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doi: 10.5840/socp hiltoday201462313
Resistance and Epistemology:
A Response to Jose Medina's
The E p is te m o lo g y o f R e sista n ce
G a ile P o h l h a u s , J r .
ne of the difficulties in writing about Jose Medina’s new book The Epistemology
o f Resistance is that it wonderfully embodies the polyphonic contextualism and
kaleidoscopic perspectivalism that it recommends. Not only is the book, as Medina
indicates, “methodologically promiscuous” (14), drawing agilely from DuBois to
Wittgenstein to Sor Juana and Foucault, U.S. American pragmatism to transnational
and women of color feminisms, critical race theory to moral psychology, democratic
theory, virtue epistemology, and more, but also the various methods and archives
upon which Medina draws are brought into dialogue with one another in rich and
productive ways. One danger, then, in putting together a set of remarks in response
to the book is that those remarks will inevitably leave out much of what there is to
be found within the book’s pages. Nonetheless, 1hope to provide one way of enter­
ing into responsive dialogue with some of the themes and theses offered therein.
A second difficulty and something that I think important to say at the outset
is that Medina explicitly states in the introduction that his book does not “present
or rely on a theory of epistemic justice,” but rather offers “elucidations of particular
epistemic problems and injustices” (12), so the reader is called upon to engage the
work, I think, in ways that run counter to certain philosophical tendencies.1Medina’s
prioritizing of the particular and nonideal seems to me significant for a number of
reasons. First, given the ubiquity of the epistemic, ethical, and political problems
he treats, I think Medina is right to note that, “We need a theory of injustice more
than a theory of justice” (12, emphasis in the original). But also, it strikes me that
the nature of the work that Medina undertakes in the book precludes the philoso­
pher from forwarding a theory at all, or at least theory as traditionally conceived
within philosophy. For this reason, I think the book ought to be seen as engaging
in an extraordinary2 kind of philosophical work, the sort that does not forward
theories but does more than just critique, and this leads me to a meta-question of
sorts that I will pose now without exploring in further detail until the end of my
remarks. The question is one that I suspect runs through (or lingers around) my
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comments that follow, which is why I pose it now, but I think the contours of the
question will make better sense once I have said more about Medina’s book, which
is why I will wait until the end to explore it further. The question is: in light of
the elucidations contained within The Epistemology o f Resistance how might we
describe the kind of knowing that is practiced by philosophers qua philosophers,
including the philosopher who is the author of The Epistemology o f Resistance,
and how might philosophy be practiced (or fail to be practiced) in ways that are
epistemically responsible? As I said, 1 will return to this question at the end of the
paper; for now let me say more about the book.
The Epistemology o f Resistance calls on philosophers to wrestle with the
ways in which political, ethical, and epistemological questions are intertwined and
have bearing upon one another. Moreover, it is a book that not only contributes
to this work, but also makes important contributions to each of these areas of
philosophy independently. Because one of the avenues through which I arrive at
the questions explored in the book is through feminist, or what might be called
political, epistemology,31 am going to begin there to provide some context for my
understanding of the book.
In her 1993 article, “Taking Subjectivity into Account,” Loraine Code asked
philosophers if knowing other people might not be an area worth investigating at
least as important as knowing propositions. For, she noted then, “other people are
the point of origin of a child’s entry into the material/physical environment both in
providing or inhibiting access to that environment—in making it—and in fostering
entry into the language with which children learn to name.”4 This question was
posed from within a developing community of epistemologists, what Medina might
call a network of thinkers, who have since explored and debated about questions
concerning the various ways in which our relations with other knowers might
matter epistemically as well as the ethical and political dimensions of epistemic
interdependence. Curiously, for the most part the work of this active and engaged
network of thinkers, over three decades worth, has gone largely ignored by a sig­
nificant portion of philosophers and by mainstream epistemologists in particular.
Medina’s book contributes greatly to a growing vocabulary for calling attention to
this phenomenon5 and goes a long way toward ameliorating it. For this reason, his
book provides an indispensable tool for philosophers who wish to take up Linda
Martin Alcoffs challenge in her 2012 presidential address at the Eastern APA for
philosophy and philosophers to ‘know thyself.’ Indeed, one of Alcoffs primary
recommendations for working on this task, to engage with philosophical work by
and that attends to the lived experiences of marginally situated persons is wholly
consonant with one of the central theses forwarded by Medina: that self-knowledge
is inextricably intertwined with knowledge of other people.
