Postdoctoral Position – “Epistemic Privilege: Its Nature and Underpinnings”

[elena.popa21]

Dear colleagues,

Please find below a postdoctoral position in Krakow that may be of interest to those working on social epistemology.

Best,

Elena

A common trope in contemporary public culture is that privilege is everywhere. Men, white people, affluent people, the inhabitants of the global North, sometimes the young and sometimes (more often) the old, able-bodied individuals, people in heteronormative relationships or that are not LGBTQ+, have all been described as privileged. We usually think there is something wrong with that: if there is a privilege, some people do not have what others do or have very little of what others have in abundance.

The OPUS project “From Wrongs to Privileges: Moral, Economic, Epistemic Perspectives” sets itself three objectives: (1) arriving at a general definition of privilege, which may make sense of privilege’s perceived injustice and ubiquity, (2) identifying how privilege plays out in different areas, employing economic and epistemic privilege as the main case studies, and (3) discussing the normative response, in terms of both interpersonal and institutional duties, to privilege.

We are now looking for a 2-year postdoctoral researcher that can assist in part (2) of the project. When dealing with epistemic privilege specifically, there are two main issues to be dispelled. The first concerns the best definition of epistemic privilege, where the latter is understood not just as the product of injustice but something we object in itself. The second concerns whether its wrongness is purely epistemic, or moral, or a combination of the two.

We envisage the collaboration to take place in three stages. In the first stage, the PI and the postdoctoral researcher will exchange ideas from each other’s area of expertise regarding the core theme. Questions we expect to be discussed in this initial stage concern the plausibility of the distributive framework in epistemic injustice, the relationship between specific epistemological accounts (such as reductionism about testimony) and specific theses in the ethics of beliefs (such as doxastic wrongs), and the role of practical reasons for belief. In the second stage, the PI and the postdoc will assess which areas of investigation can be conducted individually and which collectively. In the third stage, the PI and the postdoc will work together on one or two co-authored papers. The postdoc will be encouraged to further produce work on any topic of their choice which is connected either to epistemic privilege specifically or to epistemic injustice more generally.

The post is based at the Interdisciplinary Center for Ethics, Jagiellonian University in Krakow ( https://incet.uj.edu.pl/en_GB ). A full description of the project can be found here: https://incet.uj.edu.pl/en_GB/opus-from-wrongs-to-privileges . In addition to full-time salary at the level of Adjunkt (Assistant Professor) in the Polish academic system, the budget for the postdoc includes travel funds. 

We are looking for a recently graduated PhD (PhD degree within 7 years before 1 January of the year of employment) or somebody who may have their PhD by October 2025  who meets the following criteria:

• Academic expertise primarily in epistemology, specifically in the debates over testimony and epistemic justification and/or pragmatic encroachment and the role of pragmatic reasons for belief;
• Willingness to work for a project at the intersection of epistemology and moral philosophy, and specifically on (i) the idea of an epistemic form of privilege and (ii) its epistemological underpinnings and (iii) the relationship between epistemic injustice (and specifically testimonial injustice) and the epistemology of interpersonal testimony.

Interested candidates should send the following documents to giulio.f...@uj.edu.pl  by 1st June 2025:

• An updated cv with publications;
• Abstract of PhD dissertation (in English);
• One independent research paper, published or unpublished, on themes the candidate believes are relevant for the topic;
• A brief (one-page long) statement of research purposes, in which the candidate suggests their expected contributions to the project;
• Names and email address of two academic references, who may be contacted at later stages (can be included in the cv).

We expect to interview shortlisted candidates by mid June 2025. The post is scheduled to commence on 1st October 2025.

For all inquiries, please contact the project’s PI Dr Giulio Fornaroli: giulio.f...@uj.edu.pl