vie ! Une bosse,
une seule, le dromadaire ! Mais alors, pourquoi La Fontaine traite-t-il
les deux mots comme des synonymes, s’il n’y a pas le même
nombre de bosses ?…
— Monsieur… parce que…
— Parce que ?… Parce qu’il avait besoin d’une rime, parbleu !
— Ah ! oui…
— Or, « chameau » rimait mal avec « faire ».
— Bien sûr…
— On peut d’ailleurs l’excuser en remarquant ?… en remarquant
quoi ?
— En remarquant que…
— Que le chameau habite l’Asie, mais que le dromadaire est,
somme toute…
— Euh…
— Un chameau d’Afrique !
— Oui, Monsieur.
— Vous dites « Oui », mais vous n’en saviez rien ! (Un temps.) De
plus… ces animaux sobres et doux, sont de la plus grande utilité.
— Oui, Monsieur.
— Pour les longs voyages au désert.
— Dans le Sahara.
— Dans le Sahara ou ailleurs !… Ils portent de lourds fardeaux.
— Très lourds.
— Et ils peuvent rester longtemps sans boire. Voilà. (Un temps.)
Rendez-moi votre livre… sans l’abîmer… et passons à l’histoire
littéraire.
— Oui, Monsieur.
— Qu’est-ce que vous savez de Jean-Jacques Rousseau ?
— De Jean-Ja… Oh ! Monsieur… euh… Jean-Jacques Rousseau
est un des écrivains du XVIIIe siècle des plus réputés. Il a écrit : La
Nouvelle Héloïse, Le Contrat Social…
— Je vous en prie, procédons par ordre ! De qui était-il le fils,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau ?
— De… d’un horloger.
— Ah ?… Eh bien, est-ce qu’il était bon horloger, le père de Jean-
Jacques Rousseau ?
— Oh !… oui, Monsieur.
— Pas du tout ! (Haussement d’épaules.) Je vous pose cette
question élémentaire pour voir justement si vous êtes capable d’un
effort minime d’intelligence. Le père de Rousseau ne pouvait pas
être un bon horloger : il lisait trop de romans.
— Ah ! oui, Monsieur.
— Il passait toute sa nuit à lire des romans ! Puis, au petit jour,
quand il entendait les hirondelles, il disait à son fils… Savez-vous ce
qu’il disait à son fils !
— Il disait…
— Il disait à son fils : « Allons nous coucher ; je suis plus enfant
que toi ! »
— Oui, oui, Monsieur.
— En fait de « oui », vous n’avez pas ouvert votre histoire
littéraire.
— Oh ! si, Monsieur !
— Si ? Prenons un autre écrivain. Qu’est-ce que vous savez de
Beaumarchais ?
— Monsieur, Beaumarchais est un des auteurs comiques du dix-
huitième siècle les plus réputés… euh… On a de lui : « Le Barbier
de Séville », « Le Mariage… »
— Oh ! Oh ! Je vous en prie ! Commençons par le
commencement. Qui est son père à Beaumarchais ?
— Son père ?
— Oui, père. P-è-r-e.
— Monsieur, c’était…
— Quoi ?… Allons, sortez-en ! C’était un hor…? un horlo…?
— Un horloger !
— Mais bien sûr ! Et alors lui, Beaumarchais fils, est-ce qu’il
faisait aussi de l’horlogerie ?
— Oh ! non, Monsieur !
— Comment non ! A vingt ans, il avait déjà inventé un nouvel
échappement pour les montres ! A vingt ans !
— Ah ! oui, Monsieur.
— Vous vous rappelez ?
— Oui, oui.
— Alors, qu’est-ce qu’il a fait de son échappement ?
— Mais… rien, Monsieur.
— Rien ? Par exemple ! Un horloger célèbre, du nom de
Lepautre, essaya de lui voler son invention, et il eut recours à
l’Académie des Sciences, qui le défendit. C’est très important !
(Haussement d’épaules.) Très ! (Un temps — deux temps — trois
temps.) Allons, je vous remercie.
Le pauvre revint vers nous en trébuchant. Puis M. Gazier
plongea le nez sur sa feuille, et soudain on l’entendit qui, à mi-voix,
additionnait : « Dix-huit et trois, vingt, et je retiens un » ; puis il fit la
preuve… recommença… n’en sortit pas… Désespéré, il appela le
professeur de mathématiques. Celui-ci corrigea l’opération… C’était
fini. M. Gazier appela :
— Candidat X…!
Mon ami se leva, nerveux.
— Mon enfant, prononça M. Gazier de son creux le plus solennel,
nous ne sommes pas contents de vous. (L’enfant pâlit : il était
refusé !) Lorsqu’on a trente-cinq sur quarante à l’écrit, on mérite la
mention « très bien ». Or, vous n’avez même pas la mention
« bien » ; vous avez seulement la mention « assez bien ». (L’enfant
rougit : il était reçu !) Vous n’avez, hélas ! justifié qu’une partie des
espérances de la Faculté.
Mon jeune ami éclata de rire ; il courut embrasser son père qui
riait aussi ; et nous sortîmes en chantant.
Après cette scène, nouvel entr’acte. Dix ans d’entr’acte. La

guerre. La paix. Et voici que tout à coup, en faisant mon inventaire
moral, je retrouve intacts mes sentiments de gaîté à l’égard de la
Sorbonne.
C’est que, malgré quatre années de massacres, nous gardons
saine et sauve l’éternelle blague sociale, où tant de marionnettes
officielles sont entretenues avec dévotion. Si mon fils, à vingt ans, se
sent assez fort pour, toute sa vie, rire des humains, quel choix lui
conseillerai-je entre tant de façons de devenir un charlatan ?
Aujourd’hui, j’incline pour la carrière de cuistre : une des plus sûres ;
elle inspire à trop de cœurs une fièvre de respect. Quelle grande
chose de coiffer le chapeau de pédant et, du haut d’une chaire, de
raisonner de l’esprit des autres ! Poètes, entendez-vous, du fond de
l’éternité, en quelle prose ces Messieurs ont le génie de vous
traduire ? Et vous tous, grands Français, qui fûtes l’honneur des
siècles, vos ossements, dans les tombes, ne sont-ils pas émus,
quand ces maîtres, éternuant de la poussière de leurs fiches, croient
vous ressusciter par la trouvaille d’une date, que votre cœur, avant
de mourir, ne savait plus !
Le pédant est toujours et partout à l’honneur. A l’étranger, il dit :
« Je suis la pensée de la France ! » Et c’est vrai qu’il la porte : il
marche comme un baudet, chargé des plus beaux livres. Chez nous,
il se fait de la gloire par des études et des travaux que personne ne
contrôle. Bref, quand je me suis mis, dans les journaux, à rire des
Sorbonards, que de pompiers pour s’écrier : « Au feu ! » Et ils
tentèrent de me brûler vif.
Pourtant, j’étais rentré dans la Sorbonne, poussé par cet instinct
candide qui me mène vers tous les monuments publics. Je ne
prévoyais même pas tout le bonheur que j’y eus, qui est un bonheur
sain. On rit là d’un bon rire, sans arrière-pensée. Le pion enseignant
a l’avantage unique, qu’on n’éprouve aucune gêne à se moquer de
lui. Car si les autres corps constitués prêtent à la satire, du moins
devient-elle vite douloureuse. On peut se divertir d’un général faible
d’esprit ou d’un évêque possédé, mais l’armée et la religion ont une
grandeur qui suscite la haine et la guerre civile. Adieu la farce, voici
la tragédie. — Tous les bavards qui s’exhibent au nom de la
politique, semblent d’un comique sûr. Le Parlement, cependant,
représente le dégoût le plus certain des esprits réfléchis et patriotes,
et leur rire est amer. — Enfin, Justice et Médecine méritent, dans
tous les siècles, d’être mises à la scène pour divertir les honnêtes
gens. Hélas, la prison, la ruine ou la mort change vite la comédie en
un drame pathétique. Seule l’Université, dans cette série des grands
soutiens de la Société, se présente avec une face de carnaval, sous
un déguisement irrésistible. Ne résistons pas. D’ailleurs, à votre
premier pas dans la Sorbonne, dès la cour, regardez les statues de
Pasteur et de Victor Hugo. On dirait deux crétins ! C’est une
gageure, une farce ! De même dans les amphithéâtres, vous verrez,
sans payer, la farce de l’enseignement.
Là, j’entends bien que de bons esprits vont me dresser
l’épouvantail de l’étranger.
« Chut ! diront-ils, l’Europe nous regarde. Quel tort vous faites à
la France ! Nos amis, nos alliés, des peuples qui nous admirent, ont
de la Sorbonne une idée si haute et si pure ! Ils prononcent les noms
d’Aulard ou de Seignobos avec la même piété qu’ils parleraient d’un
vieux Bourgogne. Si l’objet de leur dévotion est une duperie, il faut
leur mentir quand même : c’est notre devoir. On cache son père
quand il est ivre. »
Je ne suis pas insensible à l’objection, surtout qu’elle est d’ordre
financier autant que sentimental. Il est vrai que la plupart des nations
qui nous chérissent, ont, à leur amour, deux raisons essentielles :
nos vins et nos professeurs. Ce peut donc être un danger pour notre
réclame nationale de dénoncer la misère sorbonarde. Mais il y a plus
précieux que l’idée qu’on donne de soi : c’est la conscience profonde
que l’on en a. Si nous avons, par delà les frontières, de vrais amis,
ayons le courage d’une confession devant eux ; éclairons leur
innocence ou leur tendresse. Les étudiants étrangers qui conservent
un souvenir grisant de leurs études à Paris, confondent dans la
même émotion la Ville, ses beautés, les jours charmants qu’ils y
vécurent, et les pédagogues qui manquèrent les faire crever d’ennui.
Ces gens-là ont trop de chance ! Notre devoir c’est, sur place, de
garder du sang-froid et, louant sans réserve Notre-Dame et le
Louvre, de dire :
— Mais l’enseignement de la Sorbonne est au-dessous de tout…
La Sorbonne nous dupe. Elle nous vole un respect auquel elle
n’a pas droit. Je me méfie toujours des institutions « respectables ».
Hypocrisie facile, entretenue par les simples ou les ignorants. En
dehors d’une vingtaine de vivants, d’une trentaine de morts, de
quelques paysages de mon pays, du soleil que je vénère, de la nuit
que je redoute, — en dehors d’une douzaine d’idées et de
sentiments qui me sont une raison de vivre, la question du respect
pour moi ne se pose pas. Le respect est un chantage, avec quoi l’on
combat ma liberté de penser, disons plus modestement ma liberté
de pleurer ou de rire. Or, celle-ci n’est pas moins importante que
celle-là.

