The Dynamics of Epistemic Injustice: Situating Epistemic Power and Agency

Every day in the context of work, school, family, or social interactions, we are constantly using, producing, and transmitting information and knowledge: answering a question, proposing an idea, writing a paper, using concepts and representations to interpret our personal experience or describe social interactions. 

To put it in philosophical terms, we are exercising our epistemic agency: that is, we are doing various things (‘agency’) with knowledge (‘epistemic’), such as using it, producing it, transmitting it. We exercise our epistemic agency successfully when we are adequately believed and understood as a result: that is, when we receive appropriate levels of credibility and intelligibility. However, individual and societal biases – related to our social identity, for instance – can interfere with the exercise of our epistemic agency. 

For example, someone may not believe me or fail to recognize my competence and abilities because I am a woman (i.e., I might receive diminished levels of credibility because of my interlocutors’ conscious or subconscious gender biases); or it might be difficult for me to convey my experience of disability because mainstream interpretive tools, such as concepts and social representations of disability, are inadequate to capture this marginalized experience, which as a result might remain largely misunderstood or misrepresented (i.e., I might receive diminished levels of intelligibility because of societal biases regarding disability in the mainstream pool of interpretive resources). 

Some individuals are given less credibility due to some feature of their identity (e.g. their gender) and this impacts their epistemic agency.

When individual or societal biases give rise to these sorts of credibility and intelligibility deficits, the person thereby faces epistemic injustice. Epistemic injustice is problematic because it undermines individuals’ exercise of their epistemic agency, or their capacity to use, produce, or transmit knowledge, which is central to our everyday lives, interactions, and exchanges.

The foregoing is a very brief and therefore very general glimpse of the large literature on epistemic injustice that has developed since the publication of Miranda Fricker’s 2007 book, which introduced the term ‘epistemic injustice’. My new book, titled The Dynamics of Epistemic Injustice: Situating Epistemic Power and Agency, makes three main contributions to this important literature on epistemic injustice and agency.

As the above suggests, the literature has so far focused on propositional knowledge and verbal modes of expression: oral or written contributions, the (lack of) production, use, or understanding of certain concepts, and so on. Philosophers, however, also recognize other kinds of knowledge besides propositional knowledge (or knowing that), namely non-propositional or experiential knowledge, including practical knowledge (or knowing how) and tacit, embodied, or affective knowledge (or knowing what it’s like). 

The cover of Amandine Catala's
The Dynamics of Epistemic Injustice:
Situating Epistemic Power and Agency.

Yet very little has been said about the non-propositional dimensions of our epistemic agency, or about non-propositional forms of epistemic injustice. This is the first contribution of my book: it provides a pluralist account of knowledge, epistemic agency, and epistemic injustice that takes into account not only their propositional but also their non-propositional aspects.

The second contribution of the book is that it provides a systematic account of epistemic agency and epistemic power. The literature often asserts that epistemic injustice is problematic because it undermines epistemic agency, and that epistemic injustice involves differential allocations of epistemic power. But the literature says almost nothing about what exactly epistemic agency and epistemic power are. Yet many fascinating and crucial questions arise if we want to grasp these two notions more precisely. 

The book offers a systematic account of epistemic agency that specifies its objects, expressive modes, contributing factors, and different stages, as well as a systematic account of epistemic power that identifies three types of epistemic power along with their various sites and mechanisms at both the individual and the structural levels.

Finally, the third contribution of the book is that it starts from case studies that bring up new forms of epistemic injustice. These case studies include deliberative impasses in divided societies, colonial memory, academic migration, the underrepresentation of members of non-dominant groups in certain fields, the marginalization of minoritized minds like intellectually disabled people, and the underdiagnosing of autistic women. 

Examples of the new forms of epistemic injustice that these case studies reveal include meta-epistemic injustice, testimonial domination, hermeneutical domination, meta-epistemic filtering, linguistic epistemic injustice, and existential hermeneutical injustice, among others.

Together, these three contributions yield a more complete and precise picture of epistemic injustice, power, and agency, thereby equipping us to more effectively and thoroughly address problematic yet transformable dynamics of epistemic injustice.

Amandine Catala is a Full Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), where she holds the Canada Research Chair on Epistemic Injustice and Agency. She is a Senior Research Associate at the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science at the University of Johannesburg. Her research interests include epistemic injustice and agency, epistemic repair, neurodiversity, linguistic justice, and decolonization. Her book, The Dynamics of Epistemic Injustice: Situating Epistemic Power and Agency, was published by Oxford University Press in 2025.

Epistemic Injustice in the Mental Healthcare of Indigenous Peoples

Today's post is by Md Omar Faruk.

Symbol of healing

Philosopher Miranda Fricker coined the term epistemic injustice to refer to the harm experienced by people when their ability and capacity as knowers of knowledge is disregarded or devalued in a unfair fashion (Fricker, 2007). Essentially, we are referring to individuals who have been harmed in the process of co-creating and sharing knowledge, and whose capacity to reason and contribute as knowers has been dismissed or denied. 

People experience this injustice in two ways: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. Testimonial injustice takes place when the testimony of a person or group of people is deemed less credible. Simply put, the collective accounts of people are being denied on the pretext of not having substantial credibility or reliability. On the other hand, the absence of social understanding that helps conceptualize the experiences of a person or a group of people is at the heart of hermeneutical injustice. When we do not have sufficient conceptual resources be it understanding of the concepts or language to uncover the experiences, this paves the way for hermeneutical injustice. 

