Epistemology of Resistance

The Epistemology of Resistance (pages 352)

Author: Jose Medina 

Category: Philosophy 

4/30

Epistemology: Defined narrowly, epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. As the study of knowledge, epistemology is concerned with the following questions: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are its sources? What is its structure, and what are its limits? As the study of justified belief, epistemology aims to answer questions such as: How we are to understand the concept of justification? What makes justified beliefs justified? Is justification internal or external to one's own mind? Understood more broadly, epistemology is about issues having to do with the creation and dissemination of knowledge in particular areas of inquiry (Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). 

José Medina’s The Epistemology of Resistance is an impressive exposition of higher-order epistemological concerns that develops with a hope of attaining epistemic justice and pluralistic epistemic acknowledgement.  Medina holds the privileged accountable for their inaction and action everyday in a given society. In theory, it’s exciting and refreshing as a whole. With that being said, many elements of this work appear problematic, in particular, pragmatically.

Jose Medina is a Professor of Philosophy and he specializes in Gender and Race Theory, Philosophy of Language, and Social Epistemology. I point this out because it is his language, at the very least, that I find to be a problem pragmatically.  Medina seems to be concerned with giving voice to diverse epistemic perspectives, but it is through his language that I think he falls short. This book was assigned to my Epistemology class at the University of California, Santa Cruz. It may be reasonable to assume that in an academic setting my peers and I will be able to understand the message he is trying to convey and be motivated to carry on the torch of epistemic responsibility but I came to find out that was not the case.

Ethical principles and maxims regarding epistemic justice are necessary, especially in an academic setting considering most of us hope to go out into the world and make some sort of change, but they gain traction only when they are intelligible.  If the goal is to enable epistemic justice for oppressed groups, it is necessary that all understand the notions on this subject. The language used in this work places unrealistic burdens on both privileged and oppressed subjects: it leaves an expectation that privileged subjects translate his message of liberation (and essentially become evangelists for his ethos), while oppressed subjects are expected to wade through opaque jargon in order to be “liberated”.  The former concern is especially problematic here, since it creates yet another dynamic where privileged subjects are in the role of telling oppressed subjects how to be, “for their own good”.  

Philosophy and justice through the lens of the feminist perspective had me excited to begin a new philosophical journey. In the end, I was disappointed with what I discussed above. Although, Medina is most certainly not the only scholar that writes this way, a way that can deliberately obscure the conceptual content, Medina is using the language of his field (maybe so that his contributions can be taken seriously). The critique I am putting forth, as did much of the class, is that this is an ironic aspect of critical theory: the language of norms of the field seems to pose a logistical obstacle to its practical goals. Is there a way to do this where you are not excluding a group of individuals (that this book is aimed at helping) and also being taken seriously in the ivory tower?

I will say this, there was something that was briefly discussed in this book that has motivated me to write a propaedeutic on a theory of injustice, this book and the idea that arose within me from it essentially changed my life course after undergrad. Therefore, I am thankful that I did read this book however, I am disappointed in the approach altogether. I give this work 3/5 stars. I came close to giving it 2/5 but I respect the author, his intention, and I am grateful for the inspiration that arose within me as a result of this read. 

I would like to thank Kevin Patanawong and Kris Daehler - it was through immense discussion as a group that the above conclusions were drawn. 

And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None (pages 272)
Author: Agatha Christie
Category: Mystery
3/30

“When the sea goes down, there will come from the mainland boats and men. And they will find ten bodies and an unsolved problem on Indian Island.”

If you have never been much into mystery I would recommend starting off with this book. If you have read mystery and never read this book you ought to give this a shot. And Then There Were None is considered to be a catalyst for much of what we know to be the formula of other novels and films. Without giving away all of the information I will gloss over the logistics of the storyline. Ten unacquainted individuals are lured to Indian Island and the first night of their visit they are accused of past crimes. They are said to be the only individuals on the island, but are taunted by a nursery rhyme called “ten little Indians”. These individuals are desperate to unmask the culprit in their group (since they are unable to prove anybody else is on the island) because as each day goes by one-by-one they start to get killed off. There are a myriad of clues that turn this into one large puzzle to piece over and over the course of my first reading I couldn’t figure it out. I have yet to figure out if Christie, purposely, throughout the story left out key elements that make it almost impossible to figure out or if she’s just that good at logic.

There rarely comes a time where I feel suspense and confusion whilst engaging in a work. Eventually, there is something that makes the entire work predictable and we are all left saying “good try” – but that is not what happens with this work. I couldn’t figure out how the events that were taking place were happening and to me that automatically places the novel at the top of my favorites list. The only moments that I put the book down were to puzzle over the events that were taking place. I was unable to take a strong guess as to who the culprit was – and for those of you who really know me know that drove me crazy. Either way, she managed to creep me out and also stump me with this mystery which is why I highly recommend this to all.

I give this work 5/5 stars.