Epistemic Justice and Whose Knowledge Counts

Sor Juana possessed vast theological, philosophical, and scientific knowledge but was systematically treated as unqualified to possess or speak about these domains because she was a woman. Her credibility was denied not because her arguments were weak but because of her identity. Epistemic justice examines this inequality: who gets to be a knower, whose perspectives count as knowledge, whose testimony is trusted. Sor Juana's tradition shows that unfairness operates at the level of whose voices are heard, whose methods are respected, whose conclusions are credited. Societies progressing toward fairness recognized that excluding entire groups from being recognized as knowers wastes human intelligence and distorts truth. Applied today, epistemic justice means validating diverse knowledge sources, questioning who we automatically trust, ensuring diverse people in knowledge-production roles, and recognizing that marginalized groups often possess crucial knowledge about injustice.