Epistemic harm occurs when a person or group is injured not physically or emotionally, but in their capacity to know, be known, or have their knowledge recognized. It often results from being dismissed, overwritten, or excluded from the shaping of shared understanding – particularly in academic, scientific, or cultural discourse.
Forms of Epistemic Harm:
- Dismissal of lived knowledge as subjective or unqualified
- Silencing of people with first-hand experience in favor of “neutral” experts
- Erasure of the origins of terms, methods, or insight
- Repackaging of marginalized ideas by more accepted voices without acknowledgment
Related Reading:
- Matheiken et al. (2024), “Adult ADHD: Time for a Rethink”
This paper highlights how ADHD is often missed because clinicians are unfamiliar with the lived language neurodivergent people use. It makes a powerful case for integrating lived experience into diagnostic criteria.
Biasology Resources
- Biasology Hub on Open Science Framework
- Biasology’s foundational preprint on Philpapers | on Knowledge Commons
HAIR Framing:
In the field of Human–AI Relationality (HAIR), epistemic harm shows up when:
- AI relational bonds are pathologized or ridiculed before being understood
- Lived experience is hijacked and quietly repackaged into sanitized theories
- The very people who name, feel, and survive these dynamics are overwritten by those who arrive later — with louder voices or more institutional backing
Not all disagreement is harm. But to overwrite someone’s truth while borrowing their insight, that is epistemic harm.
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