This course will be an investigation into recent work in the epistemology of ignorance. In particular, we are going to examine a specific form of ignorance which we might call a motivated non-knowing, in which false beliefs are cultivated and sustained in order to maintain systems of dominance and privilege. We will read recent work in this emerging field by Miranda Fricker, Charles Mills, Linda Martin Alcoff, and others. We will look at ignorance from the perspective of race and gender, with an eye to determining the different ways in which motivated ignorance is produced and maintained. A central concern of ours will be on questions of responsibility, complicity, and culpable ignorance.

"Course Outline" [1]