Contents

INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................... 2
REASONERS AND DETERMINATION OF WHOM TO TRUST...........................................2
FRICKERS ARGUMENT AND SAUL REASONING............................................................4
CONCLUSIONS............................................................................................................ 6
REFERENCES.............................................................................................................. 7

INTRODUCTION
Epistemology is defined as the study of knowledge and nature and justified belief. For any
individual to know something is true, there must be enough reasons to believe it. This defines
knowledge as justified true knowledge or distinguishes knowledge from belief. The question is
what justified true belief is and how it acts. A proposition to be accepted must be justified true
belief that shows knowledge must have the truth. Similarly, belief says that knowledge is known
to the individual, and that is truth and lastly any knowledge can be accepted and acknowledged
only when it is justifiable to the believer. Behind these factors, one core factor operates i.e.
reasoning or reasoners belief (Bromme, Kienhues, and Stahl, 2008). But the fundamental
question that is raised at times is who should reasoners believe and why? If also reasoners found
the person to trust and believe how this will be justified. Concerning reason and epistemology,
feminist epistemologist like Miranda Fricker has refuted the traditionalist approach that says in
epistemology socio-political factors ahs no role as well as reductivist approach such as reason is
the social power.
This study presents an analysis of reasoning and what it implicates for our day to day life. The
study will take into account two articles one by Miranda Fricker's "Rational Authority and Social
Power -Towards a Truly Social Epistemology and Jennifer Saul's lecture on Skepticism and
Implicit bias.

REASONERS AND DETERMINATION OF WHOM TO TRUST

When someone is struck for not able to accept his/her reasoning, then they must use the same
reasoning to know whose reasoning to trust. At times, individuals might go for believing no one's
reasoning but at the same time, it raises the question of one's reasoning and why they should be
trusted or what is the credibility of that trust.
The reasoners at times face this situation where they were unable to take a decision regarding
whom to trust. In such cases, the increase in error in one's belief reduces the chances of making a
correct decision. Therefore, there is a necessity in finding out methods of determining the
reasoners to be trusted to prevent errors in our beliefs too.
The first simple strategy that reasoners can employ is to belief them who sound sense and
justified to us. In this case, the error factor remains as it is dependent on our judgment and belief
regarding errors or what factors are correct. For an example- we may believe a doctor was saying
cold drinks can lead to a sore throat since it makes sense to us, where the reasoners
himself/herself has experienced the same or has a belief that cold things can lead to the throat
infection. In such cases, the bias plays a significant role in believing the reasoners and prevents
any error in our belief to be corrected (Tang et al., 2011).
Another method of determining the belief is taking an average of what other reasoners have to
believe. That is believing what is considered as normal, but this limits the knowledge as the error
in everyone else belief is continued. But at the same time when the reasoners trust on such belief
is unbiased, then this method of determination reduces the chances of having errors due to
variation in belief. But achieving this is practically not possible (Zagzebski, 2012).
But the above approach for determining who to trust doesn't sound did not justify nor can truth
be found. It can make us belief lunatic reasons as an established truth. Another approach towards
determining whom to trust is through a weighted approach. In this approach, the individual
beliefs reliability is compared against the weighted average of reliable reasoners. The conclusion
will be based on the common view of more reliable reasoners. But this demands reasoners must
understand the fact, the weighted average of their belief depends on personal knowledge on the
subject domain, the knowledge of cognitive biases and rationality, and do they have any personal
interest to keep the truth hidden from getting disclosed. For an example- If the geographers

round the world believe the earth is round and a very small group of geographers believe no it is
not round, reasoners can go for believing the geographers view. The assumptions, in that case,
are they have knowledge on the subject, and their thought process is rational. This type of
approach reduces the error and gives a trustable reason as well as a justifiable reason to trust as
compared to trusting individual beliefs. This approach has one disadvantage that is, any
unintentional error will be carried on, and the truth might never come to the desk.
Another type of approach is to take the weighted average of other reasoners belief about other
thinkers. Taking an opinion or average of those opinions about a single belief or about a group of
reasoners whom we are trusting can help us in determining whom to trust. Similarly, another
strategy is to determine through taking an average of methodological approach of different
believers or reasoners.
So these processes can be employed by the reasoners to determine whom to trust. But trusting
own reasoning has an added advantage too, that is the interest of one person differs from others
and not necessarily aligns with other believers and what they think. In such case, believing own
reason sounds justified and truth.
No single approach for determining the truth fits all. Therefore, reasoners must look after
different methods to find out the knowledge that is believable, truth and justified.

FRICKERS ARGUMENT AND SAUL REASONING

In her book Epistemic Injustice Miranda Fricker argues people who are known as knowledge
givers or knowers can be wrong distinctively. There occurs epistemic injustice when people are
not allowed to have the knowledge due to lack of resources, lack of social networks, and lack of
access to education. But in her book Epistemic Injustice, Fricker shows another aspect of
epistemic injustice where the people who give knowledge or knowers are wrong in their
capacity.
In general testimonial injustice occurs when people are listened not with relation to their
speaking skills or quality of thoughts or speech, rather belief of group to which they belong to.
For example- a writer might not be listened in a public discussion due to his/her writings that are
considered to be of substandard quality. Similarly, belief's such as women are technologically not

