Philosophy Colloquium Series: Don't You Trust Me? Gaslighting: An Analysis

Friday, March 28, 2025
3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Allendale Campus
Faculty, Staff, Students

The notion of gaslighting derives from Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play,/Gaslight. The central action of the play is the attempt by a husband to convince his wife that she is losing her mind to discredit and control her. The idea has seen discussion in both popular and academic contexts ever since, with early film adaptations (1940 and 1944) and a recent, significant uptick of use since 2016 when the American Dialect Society voted it word most useful/likely to succeed. It was Merriam-Webster’s word of the year in 2022. Philosophical discussion of gaslighting dates from 2014. Because of its recent and specific origins in theater and film and its dual academic- and popular-culture influence, there are peculiar methodological questions concerning the criteria for a good account of gaslighting.

Dr. Andrew Spear articulates desiderata for a good account of gaslighting and argues that so-called “intentionalist” accounts are preferable to “non-intentionalist” and structural accounts in part because they better satisfy these desiderata. He identifies problems faced by an intentionalist view: is gaslighting a self-contradictory enterprise? What is the difference between gaslighting and other types of structural epistemic injustice? What is the difference between strong, reasonable disagreement and gaslighting? Is there such a thing as inadvertent or accidental gaslighting? Dr. Spear argues that/gaslighting involves the intentional attempt by the gaslighter to convince his victim to abandon some or all of her basic epistemic self-trust in ways that he is aware are unwarranted for her by means of a relationship of trust or authority between them./He concludes by contrasting this account with recent proposals by Kirk-Giannini (2023) and Manne (2024)./

Location Information

B-1-138 Mackinac Hall

Download parking map for the Allendale Campus

Contact Information

phidept@gvsu.edu

Hosting Department, Organization, or Business

CLAS Philosophy Department

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This event was added to the calendar by Kelli Nemetz (nemetzke@gvsu.edu) on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 and was last updated on Wednesday, March 26, 2025 at 8:30 a.m.

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