Epistemic Advantage and Epistemic Injustice

No dia 15 de abril de 2026, Miriam Ronzoni (Universidade de Manchester) dará uma palestra a convite do projeto CORES. A sessão, intitulada “Epistemic Advantage and Epistemic Injustice: Not Necessarily Incompatible. The Case of Gender Identity”, decorrerá entre as 11h e as 13h (WEST / Hora de Lisboa), na sala SE1 do Colégio Almada Negreiros e online, via Teams.

Para participar na sessão via Teams, por favor contacte Eleonora Volta evolta@fcsh.unl.pt.

A prominent view within feminist epistemology, whether framed in terms of standpoint theory proper or more loosely, is that marginalised groups enjoy distinctive epistemic advantages in virtue of their social positioning. The epistemic injustice literature, instead, emphasises how marginalisation can generate epistemic disadvantage — especially hermeneutical injustice, where agents struggle to make sense of salient experiences due to gaps in collective interpretive resources. Are these two perspectives irreconcilable? How can marginalisation ground both epistemic advantage and disadvantage? After addressing some attempts to address this tension, the paper makes two points to offer a more robust resolution. First, we should not underestimate how the interpretive confusion generated by hermeneutical injustice can be productive, leading to epistemic advantage in a number of cases. Second, epistemic advantage should be understood in methodological rather than ontological terms. The paper concludes by sketching how this could be applied to the debate on gender identity.