Hysteria, Hermeneutical Injustice and Conceptual Engineering

In "Hysteria, Hermeneutical Injustice, and Conceptual Engineering", I look at what Miranda Fricker, in her Epistemic Injustice. Power and the Ethics of Knowing (2007) calls “hermeneutical injustice”, as it arises in the medical context. By drawing on the complex history of hysteria, I argue that the very concept HYSTERIA was used for diagnostic purposes for millennia, before its dismissal with the DSM-III in 1980, due to power structures affected by negative prejudice against women. 

Stereotypical representation of hysteria

I then argue that HYSTERIA fits the central conditions of the concept HERMENEUTICAL INJUSTICE. Yet, reflection on the case of HYSTERIA also signals the need for widening the understanding of the concept HERMENEUTICAL INJUSTICE itself. This is methodologically important for two reasons. First, because instead of considering the medical field merely as an area of application or testing of philosophical ideas, it uses medical data to improve a philosophical notion. Accordingly, I propose that hermeneutical injustice may depend not only on gaps in hermeneutical resources, but also on the presence of faulty ones, such as HYSTERIA. 

Second, once thus improved upon, HERMENEUTICAL INJUSTICE can be used to advocate for other forms of amelioration of concepts, which still embed identity prejudice against certain groups. I claim that it can do so by eschewing the more traditional path taken in current debates on the amelioration of concepts such as WOMAN. These debates risk perpetrating an “essentialist” outlook – let it be grounded in biological “nature” or in socially-acquired “nature” – on what women “really” are (or should be), which is fraught with problems.

By bringing the concept of HERMENEUTICAL INJUSTICE to bear onto this kind of discussion we can bypass that “essentialist” outlook altogether and be more inclusive and open to further applications of WOMAN, if these applications can help people, such as transwomen, to make sense of their experience and if doing so can help remove identity prejudice against them. 

The debate over the concept WOMAN is but one example of the areas in which a reconfigured concept of HERMENEUTICAL INJUSTICE could play a role. In fact, once so reconfigured, HERMENEUTICAL INJUSTICE could also be used to diagnose what is epistemically amiss in the use of those slurs, epithets and pejoratives which likewise embed identity prejudice against certain groups.

In fact, HYSTERIA is a clear example of a harmful concept rooted in identity prejudice against women. Its use undermines women’s ability to understand, express, and reason about their experiences, perpetuating forms of epistemic injustice like testimonial and what I call “rational(ity) injustice”— that is, the injustice of downplaying, diminishing and impeding the development of women’s rational abilities, due to identity prejudice against them. Therefore, I argue that using “hysterical"” and related terms descriptively should be banned.

Still, HYSTERIA could potentially be reclaimed by women, like other harmful concepts rooted in identity prejudice that were initially rejected for their damaging effects but later embraced by marginalized groups to strenghten identity and belonging.

Annalisa Coliva is Professor of Philosophy at University of California Irvine, and Editor in Chief of the Journal for the History of Analytic Philosophy. 

Annalisa's interests are in Epistemology, Philosophy of mind and language, and History of Analytic Philosophy.