Both form of injustices has adverse impact on people’s self-esteem, social positioning, and ability to engage in creating knowledge. People representing minoritized and less advantaged groups are more vulnerable to these injustices leading to both physical and mental health consequences. By taking Bangladesh as an example, in this blog post, I shed light on how these injustices are contributing to the poor mental health status of Indigenous peoples and I present a framework to address them with a view to improving their mental health outcomes (Faruk, 2025).

Indigenous peoples in Bangladesh, particularly those living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, experience distinctive challenges related to mental health due to historical, systemic, and cultural factors. These communities experience higher risks of mental health problems stemming from the legacy of colonialism, marginalization, language loss, cultural infiltration, land grabbing, and lack of access to adequate healthcare services including mental healthcare. Despite nationwide initiatives aimed at improving mental health awareness and reducing stigma, there has been little targeted effort to address the specific mental healthcare needs of Indigenous peoples in Bangladesh. 

Bangladesh

Their mental health experiences include anxiety, depression, and widespread stigma centering mental illness, all of which witnessed a significant increase during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, Indigenous peoples’ perspectives and experiences are often excluded from mainstream mental health policies and services, contributing to epistemic injustices that further marginalize these groups. To address these injustices community-led, culturally sensitive interventions, increased engagement of Indigenous communities in policymaking, and the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge systems are crucial to improve mental health outcomes and achieve epistemic justice for these communities. 

Kaptai Lake

The key components of the framework are listed below:

• Community Engagement and Participatory Approaches: The current mental healthcare system in Bangladesh does not integrate community voices and encourage participation of Indigenous peoples which may contribute to the non-compliance on the traditional mental healthcare service systems. Therefore, engaging Indigenous communities primarily through consultations, focus groups, and participatory research to include their voices in the design and implementation of mental healthcare services is extremely important. This not only promotes mutual learning but ensures that services are tailored to their unique cultural context.

• Partnering with Indigenous-Led Organizations: To facilitate self-determined practices and promote Indigenous epistemologies in the development of mental healthcare programs, collaborating with organizations led by Indigenous peoples is crucial. This ensures the integration of cultural nuances that shape the distinct conceptualization of mental health and illness and paves the way for utilizing Indigenous healing practices.

• Utilizing Indigenous Healing Practices: Recognizing and incorporating traditional healing methods alongside mainstream mental healthcare interventions ensures cultural relevance potentially leading to acceptance. Growing evidence suggests that integrating Indigenous healing practices within clinical practices promotes culturally safe environments (Beaulieu & Reeves, 2022).

• Decolonial and Culturally Responsive Approaches: Mental healthcare programs aimed at respecting and valuing Indigenous epistemologies, promoting self-determination, and facilitating the use of Indigenous languages and practices may promote the deconstruction of colonial practices putting more emphasis on culturally responsive approaches.

• Training Mental Health Professionals: It is imperative that mental health professionals have adequate cultural competence and sensitivity to better understand and respect Indigenous beliefs, practices, and worldviews in an effort to to deliver more tailored and respectful care.

• Incorporating Indigenous Knowledge into Policy and Education: Indigenous people’s worldviews embedded into educational curricula, policy frameworks, and advocacy initiatives has the potential for systemic acknowledgment and supporting Indigenous ways of knowing in mental healthcare services.

These strategies intend to recognize Indigenous knowledge as a vital component of mental healthcare, promoting epistemic justice and ensuring that services are culturally sensitive and effective for Indigenous peoples in Bangladesh and beyond.

Md Omar Faruk is a clinical psychologist in Bangladesh is currently pursuing his PhD in School Psychology at the Louisiana State University in the US. 

His research focuses on understanding Indigenous people’s mental health experiences including the development of culturally sensitive mental healthcare interventions. 

Additionally, Faruk focuses on the promotion of positive school climate by strengthening student-teacher relationships contributing to the improved student social, emotional, and academic outcomes as well as increased well-being for teachers.

Epistemic Injustice and Chronic Pain Reports

This post is by Veronica de Souza Campos and Daniel De Luca-Noronha who recently published a paper in the Journal of Applied Philosophy, entitled: Misunderstanding Epistemic Injustice: The Case of Chronic Pain Reports.

Migraine

Our article critiques the prevalent tendency to interpret inadequate medical responses to chronic pain reports primarily through the frameworks of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. While these approaches—drawn largely from Miranda Fricker’s influential work—illuminate important aspects of the problem, they overlook a crucial dimension: what we term inquisitive inertia. 

Inquisitive inertia refers to the failure of healthcare professionals to actively investigate patients’ reports of chronic pain, defaulting instead to prescribing analgesics and dismissing the case. As we argue, this constitutes a form of distributive epistemic injustice, in which patients are denied access to a vital epistemic good: the right to a thorough and sustained inquiry into their condition.

Our article opens with first-person accounts of chronic pain sufferers who report years of misdiagnosis, dismissal, or inadequate treatment. Many scholars interpret such cases as instances of testimonial injustice (where a speaker is discredited due to prejudice) or hermeneutical injustice (where gaps in collective interpretive resources render certain experiences unintelligible). While these forms of injustice are undoubtedly present, the authors contend that they are insufficient to fully explain the epistemic harms experienced by chronic pain patients.