One way (but certainly not the only way) in which Code’s initial query might
prove challenging for philosophers is that asking about what it means to know
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Resistance and Epistem ology: A Response to Jose M ed in a's The Epistemology o f Resistance
other people and what role epistemic relations to and with other knowers play in
knowing leaves less room for the philosopher to picture knowers (and by implicit
association, philosophers) as somehow standing completely outside of or separate
from the world. In contrast, playing on the notion of resistance, Medina notes that
knowing is an activity that is facilitated by epistemic friction, internal and external
resistances that move the knower to develop sensitivities to the world and her own
place in it. This metaphor, astutely and helpfully, turns (at least) one traditional
picture of knowing on its head. Under a more traditional picture, we might conceive
knowing as something a subject does to an object that may or may not have bearing
on other subjects, extracting true, reliable information from the world that may
then be passed on to or withheld from other knowers. In contrast, highlighting the
importance of epistemic friction makes the world a more active participant in what it
means to know6by bringing to the fore the ways in which knowing may, at least in
part, be a matter of allowing the world to elicit something from the knower,7namely
a response that evidences the ways in which the knower has developed sensitivities
or attunements to parts of the world. From this perspective, other knowers are not
incidental to knowing but rather embody possible sources of epistemic friction,
ways of being attuned to and with the world that can importantly and significantly
expand one’s ability to attend to the world in which we live together. In this light,
we can see that knowing is something that is in formed by the lives of others8 such
that the question “who knows?” takes on epistemic significance in relation to the
questions “with whom does one know?” and “with whom is one able to know?”
This way of thinking calls our attention to our embodied interactions and material
practices with regard to other knowers as well as the importance of social institu­
tions that facilitate engaging with resistance in ways that expand our sensibilities
so that we might attend equitably to the worlds we inhabit together.
Attending to the nonideal world in which we live, Medina notes, however,
that not all resistances provide helpful epistemic friction or call us to attend to the
world with greater care. Some resistances do quite the opposite, resisting epistemic
resistance in ways that give the illusion (to some at least) of a frictionless world
traversed by a non-substantive subject, who by virtue of being other-worldly bears
no responsibilities to the world that she knows or, perhaps more importantly, to
the worlds that she does not know. Drawing on the work of Charles Mills and
feminist standpoint theory, Medina highlights the ways in which social privilege
may develop vicious habits of mind, including, epistemic arrogance, or the habit of
“ruling without resistance” (31), epistemic laziness, or “a carefully orchestrated lack
of curiosity” (33), and epistemic closed-mindedness that creates not only areas of
neglect (areas to which one has grown insensitive), but also “areas of an intense but
negative cognitive attention, areas of epistemic hiding” (34). All three vices, Medina
argues, can contribute to a kind of active ignorance that operates on at least two
levels, first, on the level of objects, making one insensitive to certain parts of the
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world and second, on a meta-level, making one insensitive to one’s insensitivity.9
In contrast to these vices Medina posits the virtues of epistemic humility, intel­
lectual curiosity or diligence, and open-mindedness. Absence of or insensitivity to
epistemic resistances, Medina argues, promotes active ignorance and the vices that
support it, whereas acknowledgment of and engagement with epistemic resistances
facilitate the virtues and can produce a meta-lucidity that can have a transformative
effect on communities, epistemically and politically.
In addition to a well-developed analysis of ignorance, the first half of The
Epistemology o f Resistance carefully examines Miranda Flicker's work on epis­
temic injustice, or the ways in which a knower may be wronged in her capacity
as a knower, making crucial emendations to Fricker’s work. In particular, Medina
highlights the ways in which epistemic injustices are relational and temporal such
that they “cannot. . . be confined to a single moment of testimonial exchange” (59).
Moreover, he argues that epistemic injustices need to be understood as they pertain
to a plurality of publics and to publics that are internally heterogeneous (90-1).
Both emendations clear up confusions and problems for which Fricker has been
criticized, among them that her framework problematically dichotomizes structural
and agential features of epistemic injustice and that it fails to attend to (and may
even obscure) the ways in which marginalized knowers actively and creatively
resist epistemic injustices.10 Furthermore there is a way in which Medina’s book
bears a striking contrast to Fricker’s work on epistemic injustice that I think worth
exploring, although I hesitated before putting words to this rather obvious point,
namely that the philosophical, testimonial, and imaginative sources from which
Medina draws in order to think about particular epistemic injustices were written
by persons who are socially positioned in places that make them more likely to be
wronged by those injustices Medina analyzes. Said frankly, what difference does
it (or might it) make that the philosophical and imaginative thinkers with whom
Medina explicitly develops his own thinking contain a significant number of women
of color (as well as men of color and white women), whereas this kind of engage­
ment is for the most part missing from Fricker’s work?11 And why did I hesitate
to raise this question, a question that some of my colleagues in other departments
have no trouble seeing as an important one concerning the politics of citation?12
Is there something about the habits of mind developed within the discipline of
philosophy that resists thinking through these questions with care? Might this be
one of our own “areas of epistemic hiding”?
