Briana Toole: does who knows change what is known?

The classic question of epistemology runs like this: what does it take for a belief to count as knowledge?

The answers usually look at the belief itself. Is it true, is it justified, was it formed by a reliable process? Who holds it does not enter the reckoning. Knowledge is an achievement independent of the person.

Briana Toole's work tests precisely that assumption.

What is standpoint epistemology?#

Toole, an associate professor of philosophy at Claremont McKenna College, is one of the figures who have carried standpoint epistemology back into contemporary analytic debate.

The theory's core claim is that non-epistemic properties — a person's social position, identity and experience — affect what that person is able to know.

On first hearing, the claim invites two misreadings, and much of Toole's work consists in clearing both away.

The first misreading: relativism. The theory is not saying that everyone has their own truth. It is saying that certain facts are more easily noticed from certain positions. Someone subjected to discrimination may see some things about how discrimination works sooner than others do; that does not make what she sees a truth peculiar to her.

The second misreading: automatic privilege. Nor does the theory say that occupying an oppressed position confers superior knowledge by itself. As Toole stresses, a position affords a possibility; turning that possibility into knowledge is separate work.

Epistemic oppression#

Toole's theory shows its real force on the negative side: epistemic oppression.

The idea is that a social order distributes unequally not only resources but also the opportunities to produce knowledge and to have it recognised as knowledge. Who counts as a witness, whose testimony is taken seriously, which questions are found worth investigating — all of this belongs to that distribution.

Over the past twenty years the framework has become a permanent item on the field's agenda, alongside Miranda Fricker's concept of epistemic injustice. Toole's contribution has been to clarify, conceptually, where standpoint theory sits within that argument.

Philosophy in the classroom#

Toole's second occupation is not academic, but it is not detached from her theory either.

While a doctoral student at UT Austin she founded a philosophy programme called Corrupt the Youth. The name alludes to the charge brought against Socrates of corrupting the young.

The programme works simply. A university philosophy department partners with a state high school; philosophy doctoral students go into that school's classrooms once or twice a week and teach. The classes take place during school hours and as part of the curriculum — not as an extra activity or an optional club.

The target is Title 1 schools in particular: American schools with a concentration of children from low-income families, which receive supplementary federal funding.

By Toole's own account, the aim is not to teach schoolchildren the history of philosophy. It is to open a space in which they can talk about what matters to them and discover what they think.

Two occupations, one thesis#

The link between the theory and the programme is tighter than it looks.

If standpoint epistemology is right, then the composition of the people doing philosophy affects the content of philosophy. Who asks the questions determines which questions get asked. If a discipline draws on a narrow social cross-section, its blind spots will be that section's blind spots.

On this reading, Corrupt the Youth is not charity but a requirement of the theory. Widening who enters philosophy is the way to widen what philosophy is able to see.

The other side of the argument#

Standpoint epistemology is not a position accepted without criticism.

The chief objection is this. Where knowledge is tied to position, criticism across positions becomes difficult. When you set out to test a claim, your test may itself be dismissed as made "from the wrong position". To critics, that is a move which closes debate down.

The defenders' reply is that the theory, properly formulated, requires no such thing. A position does not exempt a claim from being tested; it explains only which evidence is more easily seen from where.

The argument remains one of the liveliest lines in epistemology.