competent as males, people with low educational qualification have low intellectual level leads
to testimonial injustice. These are the practical harms to which people are often subjected due to
testimonial injustice, but according to Frickers it is not limited to physical harm only (Goldman
and Whitecomb, 2012). Testimonial injustice at times leads to epistemic harm too where people
who are knowers are wrongly given the credibility to disseminate the knowledge.
So the question is what epistemic harm is and how it manifests. In human beings, the prisoner's
or the capacity of reasoning comes only when someone is vested with credit of a knower or
knowledge giver. Therefore, when credit is given to someone as a knower epistemic injustice is
done, and this leads to false reasoners, knower and a human being too (Fricker, 2008).
In another paper named Rational Authority and Social Power, Fricker argues when bias interacts
with the power of recognition, it leads to epistemic injustice. Because, the listeners of such
testimonials ignore the other testimonies as they are biased against them. This leads to ignorance
too. These practices lead to injustice in the sense as, the real knower might never get the
credibility due to prejudice against them. But at the same time, Fricker's citation of fictional
propositions also leads to questions on her argument. She cited the Mr. Greenleaf belief about
women that the thoughts of women are institutional and feed by emotions rather than intellectual.
In this process, he fails to grab the knowledge that was presented to him or available to him
(Coady, 2010).
Concerning Fricker's argument on the bias and social authorities, epistemic injustice Saul's
advice might not be sufficient to prevent this. Saul argues that implicit bias and stereotype
attitude has lead to the poor representation of women in the philosophical domain. Implicit
biases are automatic biases that are nurtured and practiced unknowingly due to the
preconceptions already established in our mind. Those biases are not genuine in nature, for
example, women are implicitly related to home and considered to be less technically advanced
than male. Similarly, the attitudes towards LGBT community are somewhere related to implicit
bias that gives rise to skepticism too.
Implicit biases have led to many real time issues such as assessing CV's of candidates especially
male candidates are given higher preference than female candidates and female employees at
higher positions might underperform due to the absence of many women at the same platform.

According to Saul, there are moral political and academic ways by which these issues can be
fought. In her work on skepticism and implicit bias she has argued implicit bias is very
dangerous as compared to traditional skepticism. According to her implicit bias poses more
threat to our cognitive tools than traditional skepticisms. She argues that the implicit bias not
possibly lead to skepticism rather it very often leads to the mistake that can lead to problems in
real life. For an example- journal submissions, student grades, candidates hiring, etc. (Saul,
2013).
Saul has advocated some ways to deal with such issues like anonymising. She admits that
anonymising can't be the appropriate solution always and not feasible in all situations. She has
cited some interventions advocated by the psychologists such as counter-stereotypical exemplars.
Similarly, by employing clear implementation intentions, these issues can be fought. Similarly,
Kawakami's negation also helps in fighting prejudice in a positive way (Holryod, 2012).
It can be employed in our day to day life in some circumstances. For an example- concerning
thoughts of female's in politics is usually taken as biased and institutionalized. But if we will
employ precise implementation intentions that no they are not biased we might be able to figure
out some new knowledge on the topic. Similarly, another strategy that will be employed in
preventing bias to hamper our epistemological decision is to think critically and contradicting
ourselves. This will also help in generating new knowledge and accepting the testimonies of
previously stereotyped groups. But there are inherited certain problems that will remain such as
how to critique and what parameters have to be taken for doing the critique. For an example- in
academic scenario a certain time limit is given to carry out the work that helps us in carrying out
an unbiased study. But in real life issues, the reactions are instantaneous, and we do not have
much time to think and act. Therefore, such practice needs to be done on day to day basis, yet the
skepticism will always be there.
More research needs to be done to reduce the effect of implicit bias in real time issues. Research
into common stereotypes and their origin as well as the mechanism through which they are
evolving must be done. Every research studies in epistemology must be simplified and produced
to make it understandable and acceptable by the common man. Although scholars are
investigating many interesting topics, yet they are limited to the people of the same subject

domain. Therefore, to have research conclusions and results in real life, it has to be translated in
a simple manner for the common man.

CONCLUSIONS
The study on knowledge is one of the fundamental aspects of philosophical research. Both
Fricker and Saul have contributed significantly in providing new dimensions to skepticism, bias,
and reasoning. Although Fricker's assumptions take fictional characters to elucidate the core
concepts, nevertheless they can be applied in practical life too. The credibility of the knower
must be evaluated before accepting the contribution of the knower in constituting the knowledge.
But to have such deep insight it is necessary to have knowledge on how much knowledge is
feasible and to know exactly what is the knowledge.

REFERENCES
Bromme, R., Kienhues, D., & Stahl, E. (2008). Knowledge and epistemological beliefs: An
intimate but complicate relationship. In Knowing, knowledge and beliefs (pp. 423-441). Springer
Netherlands.
Coady, D. (2010). Two concepts of epistemic injustice. Episteme, 7(02), 101-113.
Fricker, M. (2008). Skepticism and the genealogy of knowledge: Situating epistemology in
time. Philosophical Papers, 37(1), 27-50.
Goldman, A., & Whitcomb, D. (Eds.). (2011). Social epistemology: essential readings. Oxford
University Press.
Holroyd, J. (2012). Responsibility for implicit bias. Journal of Social Philosophy,43(3), 274-306.
Saul, J. (2013). Skepticism and Implicit Bias1. Disputatio, 5(37).
Tang, Y., Cai, K., McBurney, P., Sklar, E., & Parsons, S. (2011). Using argumentation to reason
about trust and belief. Journal of Logic and Computation, exr038.
Zagzebski, L. T. (2012). Epistemic authority: a theory of trust, authority, and autonomy in belief.
Oxford University Press.