Epistemic advantage on the margin: A network standpoint Epistemology

Abstract

I use network models to simulate social learning situations in which the dominant group ignores or devalues testimony from the marginalized group. I find that the marginalized group ends up with several epistemic advantages due to testimonial ignoration and devaluation. The results provide one possible explanation for a key claim of standpoint epistemology, the inversion thesis, by casting it as a consequence of another key claim of the theory, the unidirectional failure of testimonial reciprocity. Moreover, the results complicate the understanding and application of previously discovered network epistemology effects, notably the Zollman effect (Zollman, 2007, 2010).