In the second half of the book, Medina develops a number of conceptual
resources for making evident and grappling with some of our responsibilities as
knowers and political agents. In this half of the book he focuses particularly on
politically transformative acts of resistance that require a certain degree of uptake
in order to be the acts that they are, such as Rosa Parks’s refusal to move to the
back of the bus during the U.S. civil rights movement. The conceptual difficulty
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Resistance and Epistemology: A Response to Jose M edina's The Epistemology o f Resistance
in describing these kinds of acts as well as our responsibilities with regard to them
bears a resemblance to some of the difficulties concerning ignorance examined in
the first half of the book. Remedying meta-ignorance, insensitivity to one’s insensi­
tivity, and engaging in transformative political action seem to hinge on questions of
intelligibility and traction in ways that give the illusion of requiring a sort of deus ex
machina in order to get off the ground. In the case of ignorance, it can be difficult
to see, for example, how meta-ignorance can be remedied, precisely because it is
not palpably felt as a problem by the epistemic agents under its spell.13 In the case
of politically transformative action, it can be difficult to conceive how new ways
of making sense of the world and one another could come about, transforming
what was previously unintelligible, in a certain sense impossible to imagine and so
do, into acts that are intelligible and possible. In the face of this apparent need for
something that would stand above or outside of us and our institutions, one may
be tempted to relinquish responsibility for remedying ignorance or for transforming
unjust relations, since, after all, we are not gods, but people. Medina’s elucidations,
however, provide helpful tools for demonstrating that the work of remedying ig­
norances and transforming unjust institutions is not the work of gods, but in fact
the work of people. One picture that can stymie our thinking with regard to action
and responsibility, Medina argues, is a false dichotomy between collective and
individual action. Instead, Medina recommends that we pay attention to chained
actions, acts which are neither collective nor individual. Instead, chained actions are
acts that are engaged over time by a cluster of individuals, which form a traceable
performative chain within which the acts take on significance in relation to one
another, echoing and resonating with meaning (225). Chained action can provide
traction for the intelligibility of what Medina calls epistemic heroes, or emblematic
figures who “come to epitomize the daily struggles of resistance of ordinary people
within a social movement or network” (187). Medina rightly warns that such figures
ought not to be understood as gods, arising ex nihilo, but rather as emblematic
individuals who are made intelligible within the context of, and at the same time
provide a way of making more widely intelligible, the chained actions through
which those figures came to be the emblems that they are. This insight is crucial not
only for attending to our responsibilities for initiating action in response to social
and epistemic injustices, but also for continuing and sustaining action, even after
such emblematic figures and moments arise. If epistemic heroes are to transform
our lives and our thinking, the meanings that they (and the chained actions that
precede them) generate must be inhabited by people who sustain and continue the
life of those meanings through their embodied interactions with one another.14 In
the final chapter of the book, Medina examines the importance of the imagination,
radical solidarity and forms of pluralism that are disruptive and melioristic in de­
veloping selves capable of inhabiting the world with one another in ways that are
responsible and responsive, epistemically, politically, and ethically speaking. The
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sensibilities to be developed th ro u g h “resistant im aginations” in “radical netw orks
of solidarity” are w ith “fellow traveler[s/ ” or “fellow experimenter[s]" w ho regard
their engagem ents as n eith er rigidly p re-determ ined n o r relativistic, b u t rather as
relational, calling us continually to attend to the w orld w ith greater care in light of
a living m ultiplicity of experiences.
R eturning to m y initial query, how m ight we describe philosophical know ing
or philosophical practice in light of these elucidations? O n the one h and, M edina’s
em phasis o n the im portance of interaction an d bringing scrutiny to our beliefs by
w orking th ro u g h resistances seem s very m u ch akin to the philosophical practice
of argum ent. M oreover, his recom m endation that know ers “renew our perplexi­
ties” (21) particularly w ith regard to the ordinary, the obvious, and the everyday
seem s like the k in d of thing philosophy is w ell-suited to do. O n the other hand,
M edina’s attention to the ways in w hich responsible epistem ic agency requires one
to engage w ith diverse publics suggests that som ething is seriously epistemically
awry w ithin the w orld of philosophy— som ething that is n o t sim ply a m atter of
opening the doors and/or encouraging people from underrepresented groups into
the discipline.15 This all leads m e to w o n d er how w e m ight describe the kind (or
kinds) of know ing that is philosophical know ing— n o t in a ‘boundary draw ing’ sort
of w ay (as in w hat counts an d w hat doesn’t) b u t rather: w hat does philosophical
know ing do? O r even ju st, w hat can it do? W h at kinds of epistem ic m ovem ent
are facilitated by philosophy’s social netw orks at this point in time? W hat kinds
of epistem ic m ovem ent are h in d ered or m ade unfeasible by the conceptual spaces
w e inhabit (created an d m aintained th ro u g h o u r epistem ic habits)?16 H ow do we
respond to philosophical w ork that d isrupts the configurations w ith w hich the
discipline is familiar, unsettling habits of m in d an d calling on us to m ove in new
ways, epistem ically, politically, an d ethically speaking? And, m ost im portantly, in
light of w hose lives are w e willing to practice philosophy?17 M edina’s Epistemology
o f Resistance provides philosophers w ith good resources for thinking through these
questions. It rem ains to be seen w hether philosophers will th ink through them.
Miami University
Notes
1. By this I mean: the tendency to look for universal or timeless definitions for things like
knowledge, morality, and/or justice; the tendency to think that without such definitions
one cannot justifiably make epistemic claims, normative claims, and/or claims about justice;
and the tendency to see philosophy as either engaged in doing the former or, given the
“impossibility” of the former, only capable of engaging in critique. Interestingly, both ways
of thinking about philosophy (as providing timeless definitions or skeptical critique) seem
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to imagine the philosopher as somehow separated from, outside of, or above the business
of living.
2. I mean this both in the colloquial sense and in a sort of Cavellian sense—a work that
calls our attention to the ordinary in ways that are productively unsettling, rather than try­
ing to secure in advance what we “must” find there.
3. In her plenary address at Penn State’s “Ethics and Epistemologies of Ignorance” con­
ference (2003), Linda Martin Alcoff suggested that the term “political epistemology” might
be used to describe the growing body of literature from feminist and critical race theorists
concerning the politics of knowledge. I like this formulation since the body of literature
that sustains my thinking on questions concerning the politics of knowing, contains work
that, while certainly not incompatible with feminist philosophy, is not always identifiable
as “feminist philosophy” and/or concerned primarily with questions concerning sex and
gender.
4.
Code 1993, 32-3
5.
See for example Dotson 2011; Hoagland 2003; Pohlhaus 2012; Rooney 2011.
6. There may be important resonances with the work of Karen Barad (1996 and 1999)
here.
7. Erinn Gilson has recently argued that we think of vulnerability—an ability to be
transformed and to transform—as fundamental to what it means to know. On her account,
ignorance is connected to a desire for invulnerability. See Gilson 2011.
8. It strikes me that this shift in thinking about what it means to know may be akin to
that for which Chandra Mohanty calls when she asks readers to “democratize” rather than
“colonize” experiences (2003, 244).
9. Kristie Dotson has also argued that ignorance can operate on more than one level. On
her account there are three levels at which ignorance can be operative, (forthcoming in
Social Epistemology)
10. See Alcoff 2010; Dotson 2012; Langton 2010; Maitra 2010; Mason 2011; Pohlhaus
2012
.
11. Particularly striking is that a significant portion of Fricker’s analysis of testimonial
injustice draws on an example of racism as depicted by a white woman, Harper Lee’s ac­
count of the trial of Tom Robinson in To Kill A Mockingbird. In addition, the philosophical
sources with which Fricker engages are, while not entirely, for the most part white male
philosophers. Medina’s analysis of the relational and temporal aspects of testimonial injustice
helps to get clearer on some of the epistemic aspects of what is at stake here: continually
turning to white and male sources can contribute to a culture in which one is habituated
toward perceiving white authors and male authors as more authoritative than those who
are not white and/or men. See also Alcoff 1991; Dotson 2012; Spivak 1988.
12. Since the time of writing there has been some discussion concerning citation practices
in philosophy in light of data collected by sociologist Kieran Healy demonstrating that
work by women in philosophy is disproportionately under-cited in four high prestige nonspecialized academic philosophy journals. See Healy (2013a and 2013b)
13. This problem bears some resemblance to the problem of remedying ignorance presented
in Plato’s Meno.
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14. For an analysis of the temptation to rely on emblems in ways that render them mean­
ingless see Ortega (2006). In addition, Maria Lugones’s work is especially helpful for calling
attention to the ways in which worlds of sense are sustained through interaction.
15. By this I do not mean to suggest that we ought not continue efforts to encourage
members from underrepresented groups into the discipline, but rather that we consider
the ways in which (some) philosophical practices and habits of mind might keep epistemic
attention focused on the lived worlds of dominantly situated subjects, thereby making its
spaces uninhabitable (or barely habitable) by those who are not dominantly situated.
16. My formulation of these questions draws on some ways of thinking about accessible
space within disability studies and the disability rights movement (Siebers 2008 and Wendell
1996), Loraine Code’s notion of “rhetorical space,” and Sara Ahmed’s work on “orientation”
and “orientating.”
17. In her keynote address at the first Diversity in Philosophy conference, Mariana Ortega
noted the irony inherit in a discipline that claims to love wisdom and yet seems so guarded
against knowledge that begins from places that are not white and/or male.
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