Misrecognition and Knowledge

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Abstract
Explanation and knowledge have traditionally been guided by and judged in terms of the ideal of the neutral reflection of reality. Kuhn's work on the sciences, and Bourdieu's and Kenneth Burke's discussions of knowledge and society, suggest that this ideal and the implicit epistemology that goes with it are in error. Their writings suggest instead that such an ideal masks the inadequacy of its own implicit epistemology by misrecognizing the effects of that inadequacy. That is, their writings suggest a sort of collective self‐deception by members of the knowledge community. The knowledge of brain damage among culturally deprived children is used to illustrate how this misrecognition and masking take place.