Epistemic emancipation: a Kantian reading about epistemic injustice

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to show that some aspects of Kantianism can be reinterpreted in useful ways for the contemporary debate on female emancipation. In particular, certain connections between the Kantian notion of Mündigkeit and the liberation from what Miranda Fricker denominates ‘epistemic injustices’. In the first part of the paper, we develop Miranda Fricker's concept of epistemic injustice and defend that a notion of epistemic resistance can be deduced from its negation. In the second part, we analyze the concept of ‘Kantian adulthood’, which we understand as a form of epistemic resistance similar to Fricker´s. Examining the connections between both notions, we finally propose a definition of epistemic emancipation and finds examples in some movements of contemporary feminism.