15 May 2025, Spinoza lectures, Jennifer Lackey

Since 1995, the Philosophy Department of the University of Amsterdam has annually appointed a foreign philosopher to the Spinoza chair. As part of the appointment, the Spinoza professor gives a number of lectures intended for a broad audience that wants to stay informed about contemporary developments in philosophy. This is the second of two lectures by the current Spinoza Chair holder, Jennifer Lackey, the Wayne and Elizabeth Jones Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University.

Stories That Wrong and Stories That Repair

Stories are as important as they are ubiquitous, depicting everything from the origin of the universe to the driving force behind an isolated act by a single individual. But stories do not just depict what has actually occurred—they can also exert tremendous power over what does or even can occur. How the unfolding of events is presented in a narrative, for instance, or the layers of a person's character are sketched, can have monumental consequences for the people involved in them. Taking the role that narratives play in the United States criminal legal system as a paradigmatic case, it is shown that stories that falsely demonize or vilify a person can result in distinctively epistemic wrongs and that “counterstories” can function as a crucial form of epistemically reparative work. It is then argued that wronging another person in a way demanding of epistemic reparations does not necessarily involve having false or even unwarranted beliefs about him. This is supported through the introduction of the concept of “misknowing,” which applies when only a narrow, one-dimensional set of facts are known about a person, often centering on those that are most injurious. Misknowing is often fueled by “flat stories” about the person in question, which depict him in static, one-dimensional, and psychologically simplistic terms. When such stories are grounded in injustice, epistemic reparations can require “rounder stories,” which portray a person in dynamic, multidimensional, and psychologically complex terms. In this way, while stories can epistemically wrong a person in life-altering ways, they can also be the source of the life-restoring epistemic reparations that are demanded in response.

Programme

18.00 hrs | Open to public
18.30 hrs | Welcome/opening words
18.45 hrs | Start of lecture followed by discussion with audience
20.00 hrs | Reception
21.15 hrs | End

The lecture is free, but we kindly ask you to register via the form here.