Understanding oneself through others: Epistemic Injustice in Healthcare X Distributed Cognition

Research within distributed cognition and affectivity emphasises the essential role of other people in realising various cognitive and affective states. Similarly, work on epistemic injustice in healthcare has drawn attention to the influence of other people on our practices of cultivating, sharing, and communicating knowledge about our bodies.

In this workshop, we pursue interesting possibilities for future research at the intersection of these research areas. Some researchers have begun to look at the “dark side” of distributed cognition, scaffolding, and other distributed cognitive and affective practices to develop more socio-politically situated analyses. Following this turn, we seek to investigate how we use other people to understand our own experiences of ill-health, and how such dynamics may relate to instances of epistemic justice or injustice. We invite abstract proposals on topics such as, but not limited to, the following:

·         The role of other people for self-understanding in the context of health and illness

·         The distributed nature of health and illness narratives

·         Phenomenology of connection and felt-understanding

·         Contributions and undermining of sense of agency

We invite prospective participants to interpret these categories broadly so that we can explore interesting new angles for research. For instance, we also welcome submissions regarding other anomalous experiences which are not necessarily pathological (such as grief). Moreover, we are interested in concepts adjacent to epistemic injustice (such as affective injustice and gaslighting).

We are pleased to confirm that Katherine Puddifoot (Durham) and Allan Køster (Danish national grief centre) will be speaking at this event.

Instructions: Please send an abstract of 400 words, prepared for blind review, to [email protected]. The deadline for submitting abstracts is 21st July. We hope to send responses to accepted participants by 29th July.

We are particularly keen to encourage applications from philosophers with backgrounds which are under-represented in academic philosophy. If you believe that you are from an under-represented background, you are welcome to include this information in your email. We are committed to ensuring our conference is accessible to all, and will be endorsing the Good Practice Scheme of the British Philosophical Association and the Society for Women in Philosophy. If you would like to discuss any accessibility requirements please email us at [email protected].

Furthermore, we will be inviting speakers to submit their papers to this special issue in Philosophical Psychology on the theme of the workshop, ‘Understanding oneself through others’. You can see more details here, and we hope to add details of confirmed invited authors in due time: https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/understanding-oneself-through-others/

This event is organised by Dr Kathleen Murphy-Hollies and Dr Eleanor Byrne, and we will also be guest editors of the associated special issue. If you have any questions about anything, please get in touch at [email protected]