HXA articles

Standpoint epistemology is circular

The info sought from a standpoint is the info that is needed to find it. There is no other informational structure. Standpoint epistemology has a purely rhetorical function: it adds nothing but an illusion of confirmation for some pre-decided commitment.

1553 words (8 minutes)


Introduction

Look at examples where it is discussed. They are not about neutral positions assessed on a level field, they are about the oppressed/marginalised confirming their own oppression. Consider the following as a concise description of SE:

“Most standpoint theorists have insisted upon two […] claims: (1) that some contingent features of knowers can give them not only different but better, more objective knowledge than others have, and (2) that social positions of marginalization and structural disadvantage, such as those inhabited by women, African-Americans, or the working class, yield epistemological advantages, giving those who occupy them the potential to see truths that are inaccessible from the point of view of the dominant center.”

– "Objectivity and Perspective in Empirical Knowledge"; Kukla; 2006 / article. (‘Episteme’, Vol 3, Issue 1-2, pp.80-95.)

It is that second part where everything goes wrong. If you select a certain set of people, as soon as you seek info from them about that very same selection, you have strayed into fallacy. Yet that is exactly how SE is used.

SE is not about uniformly distinguishing various parts of a scene. SE is about selecting one of them as having priority, and it is about granting priority to information on the basis of that selection. And that creates a circularity. It requires an inequality of standing to determine whom to select, but the info sought from that standpoint is about that very same inequality of standing. In one direction: whatever information those people have, its interpretation has already been circumscribed by the reasons they in particular were chosen. And in the other direction: the info sought from the standpoint is the info that was needed to find it.

Interrogation

Think about the info you seek in using SE. Are you asking whether those people like tea, or what their surface texture preferences are? No, those seem irrelevant – you ask about their oppression. But what does ‘about’ mean there? What if in their info they say that their oppression involves them frequently preferring tea to coffee? This still seems irrelevant. On the other hand, if they describe their oppression as having this suffering or that constraint, you would accept that this is the kind of info you were seeking. It is a relevant and appropriate answer because suffering and constraint are things we think oppression is made of. But those kinds of things that tell you someone is oppressed must have also been what you used to decide who was oppressed, and hence who to ask, in the first place.

It could be that SE might elicit new and different such elements of oppression, not the exact same ones used to find who was oppressed. But then they might also be possessed by others, the non-oppressed whom you did not ask, in the scene. And so they cannot imply any relative positional evaluation – if everyone is oppressed in that way, it cancels out for an argument ascertaining who is and who is not.

In using SE, one asks the oppressed about features that show their oppression; that is the way it divides up the scene, and the informational purpose it has. There is nothing else in the conception of SE in general. And this self-confirmational form is the problem. SE's structure means it can contain only one piece of info, but that is replicated in two places: creating a circularity of dependence.

Imagine if the rule was: to find who is oppressed, ask the green people. One immediately wonders why, how can it can make sense – why green people? But that gap in reasoning is exactly what would allow it to be a useful rule. If correct, it captures some pattern out in the world (the empirical link between green and oppression) that was not obvious, not foreclosed by the question itself, and can be disproven. But compare that with: to find who is oppressed, ask the oppressed people. It is completely the opposite, and dismayingly: it immediately, intuitively, seems correct because its suggestion is obviously appropriate. But that, in mirror image to the first example, is exactly why it is tautological and vacuous.

Or ask: is SE ever disconfirming? Could you ever ask the oppressed people, integrate all their info, and then realise that it clearly shows they are not oppressed? But now what? If they are not oppressed, you should not have asked them and given weight to what they say. But then you should not think they are not oppressed, and so maybe you should follow their info, but didn't that show …

Distilled to its essentials, SE proposes this: to solve some moral question of who is right, you ask the person in the right, and they will confirm to you that they are right. Or otherwise, when you ask the person in the right, they will give you no info on who is right. The role that SE plays in a moral argument is either circular or redundant.

Diagnosis

If I claim to be oppressed, it requires you to already understand what the word ‘oppression’ means, otherwise the claim is empty and functionless. That requirement that you already understand oppression means that I cannot at the same time be setting the meaning of oppression.

And I cannot wriggle somewhat out by saying I have some slight advantage, that we mostly agree but I have some refinement of knowledge (ie a better standpoint). That still has the same faulty structure. You can in reply agree with most of my claim, and reject that small difference, since that is not oppression as far as you understand the term.

There are two parts of a claim of oppression (or perhaps any fact). First, the data of particular living conditions, and second, the concept, the criteria, of what counts as being oppressed. Ie, the data for an individual case, and the abstraction by which that data is understood. The first is specific to that locality, the second is generally known and agreed. The first by its very nature of locality affords privileged access to some, and the second by its requirement of being shared does not and cannot.

The core logic of SE is a minimal inferential argument: (1) we agree on what oppression is, ie the criteria of what counts as oppression; (2) then I say my data fits that criteria; (3) and therefore I am oppressed. Without that initial basic agreement the argument fails. To say that I can set the meaning, either wholly or in some detail, of oppression, because I am oppressed ‒ that is a return to circularity.

SE poses as a means of getting information, but it acts as a means to beg the question it pretends to answer, and it does so by confusing those above two components. It makes it seem like the person with best access to the data is also the authority on the criteria, the meaning, of the data, and so the meaning of the claim as a whole.

SE chooses a concept like oppression that is generally roughly understood, and that is accepted as bad (and so packs in some moral weight). Otherwise whatever it wants to claim would not be understood and would have no force. And it couples that with the trivial and easily accepted idea that the person on the spot has special access to those conditions. But then the specific authority of that spills over into the general claim. “I am on the spot so I have special access to data, and anyone can see this data matches the criteria of this moral status.” subtly conflates into: “I am on the spot, so I have special ability to say I have this moral status.”.

SE seems like a form of ‘troll's truism’ by indirect redefinition, and underlyingly with the same misfeasant mechanism as ‘ameliorative analysis/inquiry’. First it summons your assent that you understand some known concept and accept that such things should be treated in such a way. Then it asserts that the concept really means something else, it applies to these other things, so you should treat them in the accepted way. It pivots on an equivocation. SE and ‘ameliorative analysis’ work their tricks similarly. There is a double-switcheroo. First, offer something under a known concept or label. Second, switch out the goods behind the label ‒ replace the bottle's contents, but leave the label the same. Third, when the victim finds that they did not get what they expected, switch the ‘meaning’ of the label, by telling them that it really means something else: the thing actually given to them.

Conclusion

One can observe the commonness of how people start with some conclusion, then backfill with pseudo-reasoning and pseudo-evidence as if to demonstrate it. But with SE, philosophy (or at least certain corners of it) has elevated this prejudice to an abstract principle. Standpoint epistemology is made to advance pre-decided moral/political commitments in a neatly self-confirming way, equally appealing as fallacious. This is not to pass judgement on those political positions; probably some are justifiable. But then justify them properly!


Metadata

DC: {
   title: "Standpoint epistemology is circular",
   creator: "Harrison Ainsworth",

   date: "2020-11-08",
   date: "2020-11-01",
   date: "2020-06-15",

   type: "article",
   format: "text/html",

   language: "en-GB",
   subject: "philosophy, morality",
   description: "The info sought from a standpoint is the info that is needed to find it. There is no other informational structure. Standpoint epistemology has a purely rhetorical function: it adds nothing but an illusion of confirmation for some pre-decided commitment. (1553 words)",

   identifier: "urn:uuid:FBEE68A0-1231-46F1-BDF0-80125486472E",
   relation: "http://www.hxa.name/articles/content/Standpoint-epistemology-is-circular_hxa7241_2020.html",

   rights: "Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 License"
}