This paper proposes that, in many cases, conversational norms permit gaslighting when socially subordinate speakers report systemic injustice. Section 1 introduces gaslighting and the kinds of cases on which I focus—namely, cases in which multiple people gaslight. I give examples and statistics to suggest that these cases are common in response to reports of race- or gender-based injustice; and I appeal to scholarship on epistemologies of ignorance to suggest that this kind of gaslighting is common because it is systematically produced by dominant epistemic systems. Section 2 draws on Lynne Tirrell’s account of language games that’ve been influenced by oppression to make the case that conversational norms make gaslighting “appropriate” when socially subordinate speakers report systemic injustice. Together, these points make the case that the kind of gaslighting discussed in this paper (i) occurs systematically and (ii) is mutually reinforcing with systems of ignorance. The discussion is meant to help us understand and address the conditions that make gaslighting commonplace. If it’s true that gaslighting occurs systematically in part thanks to our warped conversational norms, then we may be able to mitigate the prevalence of gaslighting by attending to these norms.

Engelhardt, Jeff. Some Reflections on Gaslighting and Language Games. Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 9, no. 3 (2023). (Article published online September 5, 2023). https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/fpq/article/view/15077

Copyright (c) 2023 Jeff Engelhardt

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, pro-
vided the original author and source are credited.

The authors of work published in FPQ under the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 License retain copyright to their work without restrictions and publication rights without restrictions. However, we request that authors include some sort of acknowledgement that the work was previously published in FPQ if part or all of a paper published in FPQ is used elsewhere.

Jeff Engelhardt is a professor of Philosophy at Dickinson College.

This published version is made available on Dickinson Scholar with the permission of the publisher. For more information on the published version, visit Feminist Philosophy Quarterly's Website. https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/fpq/article/view/15077