Testimonial injustice certainly plays a role, particularly for women and racial minorities, who are disproportionately undertreated due to implicit bias. However, chronic pain poses distinctive epistemic challenges that go beyond identity-based credibility deficits. Chronic pain often lacks clear aetiology, resists objective measurement, and disrupts narrative coherence. This makes it difficult to describe, even for patients who are believed, because the phenomenon itself strains linguistic expression. As such, even an attentive and impartial listener may fail to grasp the full significance of the patient’s testimony.

Back pain

Hermeneutical injustice also falls short in some respects. Although the development of richer conceptual resources for pain is important, this alone does not resolve the expressive limitations inherent in chronic pain experience. The highly individual and often ineffable nature of chronic pain resists neat categorization, and the dominant biomedical framework, which assumes a direct correlation between tissue damage and reported pain, fails to accommodate cases where no such correlation exists.

We introduce inquisitive inertia as a distinct and under-recognized form of epistemic injustice in healthcare. This occurs when healthcare providers, despite medical indications, refrain from pursuing further inquiry into the patient’s condition. Instead of investigating, they prescribe and dismiss. Such inertia is reinforced by systemic pressures: fragmented care, short consultation windows, and bureaucratic constraints that discourage deeper engagement.

Addressing epistemic injustice in chronic pain requires more than correcting biases or expanding conceptual resources. It demands structural reform that enables and obliges healthcare professionals to take chronic pain reports seriously and to investigate them with the epistemic diligence they deserve.

Veronica Campos is an assistant professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil) and research fellow at the Jesuit School of Philosophy and Theology (Brazil). Her main areas of interest are epistemology, philosophy of pain, and philosophy of religion. 

Daniel De Luca-Noronha is an associate professor at the Jesuit School of Philosophy and Theology. His areas of interest include philosophy of pain, philosophy of emotions, and philosophy of religion. 

Unusual Experiences and Beliefs

For Mental Health Awareness Week 2025, project EPIC organised a webinar focusing on the harms caused by negative stereotypes associated with people who have unusual experiences and beliefs. Panelists included Martino Belvederi Murri and Fiona Malpass. The event was supported by The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the Voice Collective.

Poster of the webinar

Martino is Associate Professor at the Institute of Psychiatry and Director of the School of Specialization in Psychiatry, working as a clinical psychiatrist in the Acute Psychiatric Inpatient Unit. His research integrates clinical psychiatry with advanced statistical modelling and computational psychiatry, focusing on late-life depression, early psychosis, and psychosomatics. He has a specific interest in depression phenotyping, demoralization, psychosis outcomes, physical activity interventions, cognitive factors, cannabis use.

First slide of Martino's presentation

Fiona works at Mind in Camden as the Project Development and Innovation Lead, which includes managing the Hearing Voices Projects, working with young people, prisons, forensic settings and immigration removal centres, and the London Hearing Voices network. They have a background in psychology and philosophy of mental health, as well as having personal experience of many forms of distress, including hearing voices. They use this in their work to build connections, as well as to challenge the status quo and provide provocations to ways of thinking and working.

What good support looks like
from Fiona's presentation

Both Martino and Fiona discussed whether the notion of epistemic injustice can be usefully applied to the situation of people who experience non-consensual reality, and reflected on the challenges that practices in healthcare and everyday prejudices in friends, family, teachers, and doctors may present for young people who hear voices.

The problem, according to Martino, emerges because we tend to think that if a person is suffering from a psychotic disorder or is experiencing a psychotic episode, then they are not able to judge any aspect of reality. That's a that is an unnecessary and wrong generalization. We see all the time that even when a person has a persecutory experience, they often are able to judge many, many situations. 

The job of the psychiatrist is not to assign a label of normality to people, but to help them by not increasing their suffering, relieving the harms, and reducing the risks. The most difficult challenge is to support a person in a moment of crisis, which might require depriving them for a certain time of their liberty, without negatively affecting their self-perception and their sense of dignity. Even in an involuntary admission, if possible, the person must be involved in decisions concerning their care. A humane care ultimately means respect and mutual understanding.

Forms of testimonial injustice in psychosis
from Martino's presentation

Martino concluded his presentation by discussing the existence of a paradox: although there is increasing attention to ethical and philosophical issues, there are reduced resources. Whereas healthcare professionals aim to do better, they have fewer resources at their disposal to improve care. 

Fiona talked about kind of work they do at the Voice Collective, which is based at London, Camden, but also about the collaboration with the EPIC project, thinking about agency and epistemic injustice, as it relates to young people who hear voices, or have other unusual perceptions or beliefs.

The Voice Collective works across London and the UK more broadly but has also an international reach. The bulk of the work is to support people under the age of 26, and their families, carers and supporters, with an emphasis on young people who have highly stigmatized and potentially overwhelming and distressing experiences. These experiences can be hearing voices, seeing things, tasting things, smelling things, having felt presences, having multiple senses of self, forms of dissociation, paranoia, the list goes on. 

The Voice Collective is established to provide more community grassroots care, coming from a non-clinical, non-pathologizing community perspective and adopting a pluralistic approach where many factors may be considered as relevant to people's experiences.

