Testimonial sensitivity as a habit of inference from Peirce's philosophy

Abstract

This paper will try to highlight that both the issue of testimonial type injustices pointed out by Fricker (2017), as well as the characterization of the research process and the model of self-controlled action in Peirce's philosophy, hint at a problematic relationship between affective and intellectual factors that become manifest in epistemic practices. In turn, since both authors draw on the Aristotelian tradition of the virtues, they suggest strategies that present certain analogies to circumvent the potential obstacles that would impede the virtuous execution of the epistemic practices that each considers. Although the problem of testimonial injustice raised by Fricker has not been explicitly addressed by Peirce, a parallel can be drawn between the two authors.

From Peirce's proposal, negative identity stereotypes could be conceived as diagrams that condense habits of inference, evaluation and argumentation that need not be entirely conscious, being mostly conditioned by the collateral experience of a group of interpreters. These diagrams are externalized in linguistic exchanges in what Fricker would call ordinary judgments.

Now, those individuals capable of issuing what Fricker calls an extraordinary judgment could be understood as agents who, when faced with an experience that does not meet their expectations, are immersed in an emotional state of doubt, so that they try out new associations that represent alternative courses of action in the face of those circumstances.