No video

84. Standpoint Epistemology with Briana Toole

  Рет қаралды 3,755

Overthink Podcast

Overthink Podcast

Күн бұрын

84. Standpoint Epistemology with Briana Toole
What does it mean to be marginalized? Does marginalization give some people more epistemic authority than others? And, if so, what should we all do with this information? In episode 84 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about standpoint theory, its complex intellectual history, and its relationship to W. E. B. DuBois’ concept of double consciousness. They welcome an expert on the subject: Dr. Briana Toole, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College. In their conversation, they chat about how standpoint theory makes sense of electoral politics, educational policy, bizarre reality TV, and much more. They also talk about Corrupt the Youth, a philosophy outreach program founded by Dr. Toole that brings philosophy to high schools in the U.S.
Overthink is a philosophy podcast hosted by your favorite new professors, Ellie Anderson (Pomona College) and David Peña-Guzmán (San Francisco State University). Check out our episodes for deep dives into concepts such as existential anxiety, empathy, and gaslighting.
Listen to the extended cut of this episode on our Patreon! / overthinkpodcast
Works Discussed
Briana Toole, “On Standpoint Epistemology and Epistemic Peerhood” and “Demarginalizing Standpoint Epistemology”
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk
Jennifer Nash, Black Feminism Reimagined
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Elite Capture
David Foster Wallace, This Is Water
Black. White. (2006)
Support Overthink on Patreon here: / overthinkpodcast
Website: overthinkpodcast.com
Facebook: / overthink-podcast-1054...
Apple podcasts: podcasts.apple...
Spotify: open.spotify.c...
Buzzsprout RSS: feeds.buzzspro...
Find us on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok at @overthink_pod