Factors contributing to distressing experiences 
from Fiona's presentation

They establish peer support groups for young people who have these experiences: one online group for 11 to 15 year olds; and a peer support group for an older age group, 16 to 25 year olds. Young people chat to each other, ask each other questions, and just offer solidarity and friendship to each other. Another activity is to set up advisory groups for research projects or steering groups for service development, because a big part of the Voice Collective approach is trying to help young people be heard and be listened to and have input into things to push back against the epistemic injustice that they face. The aim is to create spaces where young people's knowledge is valued.

Young people are often seen as incapable. There's often an emphasis on young people who hear voices being powerless. Their experiences are often framed as a deficit and part of a severe mental health issue. For some people voices can be massively distressing and overwhelming, but there are times where voices are helpful. Some people have very positive experiences of their voices, and neutral ones, too. So it is difficult for young people who have these less stereotyped versions of voices to talk about them for fear of their voices being seen as something inherently wrong, and an issue with them, and with how they experience the world. The healthcare system can be a very oppressive system to be part of where young people often experience a lot of coercion going along with whatever treatment pathway is recommended to them.

If you want to listen to the full presentations by Martino and Fiona, and follow the question and answer session that followed, watch the recording of the webinar below and let us know what you think.

Hermeneutical Disarmament

Hermeneutical Disarmament: How language change can undermine understanding and communication

Words and phrases enable us to understand the world and our experiences. In Epistemic Injustice, Miranda Fricker reports Wendy Sanford’s experience of depression following the birth of her child in the 1960s. Without a word to name her experience, Sanford thought that she was guilty of a “personal deficiency”. Upon learning the term postpartum depression at a workshop, Sanford’s perspective radically changed; she recognised what she was going through as a medical condition.

Changing meanings

However, words and phrases often change their meaning. Gaslighting refers to a kind of abuse in which one person causes another to doubt their own experiences. In Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play Gas Light, Jack persuades his wife Bella that she cannot trust her perception or memory; when he takes a painting down from the wall and dims the gas lights, Jack convinces Bella that she is imagining these changes, giving him control over her. More recently, however, gaslighting is used to refer generally to lying or manipulating.

Taking these observations together reveals a problem. Words and phrases help us to understand and communicate about the world and our experiences of it. But the meaning of these words and phrases can change. When this happens, we might lose the words that we need to understand or communicate about whatever it is we want to understand or communicate about. I call this hermeneutical disarmament.

Hermeneutical disarmament

Hermeneutical disarmament: “the process by which a person is rendered less able to understand or communicate experiences, ideas, and other phenomena as a result of semantic change to the linguistic term (word or phrase) that could previously have been deployed for these purposes.” (Morgan 2025: 1076)

When the words we use change their meaning, this can leave us less able to understand and communicate about the original meaning of these words. It is clearly useful for victims of abusive manipulation (and their support network) to have a widely understood term, gaslighting, for this specific kind of psychological abuse. It helps them to understand what the victim is going through, aid existing victims, and reduce the likelihood of future victimisation. If this term disappears, because gaslighting comes to mean simply lying, then a useful tool is lost.

Words naming medical conditions can be similarly useful tools. Without the term postpartum depression, Sanford might have been unable to access relevant support and continued, mistakenly, to view her condition as a person failing.

In other cases, there is a risk that the misuse of medical terms might lead to changes in their meaning, depriving us of useful terminology. Some speakers use OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) to describe a particular care for cleanliness or organisation (“My flatmate is driving me crazy; she’s so OCD!”), rather than obsessions and compulsive behaviours that would warrant clinical intervention. Someone might say that they are depressed when they are feeling sad, even when they do not suffer from the often-debilitating psychological condition by this name.

When used literally, these terms serve as useful tools for people experiencing the relevant condition and those around them. They enable a person to understand what they are going through (just as postpartum depression assisted Wendy Sanford), explain this to others, and secure relevant accommodations in work and education. 

When these terms are (mis-)used to refer to something other than the medical condition in question, there is the risk that, over time, these alternative meanings might dominate, so that we lose generally understood phrases for the medical conditions. This would deprive people who suffer from these conditions and those around them of a useful tool for understanding and communicating. So, there is a risk that changes to the meaning of medical terms might inflict hermeneutical disarmament on those who experience these conditions.

Photo credit: Dustin Smith, Skywall Photography

Robert Morgan is a Lecturer and Consultant at IDEA: The Ethics Centre, University of Leeds, teaching mostly at the SWJTU-Leeds Joint School in Chengdu and at Centres for Doctoral Training around the UK. Robert’s research primarily focuses on applied sexual ethics, although he also works on topics in epistemology and metaphysics as these bear on how persons relate to each other. He is currently working on what it means for one person to touch another through something such as clothing (with Will Hornett), and on the value of interpersonal sexual activity.

 

Hermeneutical Sabotage

In today's post, Han Edgoose develops a concept of hermeneutical sabotage by engaging with the predicaments of transpeople in the UK.

As Nick Clanchy has said in a previous post on this blog, it is a scary time to be a trans person living in the UK right now. An April 2025 UK Supreme Court ruling, which defined ‘sex’ for the purposes of the Equality Act (the UK’s major piece of equalities legislation) as ‘biological sex’, has been interpreted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the public body in charge of enforcing equalities legislation in the UK, as a trans bathroom ban. 

The EHRC’s interim guidance on the Supreme Court ruling not only bans trans people from using toilets and other single-sex spaces and services such as changing rooms and hospital wards that align with their identity, it also allows for them to be excluded from single-sex spaces that align with their sex assigned at birth. By severely restricting trans people’s ability to access toilets this ruling limits trans people’s ability to exist in public spaces and workplaces. 

It also curtails trans people’s ability to ensure their own health and wellbeing by restricting their access to domestic violence shelters and healthcare, and their ability to participate in sports. Shockingly, the Supreme Court judges claimed that this ruling ‘does not cause disadvantage to trans people’. 

The injustice caused by the Supreme Court ruling is not primarily epistemic. However, epistemic injustice is often a contributory factor to other injustices, and it is in this case. There are multiple ways in which the Supreme Court ruling could be understood to be committing epistemic injustice, but I’m just going to focus on one aspect of the ruling: its re-definition of the term ‘lesbian’, which, I argue, amounts to hermeneutical sabotage. 

Hermeneutical sabotage

In a paper published in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy last year, I argued that a form of epistemic injustice I name ‘hermeneutical sabotage’ is used as a tactic by harmful political movements to help them achieve their exclusionary and oppressive goals. Hermeneutical sabotage occurs (roughly) when the widely available conceptual resources for understanding the identity or experience of a marginalised group are actively worsened. 

This can be done in multiple ways, including by introducing new, prejudiced hermeneutical resources and distorting resistant hermeneutical resources developed by marginalised groups. Another way in which hermeneutical sabotage can occur is when particularly powerful people change the meaning of well-established terms, distorting the available hermeneutical resources. This is the type of hermeneutical sabotage that the Supreme Court Committed in their judgement on the term ‘lesbian’.

Hermeneutical sabotage and the definition of 'lesbian'

The Supreme Court ruling embraces the hermeneutical sabotage of the term ‘lesbian’ by accepting a definition of ‘lesbian’ that excludes all lesbian trans women, as well as lesbian cis women who are attracted to all women including trans women. 

According to the Supreme Court ruling, a lesbian is defined as a ‘female who is sexually attracted towards… other females’, (where ‘female’ is understood to refer to ‘biological sex’). This trans exclusionary view of lesbianism was embraced despite the fact that the vast majority of cisgender lesbians in the UK are supportive of trans people, and inhibits the ability of trans lesbians, as well as trans inclusive cis lesbians, to communicate an important aspect of their identity. 

This is a particularly powerful case of hermeneutical sabotage as the ruling encodes the sabotaged meaning of the term into the law. The Equality Act allows those who share a protected characteristic to organise groups and clubs that only include people who share that characteristic and exclude those who don’t. 

Excluding people on the basis of one of the protected characteristics outlined in the Equality Act is otherwise illegal. By defining lesbian in a trans exclusionary way membership clubs that include people who share the protected characteristic of ‘lesbian’ can now only include or exclude people on the basis of the sabotaged definition provided by the Supreme Court. This means that it appears to no longer be legal for a lesbian organisation in the UK to include trans lesbians or cis lesbians who are attracted to trans women. 

The hermeneutical sabotage of the term ‘lesbian’ is an epistemic injustice which inhibits the ability of trans and trans inclusive lesbians to use the word ‘lesbian’ to communicate their experiences effectively. The Supreme Court ruling not only intensifies this epistemic injustice by legally encoding the sabotaged meaning of the term ‘lesbian’, it also enacts further injustices as a consequence of this epistemic injustice that limit trans and trans inclusive lesbians’ ability to meet in organised groups and clubs, showing the clear connection between epistemic injustice and further non-epistemic injustices. 

Author bio

Han Edgoose is a lecturer at the University of Glasgow, where they also completed their PhD. They are a feminist philosopher whose research is focused on the contemporary 'trans panic' in the UK, and broader patterns of injustice and oppression. Their paper 'Hermeneutical Sabotage' is published in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

A Defence of the Epistemic Nature of Episodic Memory

According to a traditional view, memory capacities are epistemic in nature: they function to afford knowledge of the past. In the case of episodic memory (henceforth “EM”), the relevant knowledge is of particular events in the personal past. 

Recently, however, the philosophy of EM has witnessed a “non-epistemic” turn: critics of the traditional view claim that while EM has epistemic features, it isn’t essentially in the business of affording knowledge of particular events from the personal past (see e.g., a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l,). 

Against episodic memory as epistemic

Our paper considers three empirically motivated arguments against the traditional view: (1) “the argument from construction” appeals to evidence that the contents of EM are constructed rather than stored; (2) “the argument from error” appeals to evidence that EM is highly error-prone; and, finally, (3) “the argument from animals” appeals to evidence that some nonhuman animals can episodically remember. 

Responses

Against (1), we argue that EM’s constructive nature is consistent with its functioning to afford knowledge. Indeed, it’s doing so provides a plausible, straightforward basis for functions ascribed to it by critics in light of its being constructive (e.g., contributing to planning and future action, social cohesion, and/or an enduring sense of self over time). 

Against (2), we argue that studies of memory error (e.g., m, n, o) fail to show that EM lacks an essentially epistemic function. In fact, such studies identify errors as failures to afford non-accidental knowledge of particular events from the personal past. 

Against (3), we question whether ascriptions of EM to nonhuman animals in cognitive ethology (e.g., p, q, r, s) should be accepted at face value. But even if nonhuman animals possess a species of EM, we argue that humans plausibly possess a distinct species of EM. 

Finally, our paper responds to the concern that if EM has an essentially epistemic function, “disjunctivism”—the view that nonveridical memories aren’t really memories at all—follows, where disjunctivism is thought to be inconsistent with empirical practice. We show that disjunctivism (so understood) does not in fact follow from a view that understands EM as an epistemic capacity. 

Avoiding epistemic injustice

We develop our positive account of EM as an epistemic capacity in other work and use it to respond to  “analytic” arguments against the traditional views, i.e., arguments which rest on thought experiments rather than interpretations of empirical findings. 

One of the advantages of our account of EM is that it adopts a “social critical” approach to EM. Where rejecting the essentially epistemic nature of EM risks giving up the explanatory resources required to illuminate certain forms of gaslighting (or so our in-progress essay argues), our view is designed to illuminate ways in which episodic memory is implicated in gaslighting and other forms of epistemic injustice. 

For instance, by recognizing that epistemic capacities have diverse “modes of manifesting,” our view helps diagnose a key error in what we call the “Traumatic Untrustworthiness Argument” or “TUA.” According to the TUA, experiencing trauma negatively impacts the formation, consolidation, and recall of episodic memories of a traumatic event to such an extent that it is best not to trust testimony based on such memories. 

Among the TUA’s various weaknesses, we argue, is that it hastily infers the absence of a victim’s capacity to reliably episodically remember her trauma. This inference isn’t licensed, for, as we argue, a better hypothesis is that traumatic experience simply modifies a victim’s mode of manifesting her capacity to episodically remember her trauma.

Professor Alison Springle is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami (FL). She works on topics in the metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of science of memory, perception, and action. She’s currently working on a monograph which develops a novel account of mental representation.

Dr. Seth Goldwasser is a lecturer at the University of Miami. Seth’s research focuses primarily on skillful mental action with an emphasis on skillful remembering and imagining. He has also written on the ascription of normal-proper functions in cancer biology and on the epistemic status of traumatic memories.

Episodicity, Mental Illness and Epistemic Injustice

In today's post, Dr Sally Latham summarises for us a chapter in her recently defended PhD thesis on narratives of the self, mental illness and epistemic injustice:

Self-narratives, especially in illness, have become a social expectation. However the assumption that being narrative is the normal, psychologically healthy human condition, and regarding non-narrative experience as somehow deficient, risks epistemic injustice.

I identify several forms of philosophical narrativism, the position that self-narratives are necessary for some individual good. One of these positions is metaphysical narrativism, the view that having self-narratives is necessary for an individual to have personal identity (for example see Antony Rudd and Marya Schechtman). I argue that metaphysical narrativism underpins the psychological position that not being narrative is symptomatic of mental illness.

Episodic Experience 

Galen Strawson first introduced the concept of episodicity, when rejecting what he calls Psychological Narrativity, which is the empirical claim ‘that human beings typically see or live or experience their lives as a narrative or story of some sort, or at least as a collection of stories’.

Strawson makes a distinction between an episodic and diachronic sense of self. A diachronic self-experience is an experience of oneself as ‘something that has relatively long-term diachronic continuity, something that persists over a long stretch of time, perhaps for life’. An episodic, in contrast ‘has little or no sense that the self that one is was there in the (further) past and will be there in the (further) future, although one is perfectly well aware that one has long-term continuity considered as a whole human being.’ Strawson counts himself amongst episodics, and claims others include Bob Dylan, Iris Murdoch and AJ Ayer. Importantly, as episodics lack an extended sense of self, they will not be narrative, meaning they will not experience events narratively, or understand them as part of an extended life-story.

The existence of non-pathological episodics with personal identity, as Strawson claims he has, undermines metaphysical narrativism.

Counterargument to Strawson: Episodicity as Pathological 

In response, Mackenzie and Poltera (2010) argue that a truly episodic experience is always harmful, and precludes personal identity. They refer to the biography of Elyn Saks, The Centre Cannot Hold, in which she documents her struggles with a lack of identity and with alienation when suffering with schizophrenia. Her experience is one of randomness and disorder, rather than temporality and unity, and lacks a concept of ‘me’.

MacKenzie and Poltera claim that ‘this theme resonates with narrative approaches to identity’ and that Strawson’s own experience is not genuinely episodic. Rather, ‘the case of Saks shows what genuinely episodic self-experience is like and why it is identity-undermining’.

Episodicity and Epistemic Injustice

This dismissal of accounts of non-pathological episodicity can be understood as either testimonial or hermeneutical injustice. Testimonial injustice occurs when prejudice causes a hearer to give a deflated level of credibility to a speaker’s word, with prejudice in the economy of credibility (Fricker 2007). It is assumed that the episodic experience of self precludes personal identity, and must be pathological. Therefore the testimony of an episodic claiming personal identity and no mental distress is dismissed as being wrong about either their episodicity or their personal identity and mental wellbeing.

The irony is that narrative movement in healthcare aims to give the ill a voice. Yet here a testimony is dismissed as inauthentic because it has been predefined as impossible. The episodic faces a catch-22: if you are really an episodic, this is pathological and you do not have personal identity, but if you are mentally well and have personal identity you are not really an episodic. Either Mackenzie and Poltera are claiming that Strawson is fundamentally mistaken about his own experience, or they are redefining episodicity as identity-undermining, which begs the question.

