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PHILOSOPHERS NEWSContemporary philosophers · ideas · books
Philosopher
Philosopher of democracy and equality — University of Michigan
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor · United States · d. 5 December 1959
The leading figure of 'relational equality', which defines equality less as a distribution of resources than as the removal of relations of domination. She is a critic of private government in the workplace.
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Her 2007 book gave the world 'epistemic injustice', a phrase now used by health regulators and courts. The deeper achievement was to show that knowing has a moral structure. As her Dewey Lectures open at Columbia on 30 September, Fricker is working on blame, apology and forgiveness instead.
Elizabeth Anderson, Miranda Fricker
Twice this autumn Cornel West shares a stage with the conservative Catholic jurist Robert P. George. The double act is charming and much praised. It is also worth interrogating: what does it show about West's philosophy of truth, and what does it quietly assume about who gets to argue well?
Cornel West, Elizabeth Anderson, Alasdair MacIntyre
The founding text of Western political philosophy argues that most people cannot be trusted to govern themselves. The ship of state, the guardians' curriculum, the quarrel with the sophists and the noble lie belong to one argument — and the modern replies to it, from Karl Popper to David Estlund, are less conclusive than they look.
Elizabeth Anderson, Plato
For twenty-five years Elizabeth Anderson has been filed under 'equality'. Read her books in order and a different subject appears: who is in a position to give orders, and on what terms. It is a question that algorithmic management has made unavoidable.
Axel Honneth, Philippe Van Parijs, Elizabeth Anderson
The Michigan philosopher used her Pufendorf Lectures, delivered on 11-13 May 2026, to argue that the language of market freedom erodes political freedom.
Elizabeth Anderson
