Who Can Speak about Whom: What Difference does Social Identity make to Epistemic Caims about Others in the Social Domain?

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to understand the weight of claims which assert that only certain individuals can speak for others who have a shared social identity. Specifically, these claims will be considered in light of differences between individuals which result in unequal social relations, with particular attention given to claims that strive to understand how it is that we can improve social relations and live well interdependently. In the first part of the thesis, I will defend the notion that it is important to consider a collection of people with shared societal experiences as a social group in order to understand the lives of those individuals. I will then establish how social group membership and identification with that group provides certain possibilities for relating to one another and making epistemic claims about the social domain that are, at the same time, hidden or perhaps not available to others who have not lived the experiences of that group. Finally, I will consider the extent to which others are limited by their social identity. Ultimately, I will suggest that taking seriously the claims, both, that our own knowledge of the world is influenced in important ways by social identity and that lived experience of a social identity results in meaning for some that must be displayed for others, results in the necessity to engage directly and actively with the lived experience of others in order to come to improved understandings of the social domain.