This situation could also reveal hermeneutical injustice, which occurs at a prior stage, when a gap in collective resources puts someone at an unfair disadvantage when it comes to making sense of their social experiences. Narrativism is so dominant that we have failed to develop the resources for understanding non-narrative, episodic accounts of experience and identity as coherent and non-pathological. Many episodics are operating without Strawson’s hermeneutical toolbox for understanding episodic experience. In narratively dominant environments their experiences are not comprehended, leaving them misunderstood by others and even themselves.

Unless we recognise different experiences of the self (or lack thereof) as the starting point for approaching mental wellbeing, we risk seeing episodicity as illness instead of thinking about what episodic wellbeing and illness might look like, and this could have far-reaching and damaging implications.

Sally Latham is a Visiting Academic at the Open University and Research Assistant at the University of Birmingham. She recently defended her thesis in which she argues against the dominant narrative approach to mental illness, arguing that in many cases a non-narrative, Buddhist-inspired approach is preferable.

Stigma, Diagnosis, and Identity

This post is by Aneela Khan.

Unusual experiences

In a recent paper co-authored with Lisa Bortolotti, Andrew Fox, and Matthew Broome, forthcoming in Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, I explore how the stigma associated with a diagnosis of psychosis can result in epistemic injustice, wrongs done to someone specifically in their capacity as a knower. Drawing on findings from the Epistemic Injustice and Psychosis (EIP) study, I highlight how both testimonial and hermeneutical forms of epistemic injustice arise in clinical encounters and in people’s wider social worlds.

The study involved interviews with people diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (clinical participants) and people who had unusual experiences without receiving a diagnosis (non-clinical participants). While both groups encountered stigma, it was only the clinical participants who experienced a significant loss of credibility and identity transformation as a result of being diagnosed. For many, the label of psychosis, often associated with stereotypes of dangerousness and incompetence, became a lens through which others interpreted their thoughts and behaviours, often overriding their own self-understandings.

Person having a religious experience

An example comes from two clinical participants, Anna and Zara. Both had experiences they initially interpreted through spiritual or religious frameworks. Anna felt guided by God, while Zara understood her voices as a punishment for her sins. In both cases, these meanings were overlooked or pathologised during their engagement with mental health services. Although both eventually found aspects of the medical model helpful, especially in accessing support, they also described feeling “funnelled” into a diagnostic identity that clashed with their personal beliefs and values.

I use the concept of epistemic injustice to make sense of these experiences. Testimonial injustice occurs when someone’s credibility is unfairly deflated, something that happens frequently to people with a diagnosis of psychosis. Hermeneutical injustice arises when individuals lack the social resources to make sense of what is happening to them, or when their interpretations are dismissed. This was particularly evident in how spiritual or cultural frameworks were marginalised in clinical settings.

Communication

Importantly, I found that non-clinical participants, those with unusual experiences but no diagnosis, were often able to make sense of what they were going through using personal, cultural or religious resources, and did not report the same harms to their credibility or sense of self. This comparison suggests that epistemic injustice is not caused by the experiences themselves, but by how they are framed and responded to by others.

I make several recommendations for clinical practice, including: 

• creating open epistemic spaces where patients can express alternative interpretations of their experiences, 
• supporting meaning-making; and 
• improving communication around diagnosis. 

By exploring the interplay between stigma, identity, relationships, and knowledge, we can contribute to  structural changes to reduce stigma and promote epistemic justice, not only in clinical settings, but also within families, communities, and wider society. 

The Importance of Kindness – and some great tunes

Today's post comes from EPIC's Jude Williams and it shares the experiences of members of the Choir with No Name on finding a community where they could be heard and understood.

The Choir With No Name Birmingham, Summer Spectacular 2025
St Martin’s in the Bullring, Birmingham, 19th June 2025

I’ve had the privilege of being part of the Choir with No Name Birmingham as a volunteer since 2017. And despite a couple of long absences due to health problems, I’m always welcomed back with open arms. And that’s the thing about this choir. It’s a weekly welcoming hug, for people affected by homelessness and marginalisation. Everyone is held and supported by the love and efficiency of Choir Manager Sally, the musical genius of Choir Director Pete, and a group of volunteers who cook a hot dinner for 50 and provide a friendly face and a listening ear for those who need it. 

Our members are all ages and from all walks of life, and together we raise the roof of St Martin’s Church in the Bullring, in joyous 4-part harmony. Our gigs range from homeless shelters to tv award ceremonies to recording with pop stars. If HS2 ever does get built, we’ll be the sound of the new Birmingham Curson St station clock. And although it’s the singing that we all adore, the camaraderie and the feeling of belonging, it’s the effect that choir has on individuals, in a safe place where their voices are heard, which is the most profoundly moving aspect. This choir changes lives, with a good dose of belted-out bangers along the way.

Our members have arrived at choir after years of trauma - homelessness, addiction, domestic abuse, to name but a few. Many have had countless experiences of epistemic injustice - they are resigned to not being listened to. And yet at choir, a safe non-judgmental space, members come back week after week, gaining in confidence and voice.

