The Epistemic-Ontological Connection: An Approach to the Study of Race

Abstract

In most disciplines, the division into subfields serves more to organize knowledge than to reflect some profound truth about the field. Philosophy is no exception. Therefore, it is not surprising that different subfields intersect, ask similar questions, and engage in productive dialogue. This paper shows how it is possible to build a particularly fruitful dialogue between social epistemology and the metaphysics of race. To establish this connection, I first motivate the intuition that grounds it. Next, I point out how the concept of white ignorance, introduced by Charles Mills, can be extended to a global level. Next, I introduce the epistemic-ontological connection and provide examples from the Brazilian and US-American contexts to demonstrate the potential of this approach. Finally, I conclude by addressing two objections to the arguments I present in the text.