Applied Epistemology Jennifer Lackey Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Applied Epistemology Jennifer Lackey Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Applied Epistemology Jennifer Lackey

Visit to download the full and correct content document:

The Epistemology of Groups Jennifer Lackey

Data Science Applied to Sustainability Analysis

Curriculum, Schooling and Applied Research: Challenges

Non-Ideal Epistemology Robin Mckenna

Socially Extended Epistemology J. Adam Carter

Scientific Epistemology: An Introduction Hilary

Swarm Jennifer Lyle

The Epistemology of Fake News Sven Bernecker

2. When Freeing Your Mind Isn’t Enough: Framework Approaches

5. A Tale of Two Doctrines: Moral Encroachment and Doxastic

6. Predatory Grooming and Epistemic Infringement 119

7. Epistemic Degradation and Testimonial Injustice 151

9. Te ‘White’ Problem: American Sociology and Epistemic Injustice 193

11. Rape Culture and Epistemology 253

13. Epistemic Responsibility in Sexual Coercion and Self-­Defense Law 305

16. Te Internet and Epistemic Agency 389

Rima Basu, Claremont McKenna College

Bianca Crewe, University of British Columbia

Emmalon Davis, University of Michigan

Kristie Dotson, Michigan State University

Mylan Engel Jr., Northern Illinois University

Karen Frost-­Arnold, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Alexander A. Guerrero, Rutgers University

Hanna Gunn, University of California, Merced

Tempest Henning, Vanderbilt University

Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, University of British Columbia

Veronica Ivy, College of Charleston

Quill R. Kukla, Georgetown University

Jennifer Lackey, Northwestern University

Lauren Leydon-­Hardy, Amherst College

Hallie Liberto, University of Maryland, College Park

Michael Patrick Lynch, University of Connecticut

Aidan McGlynn, University of Edinburgh

José Medina, Northwestern University

Charles W. Mills, City University of New York

C. Ti Nguyen, University of Utah

Geof Pynn, Elgin Community College

Ezgi Sertler, Butler University

Applied epistemology brings the tools of contemporary epistemology to bear on

justifying animal experimentation is the benefts argument, according to which

coercion. Leydon-­Hardy focuses on the phenomenon of predatory grooming to

1 See, for instance, Fricker (2007). 2 See Dotson (2011).

social structures and institutions constitute the material base of dominant-­group

prejudice or other unjust assessment regarding social ­identity-­coded content—

where ideological attitudes are characteristically insensitive to evidence. McGlynn

mainstream pornography to watch feminist pornography rather than mainstream

sexual ofenses. Liberto then presents an alternative suggestion by Hubin and

ines two diferent dimensions of consent. In Part 1 of the chapter, Guerrero

the accessibility of information itself can lead to increased epistemic arrogance

gamifes communication and, in so doing, changes the nature of the activity. A

context sensitive. If testimony in one context is imported to another without

3 Goldberg (2013, 2015).

Dotson, Kristie (2011). “Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing.”

But enlightenment does not result in real freedom, or even a mental

We have a broad question which we are attempting to pose and respond to in

sense, a framework shif around a given issue constitutes a change in social

2. A Framework Approach to Social Transformation

Before we ofer an example of a framework approach to social transformation and

to social transformation, i.e. changes in social arrangements as simply framework

First-­level frameworks represent those frameworks that emerge from what

arrangement, or happening. Tat is to say, a social circumstance is directly related

6. Predatory Grooming and Epistemic Infringement 119

7. Epistemic Degradation and Testimonial Injustice 151

9. Te ‘White’ Problem: American Sociology and Epistemic Injustice 193

11. Rape Culture and Epistemology 253

13. Epistemic Responsibility in Sexual Coercion and Self-Defense Law 305

16. Te Internet and Epistemic Agency 389

Karen Frost-Arnold, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Lauren Leydon-Hardy, Amherst College

coercion. Leydon-Hardy focuses on the phenomenon of predatory grooming to

social structures and institutions constitute the material base of dominant-group

prejudice or other unjust assessment regarding social identity-coded content—

First-level frameworks represent those frameworks that emerge from what

We consider an analysis of political imprisonment to be a second-level

political motivations. Tis is because an analysis of political imprisonment usually

two diferent second-level framework analyses which try to establish diferent

Te comprehensive approach is another second-level framework analysis that

ordering designed to sustain hegemonic defnitions of right and wrong as well

c omprehensive approach is still visible in a context where mass incarceration and