Gabriel, Bass brings the house down with his ‘Earth Song’ solo All Together Now

Jenny, our youngest member, joined choir nearly 2 years ago, at age 18. Living with autism and anxiety, Jenny had to leave home quickly, 2 days after her 18th birthday, moving into a flat which she sat in, alone, for 6 months. 

“When I came the first time I was really anxious but I got to like it and then love it. You can always speak to people so I got really close with Sally and it’s nice that I can sit with her and have a sing. She checks in midweek which I find quite helpful, especially when I’m having a tough week, I know she’s thinking of me. I don’t think people understand how much autism and anxiety can affect someone, especially when something in the past has happened. People might think it stays in the past, but it doesn’t, it’s like a luggage tag that you keep with you, so I find it hard some weeks cos it can just pop up out of the blue.”

It wasn’t long before Jenny was holding a mike on stage and singing solos. She’s in charge of the ‘clicker’ too, moving the screen on in rehearsal as we learn the songs off by heart. “Singing is very important in my daily routine. There’s always music on through my headphones..to try to control the background, to help with my anxiety.”

Jenny struggles with seeing healthcare professionals as she doesn’t believe they always take her needs into account. 

“I used to go to the doctors a lot when I was living with my Dad, because of my mental health, but I feel like, they didn’t really do much. They’d say ‘it’s just the situation that you’re in’, but there was more to it. I used to be referred to family services and stuff and I feel like they didn’t really understand it either, I feel like they were oblivious to it all, they misunderstood the whole situation. They let me down. Even things like a simple blood test, which could be quite easy for you. The minute I walk in that room I’m nervous and I feel like the nurses don’t take into consideration that I’m autistic. I don’t even think they read the notes, they just call you in and expect you to get on with it, and it’s not that simple.”

 

Talvin, Tenor at choir rehearsal, Spring 2025

Talvin, a gentle but vivacious singer-songwriter in his 30s, spoke to me about his experiences. Having coped with homelessness and mental health issues, he found the choir through SIFA Fireside, a Birmingham organisation offering homeless support services. 

“It was everything that I was told it was – welcoming, loving, communal, entertaining, dynamic - right up my street music wise. It helped me to elevate back to a stronger place because there were other people I got to interact with that could understand my brokenness and understand my position. Everybody from the choir has come from the streets, from brokenness, from broken marriages and they just needed time away. When I first came to choir, I saw all the mixture of people and I felt at home. The warmth, the singing, the love and eating together and I look forward to every Thursday. No matter what is going on, I feel like I’m coming to see family.”

Talvin has had good experiences with healthcare professionals, feeling lucky that he’s been aware that there is help out there. 

“For me to navigate my mental health through my traumas, I needed help and therapy has helped me a lot. I’ve had to wait a few years, but I’ve had it. Others I know have had problems with reaching a level of understanding with people who are supposed to be helping them from the mental health sector. Either just been given tablets or just not getting them and listening to them. I must say, I feel I’ve been spoiled that way, I’m getting emotional about that, because I know that’s not everyone’s experience. I love people who want to give back and I wasn’t aware that groups, like the choir existed. Had I known these groups were about, I feel that I’d have had more stability because what I’m seeking, needing, to help soothe my overwhelming mental moments, is based in these places.”

The Sopranos and Altos singing their hearts out

Each week we get to sing and laugh together, and there is an implicit understanding that as individuals, we are exactly who we are, and that’s ok. As Talvin so eloquently puts it: 

“There is such a dynamic of people here, and when we communicate and how we engage, we all somehow take that into consideration. Without even saying it. There is that understanding. It’s so unwritten, no one says anything, everyone just acts accordingly. Every week, it shows you what the world is but it comes with such an acceptance. I’ve seen people who are not necessarily getting up to sing, but they just need to be here, just need to be around something, and this ‘something’ is here. Sally’s love and sternness and keeping things together, but with all love. And Pete’s discipline in keeping the structure of our music is like a very silent hug. All of you, everyone is just amazing.”

It's humbling and a real privilege to be part of the Choir With No Name. We are a family and we hold each other up, quite literally as we hug and clap each other on the back in the middle of performances. It’s a simple idea – to sing and eat together – but it’s those simple acts, with kindness and acceptance that make such a profound difference to people’s lives. As Jenny says: 

“You might not understand autism but the thing is, you’re all very friendly and I know I can approach you, I can talk to you. Kindness is important. It’s not about being able to read the person inside out, it’s about being very understanding and kind. You don’t expect everyone to understand but everyone can be kind, kindness is a choice.”

And Talvin’s mental health has hugely improved since attending choir. 

“That consistency of coming week after week has really helped me. I know I have a place on a Thursday and it’s guaranteed, I can come. I can join in with the meal at moments when I can’t do that with my own family or any close people, and I’m yearning for it. There’s so much that pulls me back here and gives me that consistency.”

Our 2024 Member’s Survey showed that 96% of members surveyed felt that being part of the choir helped to improve their mental health. 97% had reduced their stress and /or anxiety and 100% felt a greater sense of belonging, confidence, positivity and purpose. And that is shown in bucketloads at a Choir With No Name gig – it’s a joy to behold. Come and check us out. And if you can’t make it to Birmingham, there are 6 other Choirs With No Name across the UK delivering equally brilliant results.

Jude Williams is an Alto, cooks a mean dahl for 50 and is Project Administrator for Project EPIC at the Institute of Mental Health, University of Birmingham.