Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T21:39:43.478Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gaslighting, First- and Second-Order

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 December 2020

Paul-Mikhail Catapang Podosky Open the ORCID record for Paul-Mikhail Catapang Podosky [Opens in a new window]
Paul-Mikhail Catapang Podosky*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010 Australia
*
Corresponding author. pmpodosky@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In what sense do people doubt their understanding of reality when subject to gaslighting? I suggest that an answer to this question depends on the linguistic order at which a gaslighting exchange takes place. This marks a distinction between first-order and second-order gaslighting. The former occurs when there is disagreement over whether a shared concept applies to some aspect of the world, and where the use of words by a speaker is apt to cause hearers to doubt their interpretive abilities without doubting the accuracy of their concepts. The latter occurs when there is disagreement over which concept should be used in a context, and where the use of words by a speaker is apt to cause hearers to doubt their interpretive abilities in virtue of doubting the accuracy of their concepts. Many cases of second-order gaslighting are unintentional: its occurrence often depends on contingent environmental facts. I end the article by focusing on the distinctive epistemic injustices of second-order gaslighting: (1) metalinguistic deprivation, (2) conceptual obscuration, and (3) perspectival subversion. I show how each reliably has sequelae in terms of psychological and practical control.

Type
Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , Winter 2021 , pp. 207 - 227
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Hypatia, a Nonprofit Corporation

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

University of Melbourne occupies the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation.

References

Abramson, Kate. 2014. Turning up the lights on gaslighting. Philosophical Perspective 28 (1): 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barker, Chris. 2002. The dynamics of vagueness. Linguistics and Philosophy 25: 1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berenstain, Nora. 2020. White-feminist gaslighting. Hypatia 35 (4): 733–758.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bicchieri, Cristina. 2017. Norms in the wild: How to diagnose, measure, and change social norms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camp, Elisabeth. 2015. Logical concepts and associative characterizations. In The conceptual mind, ed. Margolis, Eric and Laurence, Stephen. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Camp, Elisabeth. 2018. Perspectives in imaginative engagement with fiction. Philosophical Perspectives 31 (1): 73–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cappelen, Herman. 2018. Fixing language: An essay on conceptual engineering. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dotson, Kristie. 2012. A cautionary tale: On limiting epistemic oppression. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 33 (1): 24–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricker, Miranda. 2007. Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricker, Miranda. 2013. Epistemic injustice as a condition of political freedom? Synthese 190 (7): 1317–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerken, Mikkel. 2019. Pragmatic encroachment and the challenge from epistemic injustice. Philosophers’ Imprint 19 (15): 1–19.Google Scholar
Green, Mitchell. 2017. Conversation and common ground. Philosophical Studies 174 (6): 1587–1604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, Sally. 2012. Resisting reality: Social construction and social critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, Sally. 2020. Going on, not in the same way. In Conceptual ethics and conceptual engineering, ed. Burgess, Alexis, Cappelen, Hermen, and Plunkett, David. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hawthorne, John, and Stanley, Jason. 2008. Knowledge and action. Journal of Philosophy 105 (10): 571–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Karen. 2012. The politics of intellectual self-trust. Social Epistemology 26 (2): 237–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKinnon, Rachel. 2017. “Allies” behaving badly: Gaslighting as epistemic injustice. In The Routledge handbook of epistemic injustice, ed. Kidd, Ian James, Pohlhaus, Gaile Jr., and Medina, Jose. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
McKinnon, Rachel. 2019. Gaslighting as epistemic violence: “Allies,” mobbing, and complex posttraumatic stress disorder, including a case study of harassment of transgender women in sport. In Overcoming epistemic injustice: Social and psychological perspectives, ed. Sherman, Benjamin R. and Goguen, Stacey. London: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Margolis, Eric, and Laurence, Stephen, eds. 2015. The conceptual mind. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plunkett, David, and Sundell, Tim. 2013. Disagreement and the semantics of normative and evaluative terms. Philosophers’ Imprint 13 (23): 1–37.Google Scholar
Pohlhaus, Gaile Jr.. 2011. Relational knowing and epistemic injustice: Toward a theory of willful hermeneutical ignorance. Hypatia 27 (4): 715–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruíz, Elena. 2020. Cultural gaslighting. Hypatia 35 (4): 687–713CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarkis, Stephanie. 2017. 11 Warning signs of gaslighting. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/11-warning-signs-gaslighting.Google Scholar
Spear, Andrew D. 2018. Gaslighting, confabulation, and epistemic innocence. Topoi 39 (1): 229–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spear, Andrew D. 2019. Epistemic dimensions of gaslighting: Peer-disagreement, self-trust, and epistemic injustice. Inquiry. doi: 10.1080/0020174X.2019.1610051.Google Scholar
Stark, Cynthia A. 2019. Gaslighting, misogyny, and psychological oppression. The Monist 102 (2): 221–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomasson, Amie. 2017. Metaphysical disputes and metalinguistic negotiation. Analytic Philosophy 58 (1): 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Williamson, Timothy. 2000. Knowledge and its limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar