posted on 2018-10-24, 12:59authored byColin J. Rittberg, Fenner Tanswell, Jean Paul Van Bendegem
We investigate how epistemic injustice can manifest itself in mathematical practices. We do this as both a social epistemological and virtue-theoretic investigation of mathematical practices. We delineate the concept both positively – we show that a certain type of folk theorem can be a source of epistemic injustice in mathematics – and negatively by exploring cases where the obstacles to participation in a mathematical practice do not amount to epistemic injustice. Having explored what epistemic injustice in mathematics can amount to, we use the concept to highlight a potential danger of intellectual enculturation.
Funding
Research for this paper by the first author has been funded by the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO), project G056716N. Research for this paper by the second author was supported by the EPSRC grant for the project ‘The Social Machine of Mathematics’ led by Prof. Ursula Martin [EP/K040251/2].
History
School
Science
Department
Mathematics Education Centre
Published in
Synthese
Volume
197
Pages
3875 - 3904
Citation
RITTBERG, C.J., TANSWELL, F.S. and VAN BENDEGEM, J.P., 2020. Epistemic injustice in mathematics. Synthese, 197, pp.3875-3904.
This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Synthese. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-01981-1