Overcoming Hermeneutical Injustice: Cultural Self-Appropriation and the Epistemic Practices of the Oppressed

Abstract

According to Miranda Fricker, through the generation of cognitive confidence that facilitates the free exchange of individual experiences, mobilized groups are able to generate new symbolic resources that overcome existing gaps in the shared hermeneutical resource. In my essay, I aim at showing that an account of conceptual innovation on the side of mobilized groups must take into consideration deeper transformations of their epistemic practices. Drawing on the work of John Dewey, I develop an account of these transformations as a process of collective learning that involves both the emergence of a self-appropriative cultural life and epistemic innovation. I focus on the notion of experimentalism as a paradigm for these epistemic transformations.