Ideal Theory, Epistemologies of Ignorance, and (Mis)Recognition

In considering what makes epistemic injustice and epistemologies of ignorance wrongful, Matthew Congdon has recently argued that they involve forms of epistemic misrecognition in involving epistemic disrespect, disesteem, and neglect. Following Congdon’s remarks that both epistemic injustice and epistemologies of ignorance involve such misrecognition, this chapter considers whether and how ignorance may not involve the same types of misrecognition as epistemic injustice. In fact, there may be, as of yet, unexplored and surprising ways in which ignorance and recognition work in concert. In this chapter, I contend that some cases of genuine ignorance do not involve misrecognition, but a kind of recognition: sometimes ignorance is not about being insufficiently responsive to some normatively relevant features in another, but being too responsive to them. I then argue that we can see this sort of ‘paradox of ignorance’ in Charles Mills’s discussion of white ignorance and ideal theory.