Пікірлер: 30
@majorlycunningham5439
@majorlycunningham5439 Жыл бұрын
Nice to be a first commenter for once lol I’ve been taking a deep dive into epistemology and am developing my own framework for a subset of it dealing with negative knowledge (knowledge of what you don’t know and knowledge of knowing what is impossible to know vs what we just don’t know right now due to a host of limitations) I’ll update my comment after having listened to the podcast!
@illiakailli
@illiakailli Жыл бұрын
A small remark here, this is how racism is defined in wikipedia: Racism is discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity. What puzzles me is the fact how much racial/ethnical prejudice gets into our speech already once we just start talking about those matters. Its as if those topics are preloaded with a bunch of rules, only known to seasoned communicators: ideologists, maybe even propagandists at times, so that for some people even thinking in such terms becomes like walking on eggshells, while others are ready to preach. For some reason we are not gravitating towards colorblindness in these matters, but quite the opposite: we're trying to play a racial/ethnic card in order to sound more prescriptive and controlling. 😮
@chimichanga3405
@chimichanga3405 Жыл бұрын
starting your argument off with a wikipedia definition of racism is so reductive (same for dictionary definitions of racism). these definitions are missing so so much context and analysis - which makes sense because dictionaries and wikipedia are reference resources, not critical or analytical ones. the fact that you're referencing wikipedia (which by the way any academic worth their salt will tell you is a bad idea) tells me you haven't engaged with the reams of sociological scholarship about racism that have been produced by actual black people and people of colour. saidiya hartman, dashaun harrison, bell hooks, angela davis, stuart hall, ruth wilson gilmore are just some contemporary examples of scholars who elaborate on and critique racism (particularly anti-blackness) on the structural level. colourblindness might be well-meaning, but ultimately it's naive: it's naive to ignore how race informs the experiences of nonwhite people, historically and in contemporary times. i'm sure it doesn't feel nice to be told that white people possess privileges that racialised people don't (i'm assuming you're white, apologies if this is incorrect) but it's the truth. and saying something snarky about how white people can't dance or how they don't season their food or whatever, doesn't really compare to the historical violence enacted by white settlers, colonialists, slavers, politicians on racialised people, the results of which are today still observable and pernicious. anyway, please read a bit more widely than just wikipedia!!
@illiakailli
@illiakailli Жыл бұрын
@@chimichanga3405 I don't have to read all propaganda in order to decide whether conversation is ideologically loaded or not. Instead of focusing on real ways people are mind-controlled, dominated and threatened on a daily basis, propagandists often appeal to legendary authorities, vague statements about 'black' or 'white' or whatever culture, appealing to our tribalism instincts and inevitably forcing their targets into polarization and patronizing narratives. There is a 'world culture' that is worth talking about, a fusion of different perspectives, colors and ideas ... but not quite sure if there has to be a 'black culture' or 'white culture' 🤔 Is it really helpful to think about culture in terms of a skin color? Isn't that by itself a racism ?
@Giantcrabz
@Giantcrabz Жыл бұрын
You are not outside ideology
@illiakailli
@illiakailli Жыл бұрын
@@Giantcrabz true, no one is, but does it sound intellectually inspiring when people use racism-related topics instrumentally to take patronizing stance and virtue-signal as an end in itself? That's what speech of politicians and social activists often degenerates into.
@illiakailli
@illiakailli Жыл бұрын
@@noname-vc2ll you didn't provide any arguments of substance. Only appeals to authorities. Have you tried forming your own opinions and defending them from groud-up using logic?
@IRCwizard71
@IRCwizard71 Жыл бұрын
Another very interesting discussion. But as someone who visited the graves on Normandy beach and has a son in military who was in Afghanistan I intend to still say the Pledge of Allegiance.
@Verulam1626
@Verulam1626 4 ай бұрын
Yeah, their inherent disdain for America is always latent and subtle. The irony of not having patriotism is that they have made their lack of allegiance their duty. Still a very good talk, despite how wild their ideologies can be sometimes.
@BillyMcBride
@BillyMcBride Жыл бұрын
My guess is that high school students respond well to taking philosophy classes in school. Way to go!
@BillyMcBride
@BillyMcBride Жыл бұрын
And, whew! We all of us have to be aware of so much. I am surprised that some people are not reacting more to our need to be aware of others' complexities. They might accuse people trying to get us aware of things as oppressive itself, but the mind is an amazing invention and our intellects can handle even "overthinking" the experiences through which we and others live.
@BillyMcBride
@BillyMcBride Жыл бұрын
Accusation is not conversation nor inclusive, even if it seems deserved at times, in my limited opinion. And, to develop this further, I now wonder if whatever is not accusation is conversation, and whatever is not conversation, is accusation. I need to overthink about this. 😊
@artlessons1
@artlessons1 Жыл бұрын
Interesting! Upon my thoughts reflected from time to time throughout the dialogues of the participants of Hegel and Dewey's concept of thinking and education. Hegel the worker knows more and Dewey knowledge through subjective experience ! Thanks
@artlessons1
@artlessons1 Жыл бұрын
Adding
@artlessons1
@artlessons1 Жыл бұрын
My sister due to Frederick's Ataxia was in a wheelchair for the last two thirty years of her life. She often would say one is not aware of what the world is like from the perspective of a wheelchair ( she also did live and see the world for thirty years prior ) She has seen both sides and it angered her. She was president of the ataxia support group saying the stories are horrifying as to the other in charge are ignorant of the situation 😢
@DinoRamzi
@DinoRamzi 6 ай бұрын
I am now more convinced than ever that standpoint epistemology is an anti-truth. Some people still believe that an objective truth exists, although none of us have complete access to it. Otherwise there is nothing upon which to anchor oneself.
@Verulam1626
@Verulam1626 4 ай бұрын
Exactly! It is anti-Socratic. Saying there is no Truth is not the same thing as saying there is Truth that we cannot totally access. Also, truth as subjective is not the same thing as saying some truths must be taken axiomatically because they cannot be proven. For example, we must first presume intelligibility is possible in order to demonstrate that it is. But the argument is circular and it is why it must be taken as given. Standpoint epistemology, if taken to its extreme as originally understood, goes entirely against Socrates and Plato-Aristotle
@MrJoxxxi
@MrJoxxxi Жыл бұрын
Wonder "Corrupting the youth" has teachings on capitalism and imperialism?
@s.j.holbrook
@s.j.holbrook Жыл бұрын
It's really unfortunate that philosophy departments are hiring professors with these views, and frustrating that anyone at all takes these positions seriously. It's obvious that standpoint epistemology is either fairly trivial, or else really insane. In it's trivial version, it's basically just the observation that individual people have different experiences of the world. In it's strong version, it's making the claim that only certain people - based on their race, sex, or gender identity - should be listened to at all. Toole here is trying to couch the strong claim in language that makes it sound more reasonable. Both Toole and the interviewers are careful for most of the interview not to veer too far into the claim that only "oppressed people" should be listened to, but by (35:40) one of the interviewers just comes out and says it. "At what point is it reasonable... to ask someone in a position of privilege to take a step back and defer authority to somebody in a different social position?" They partly answer their own question: "we should [take seriously]" the position that "some people have more knowledge just by virtue of their marginalization." Toole claims to not endorse this view, and to her credit, she recognizes that there is a problem with standpoint epistemology: the difficulty of giving a procedure for figuring out which "oppressed person" we should defer to. "Oppressed people," Toole acknowledges, are not a monolith, and different individual people will have different views. Her solution? We should simply defer to "experts" in oppression, meaning her, and the people who share her political commitments (38:14). It isn't difficult to see why this belief system inspires such a visceral reaction from people outside the academy and non-profit system. No matter how carefully it is worded, most people currently do not, and should not, accept the idea that only people of a certain race, sex, or gender identity, have the "expertise" to speak.
@doemonka
@doemonka Жыл бұрын
You make it sound like they’re advocating for marginalized people with “expertise” to be the only ones allowed to speak… on anything. This is a straw-man version of what they’re saying. Expertise is limited to one’s area of experience and education - they made this clear. It shouldn’t be hard to acknowledge that someone who’s experienced marginalization - and has done the hard work to understand the systemic roots of their experience - should be listened to on the topic of their own community’s marginalization.
@falsificationism
@falsificationism Жыл бұрын
Love the content. Consistently [and unjustifiably] triggered by how they introduce themselves as "Doctor" every time. It just seems pretentious and unbearable - obvious cultural signaling. "Lower class people unwanted...you wouldn't get it." So much so that I tune them out before tuning back in. Ironic that the whole point is to make philosophy more accessible.
@robertkippes2333
@robertkippes2333 Жыл бұрын
How are we going to move beyond capitalism? There has been almost no discussion of class which is the dominant framework of our existence.
@robertkippes2333
@robertkippes2333 Жыл бұрын
Standpoint theory needs to get back to systemic analysis and class politics. Without that it is politically ineffectual and often detrimental
@BreezeTalk
@BreezeTalk Жыл бұрын
Epistemology as theory of belief 🤠😽😺
@robertkippes2333
@robertkippes2333 Жыл бұрын
Why would it be relevant to consider the standpoint of a CEO beyond the role they perform in maximizing profit via exploitation of the workingclass?
@robertalenrichter
@robertalenrichter Жыл бұрын
American politicians, pollsters, journalists have the society segmented into demographic groups, most prominent amongst them, ethnicities. By way of comparison, though there is a large Turkish community in Germany, nobody ever, I mean ever, talks about them as a voting "market" to be targetted, wooed. There are many Germans of Vietnamese extraction, but this form of identity is completely irrelevant in terms of electoral politics. Even in Canada, a parallel society to the US, race-based politics is not a factor. I don't think that Americans are even remotely aware of how obsessed their culture is with race. Yet, it's the Europeans who get decried as "racist".
@Giantcrabz
@Giantcrabz Жыл бұрын
What if... Racism occurs in both places? Crazy right? You know how famously tolerant Europeans are of nonwhite migrants, Jews, etc. /s...
@jasonrose6288
@jasonrose6288 Жыл бұрын
I think these sorts of ideas lead to increased tribalism within society. Of course, everyone has a unique perspective on life and the universe. That's the whole basis of dialogue - listening to and learning from each other. This type of idea, however, seems to suggest that the boundaries between us can never be effectively bridged, and that as a result the socially and economically disadvantaged will remain forever marginalised and misunderstood. The clear implication? A Marxist project to tear down traditional social and economic strata as part of some utopian vision of an all-equal society. No thanks.
103. Laziness
58:43
Overthink Podcast
Рет қаралды 4,3 М.
Briana Toole - Demarginalizing Standpoint Epistemology
27:19
Victor Gijsbers
Рет қаралды 1,3 М.
ОБЯЗАТЕЛЬНО СОВЕРШАЙТЕ ДОБРО!❤❤❤
00:45
Survive 100 Days In Nuclear Bunker, Win $500,000
32:21
MrBeast
Рет қаралды 165 МЛН
My Cheetos🍕PIZZA #cooking #shorts
00:43
BANKII
Рет қаралды 28 МЛН
106. Fun
58:21
Overthink Podcast
Рет қаралды 2,7 М.
Sandra Harding: On Standpoint Theory's History and Controversial Reception
18:36
Briana Toole - DISI 2020 - How does knowledge get normalized? Whose knowledge gets normalized?
24:13
Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute
Рет қаралды 302
104. Reading
59:26
Overthink Podcast
Рет қаралды 4,3 М.
Michael Rectenwald interviews Stephen Hicks
1:03:52
CEE Video Channel
Рет қаралды 10 М.
The Philosophy of "Woke" - Standpoint Epistemology
11:38
Joel Wentz
Рет қаралды 2,9 М.
The Surgery That Proved There Is No Free Will
29:43
Joe Scott
Рет қаралды 242 М.
105. Civil Disobedience with Noëlle McAfee
53:41
Overthink Podcast
Рет қаралды 2,2 М.
ATT#144 Standpoint Epistemology: Defined & Applied  ||  3/18/23
1:35:07
All The Things Show
Рет қаралды 1 М.
ОБЯЗАТЕЛЬНО СОВЕРШАЙТЕ ДОБРО!❤❤❤
00:45