Epistemic Injustice as Systemic Communicative Dysfunction

Abstract

It is argued that epistemic injustice as a problem of expertise is related not only to its scientization, closure, and the inability of institutionalized experts to hear the voice of representatives of the marginal communities, as stated in the article by S.Y. Shevchenko, but also to systemic communicative dysfunction in the relations of scientists, experts, representatives of marginal communities and state authorities. It is supposed that dashing about of dysfunctionality of interactions is the mistrust of social actors to each other which generates mutual forms of both hermeneutical, and testimonial injustice in M. Fricker sense. Unilateral view of marginalized communities is criticized. It should be taken into account that due to the rapid specialization in scientific production of knowledge, the boundary between the expert and the profane is radically shifted from the space of external social relations to the internal mental space of each of the experts.