"This book examines the intersection of systemic oppression and philosophical methodology. Focusing on philosophical theories of mind and language, it makes the case that they tend to be systematically inaccurate because they abstract away from systemic oppression when they model society, but the phenomena they aim to describe, explain, and predict are in fact systematically influenced by oppression. In short: philosophers of mind/language have tended to think that oppression is either non-existent or non-systemic, and this ...
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"This book examines the intersection of systemic oppression and philosophical methodology. Focusing on philosophical theories of mind and language, it makes the case that they tend to be systematically inaccurate because they abstract away from systemic oppression when they model society, but the phenomena they aim to describe, explain, and predict are in fact systematically influenced by oppression. In short: philosophers of mind/language have tended to think that oppression is either non-existent or non-systemic, and this has rendered their theories systematically inaccurate. Moreover, it's plausible that philosophers have tended to be ignorant of systemic oppression as a consequence of how oppression has influenced educational systems, legal systems, dominant ideology, and our language. In order to develop empirically adequate theories of mind and language, then, philosophers need to learn about and take into account systemic oppression and its effects. In addition to arguing for this general methodological point, the book illustrates it and shows the way forward. The author illustrates the point by showing that two influential versions of Content Externalism are systematically inaccurate because they fail to recognize how oppression influences their explananda and explanantia. Engelhardt then introduces modifications that correct the systematic inaccuracies, thus demonstrating how to remedy our inaccurate theories and the methodology that led to them. In conclusion, the author considers how the book's arguments, conclusions, and modified theories bear on philosophical discussions of epistemic injustice and conceptual engineering"--
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