Epistemischer Klassenkampf

Abstract

Social class is marginalised in contemporary social epistemology – a finding that seems strange given the extreme global inequality of wealth. This essay develops the concept of epistemic class struggle as an instrument of political epistemology: by this I mean structurally produced forms of non-knowledge that contribute to obscuring class relations and diverting attention from their causal relevance to social inequality. This article distinguishes between epistemic class struggle from the right – classically understood as the ideological naturalisation of economic inequality – and a lesser known class struggle from the left, which is (unintentionally) reproduced by parts of Critical Theory and scholarly literature critical of capitalism. Common to both is a de-centring of class as an explanatory category in favour of critiques of recognition, culture or technology. Drawing on Fricker’s concept of hermeneutic injustice, this article argues that the neglect of class is a structurally effective mechanism of epistemic class struggle, rather than a mere academic oversight.