Is Epistemic Justice Possible in a Bivalent System? Another Challenge for Intercultural Encounters

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3636842
AutoresJonathan O Chimakonam (0000-0001-8913-1434, University of South Africa, autor correspondente)
Ano2025
Volume46
Fascículo4
Páginas1-15
Data de publicação2025-07-28
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Intercultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0725-6868 • E-ISSN: 1469-9540
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/07256868.2025.2519235
OpenAlexW4412903842
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas10

In this essay, I argue that epistemic injustice is a form of marginal thinking that traces its root to the bivalent system of thought and that attempts to address it within the same system will fail. I contend that the failure to address the lopsidedness implicated in the bivalent system has consequences for intercultural reasoning, which demands the recognition of others as equal epistemic partners, without which a dominant epistemic bloc will always residualise the rest. This makes lopsided frameworks, such as the bivalent system, a serious challenge for intercultural encounters. I clarify that the bivalent framework is a methodological tool that embeds binary and lopsided opposition in reality to create superior/inferior divide as an acceptable vision of the world. This bivalent framework upends the intercultural agenda through the epistemic hegemony of a dominant group by inferiorising other cultural discourses. It creates all manner of lopsided ideologies, including epistemic injustice in intercultural encounters. Given the attempts to resolve the problem of epistemic injustice that mars intercultural exchanges, I ask: is epistemic justice possible within the same frame of thought that produces epistemic injustice? Using critical and argumentative methods, I will demonstrate that the preceding is impossible without methodological sabotage

Epistemology · Sociology · Chemistry · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology