

























      Prejudicial Dysfunctions, Epistemic Practices and Priestly…       1 

 

 

 

C H A P T E R  1  
 

 

 

Prejudicial Dysfunctions, Epistemic 
Practices and Priestly Formation: Anselm 

Jimoh and the Pursuit of Genuine 
Knowledge  

 

Francis Eshemomoh IKHIANOSIME 

  

 

 

Introduction 

The seminal work of Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and 

the Ethics of Knowing1, has become the locus classicus in 

contemporary discourses in social epistemology for analysing the 

different ways there can be dysfunctions in our epistemic practices. 

Fricker explores two main ways of dysfunctions in our epistemic 

practices. The first occurs in testimonial transaction, wherein a 

speaker can have a deflated credibility from a hearer owing to 

prejudice on the hearer’s part. A deflated credibility can be due to a 
“negative-identity-prejudicial stereotype” a hearer has about a 

speaker. In such a situation, prejudice plays a negative role. In the 

history of epistemology, the debate of testimony being a source of 

knowledge is intractable and vexed. Although there are vigorous 

queries on whether testimony is an autonomous source of epistemic 

authority, it is nevertheless, arguably true that much of what we know 

is testimonially acquired; from information from books, teachers to 

what others tell us. But, prejudice plays a facultative role on how we 

accept or refute the claim of a person or an epistemic agent. For 

instance, if S has an ill-founded idea that P is a liar, because as at the 

last time S asked P if he drinks alcohol, he replied in the negative, not 

knowing that S had asked P, the question to test his sincerity, because 



2     Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

about two years ago, S had seen P at a function drinking a bottle of 

beer, but, unknown to S that P had exchanged the contents of the 

alcohol with a non-alcoholic substance earlier because there were no 

glass cups around. Then, S concluded that P is a liar on that basis. 

While S has grounds to believe P is telling a lie and so concludes that 

P is a liar, S’s claim for P is ill-founded. In such a situation, S can 

become prejudiced to whatever P says. This can be a prejudice that 

deflates S’s degree of credibility for P. Prejudice, therefore, can block 

the flow of knowledge and weaken the chances for achieving truth. 

Prejudice can manifest itself in varied ways. Fricker calls this kind of 

situation where prejudice shrinks a hearer’s credibility, testimonial 
injustice. 

 The second dysfunction in epistemic practice is what she 

calls, hermeneutical injustice. In her precis to the epochal seminal 

work in question, Fricker explains that this occurs “at a prior stage, 
when someone is trying to make sense of a social experience but is 

handicapped in this by a certain sort of gap in collective 

understanding – a hermeneutical lacuna whose existence is owing to 

the relative powerlessness of a social group to which the subject 

belongs. Such a lacuna renders the collective interpretive resources 

structurally prejudiced”.2 The dysfunction referred to by Fricker as 

hermeneutic injustice often has a cultural or historical context. For 

instance, in an environment where smokers are regarded as perverts 

because of the cultural understanding of smoking, in such a situation, 

a smoker would be morally deflated or disdained when he talks on 

some moral matters for instance. This can lead to ‘hermeneutical 
inequality’. 
 The two forms of injustices identified by Fricker abound from 

wrongs or negative influence of prejudice. Nevertheless, the 

philosophical understanding of prejudice is not necessarily negative. 

The work of Fricker, therefore, has opened up new considerations of 

harms and wrongs in epistemic practices. Her work has become a 

launchpad for discussing different social environments, how 

epistemic accounts are formed, and how epistemic transactions are 

interpreted. This work attempts to discuss how prejudicial 

dysfunction can either lead to credibility deficit or excess in the 

formation of priests, taking a seminary as an epistemic community. In 

the formation of priests, a lot rests on judgments and assessment from 

different evaluators/Formators. These reports ultimately form the 



      Prejudicial Dysfunctions, Epistemic Practices and Priestly…       3 

basis for discernment and judging of the suitability of a candidate for 

the priesthood. Like every testimonial or hermeneutic practice, the 

goal is understanding or knowledge in the long run. Prejudice can 

either stand in the way as a positive or negative element. This work, 

therefore, set to establish some ways there can be dysfunctions in an 

epistemic environment of priestly formation. This work analyses the 

understanding of prejudice from a philosophical standpoint and 

further progresses to analyse epistemic practices in priestly formation. 

Granted that the goal of every epistemic practice and epistemology is 

a holistic vision for knowledge and truth, the last part of this work 

devotes attention to how Anselm Jimoh, the silver jubilarian as an 

academic, has been involved in the pursuit of this agenda in 

epistemology, taking note of some of his contributions in pursuing the 

vision for a genuine knowledge in epistemology and also in creating a 

clearer understanding of what the priestly ministry should be as an 

epistemic subject in particular. 

 

Philosophical Understanding of Prejudice 

Prejudice as a philosophical concept is historical. Anja Steinbauer 

argues that the first philosophical musings about the concept 

‘prejudice’ (praeiusticium) started during the classical age with 

Cicero. He talks of prejudice as the opposite of the truth, associated 

with an error. For Cicero, prejudice is born out of manipulation.3 He 

cites the legal context to explain for instance, that once a juror had 

listened to a particular case over and over, so once a trial happens and 

a lawyer is citing a version of that case, has little to do to convince 

them of the veracity of his words. Thus, the case in question takes its 

merit from the understanding of previous accounts listened.  

During the period of the Enlightenment which was marked by 

the Renaissance, the understanding of prejudice as manipulation was 

abandoned, and rather, the concern was with the problem of 

prejudice. Francis Bacon’s doctrine on prejudice was equated with 
“idols of the mind” (idola) which the intellect must be purified from if 

it can get knowledge. This understanding of prejudice (idola) which 

the mind must get rid off continues with the works of Descartes. 

According to Descartes, the first act of the new philosophy is to free 

the mind of prejudice. Descartes explains: “I yet apprehend that they 
cannot be adequately understood by many, both because they are also  

a little lengthy and dependent the one on other, and principally 



4     Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

because they demand a mind wholly free of prejudices, and one which 

can be easily detached from the affairs of the senses”4 With the 

Enlightenment, prejudices takes on a negative connotation as 

prejudgment. In the light of this thought, Voltaire regards prejudice as 

an opinion without judgment.5 This transfusing understanding of 

prejudice as a prejudged opinion continued and was also a fashionable 

term during the French Revolution which denoted “all errors of the 
mind, which, in the worst cases, could only be eradicated by means of 

the guillotine!”6  

The views on prejudice during the Enlightenment period 

sometimes confused the preliminary thought of an individual on an 

issue for a conclusive claim. Hence, the misgiving and labelling of 

prejudice as errors that blurs understanding. It is against this 

background that Gadamer evolves his philosophy on prejudice which 

argues for a beneficial and valuable role of prejudice. With Gadamer, 

Prejudice as a philosophical concept was immune from his negative 

garb. Gadamer explains the positive validity, the value of the 

provisional decision as a prejudgment, like that of any precedent”7 

Cynthia Nielsen argues that “Gadamer’s focus on the positive value 
of prejudgment is part of his critique of Enlightenment rationalism, 

which claimed that judgment is legitimate only when 

methodologically justified. Absent such justification, a judgment is 

rendered baseless. Thus, all appeals to tradition and the authority of 

others – where accepting authoritative voices is misunderstood as 

relinquishing the use of one’s own reason- are considered invalid and 

irrational”.8 
Gadamer argues that prejudice aids understanding. He notes 

that anyone trying to understand something or a text projects an initial 

meaning and it is this that guides the actual meaning of the text. 

Gadamer appeals to binary opposition to establish the value of 

prejudice. The theory of binary opposition is seen as a fundamental 

organizer of language, culture and human philosophy. In simple 

terms, this theory explains that we derive the meaning of a thing or 

concept by an appeal to its opposite. For instance, we can understand 

darkness more with the concept of light, etc. It is in this sense, 

Gadamer explains that fore-meanings or what is understood as 

prejudice helps to protect a text from a misunderstanding from the 

start. In this case, the actual meaning of a text becomes more valuable 

and meaningful, only with the presence of fore-meanings. With 



      Prejudicial Dysfunctions, Epistemic Practices and Priestly…       5 

prejudice, what is required in openness. The reader must remain open 

in reading the text. He notes clearly:  

 

A person trying to understand something will not 

resign himself from the start to relying on his own 

accidental fore-meanings, ignoring as consistently and 

stubbornly as possible the actual meaning of the text 

until the latter becomes so persistently audible that it 

breaks through what the interpreter imagines it to be. 

Rather, a person trying to understand a text is 

prepared for it to tell him something. That is why a 

hermeneutically trained consciousness must be, from 

the start, sensitive to the text’s alterity.9 

 

Even with Gadamer, prejudice is not a terminus in understanding, it is 

only a pathway to getting meaning. We must take note of the window 

he offers for this, and that is “openness”. However, he fails to realize 
that prejudice can, in fact, be the clog on the wheel of openness. This 

becomes as he describes it, “the tyranny of hidden prejudices” and 
this makes us deaf to understanding and actual meaning oftentimes. 

Prejudice, therefore, can either be positive or negative. From the 

Gadamerian understanding of prejudice, the concept can be 

epistemically neutral as it pertains to forming judgment or knowledge. 

Judgment has its dignity if it has a basis and has a methodological 

justification.10 Prejudice becomes negative if it has no epistemological 

foundation and lacks adequate methodological justification and it is 

positive if it acts on the contrary to aid judgment and knowledge. 

However, Gadamer stresses the historical situatedness which shapes 

our understanding; our language, customs, social and familial ties, 

etc. These historical situations are what make up the prejudices for 

him. He writes: “The self-awareness of the individual is only a 

flickering in the closed circuits of historical life. That is why the 

prejudices of the individual, far more than his judgments, constitute 

the historical reality of his being”. Our prejudices, therefore, for 

Gadamer, form our historical reality. As Nielsen puts it, “Our 
prejudices orient us in a certain direction and direct us to specific 

concerns and questions”11 

 Gadamer maintains that prejudice could be due to human 

authority or over hastiness. It is either we have respect for persons 



6     Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

who hold them and so fall into error or we are overhasty ourselves. 

Authority within the period of Enlightenment was a major source of 

prejudice which was refuted and countered. The Enlightenment 

critique was primarily directed against religious tradition in 

Christianity, where for instance, the Bible is treated as a dogmatic 

literature and not historical and so anything that comes out of it was 

seen as authoritative and this formed a bedrock for prejudice. The 

Enlightenment rather critiqued much of these as a way to free man 

from the trammels of prejudice by subjecting every claim to the 

judgment seat of reason. Tradition and Authority were, therefore, twin 

elements that fanned the embers of prejudice. This is what Miranda 

Fricker calls Social Power.12 

 Fricker’s conception of power is at the basis of discussing her 
notion of prejudice, particularly her notion of “Identity prejudices”. 
Prejudices of this kind function as a monocle through which 

everything the person says or does is refracted. This is a kind of 

distorting the lens. According to Fricker, power which she generally 

also understands as social power is a capacity we have as social 

agents to influence how things go in the social world.13 Social power 

understood as a capacity persists through periods even when it is not 

being realized. Thus, power can exist whether operative or 

inoperative. Although, some scholars contest this understanding of 

power14. Furthermore, power can either be agential or structural, that 

is, it can either be possessed by an individual or a structure or group 

and it functions principally for control: either positively or negatively. 

And then, power is socially situated. Thus, Fricker’s working 
conception of Social Power is, “a practically situated capacity to 
control other’s actions, where this capacity may be exercised (actively 
or passively) by particular social agents, or alternatively, it may be 

operated structurally”.15 

 Be that as it may, Fricker singles one form of social power 

which is identity power. Whenever there is an operation of power that 

depends on some significant degree upon such shared imaginative 

conceptions of social identity, then identity power is at work.16 

Identity power comes to play on account of a certain position or class 

a person occupies. It is a form of authority and is a tool of control and 

sometimes silencing of the lesser other. For instance, identity power 

can be prominent in a patriarchal culture where women’s voice are 
diminished. In such a situation, when a woman speaks on an issue, 



      Prejudicial Dysfunctions, Epistemic Practices and Priestly…       7 

her position is not highly reckoned with, but once a man speaks, it is 

taken as authoritative. In such a situation, identity power can cause 

stereotypes. In this case, even before the woman speaks, her position 

is already distorted by this social stereotype as socially inferior or 

weaker. To conceive of this differently, if in such a situation, a man 

accuses a woman of something wrong in such a context, there is a 

primordial bias to accept the position of the man on the basis of his 

identity category. What is playing out here is identity power. It so 

happens in other social contexts. identity power, therefore, is an 

integral part of our testimonial exchanges, and it creates stereotypes 

in how we evaluate the judgments of those in certain identity or 

power category. Such stereotypes embody prejudices; either creating 

credibility deficit or credibility excess and this is what Fricker calls 

“prejudicial dysfunction in testimonial practice”17 In testimonial 

exchanges, Fricker notes that prejudice can insinuate itself in a 

number of ways, but its main entry point is via stereotypes.18 

Stereotypes are generally neutral. They can have a positive or 

negative valence based on its context. 

 

Epistemic Practices and the Priestly Formation 

The understanding of prejudice from the foregoing explains its 

preponderance in the epistemic transaction whether positively or 

negatively. The implication of prejudice in such exchanges is that it 

influences understanding and judgment either positively or 

negatively. It generally creates a skewed way of viewing people 

especially in an epistemologically refracted lens and this causes 

harms or wrongs in epistemic practices and even sometimes injustice 

as Fricker puts it, both testimonial and hermeneutical. These 

conversely affect how we form beliefs on people and what we count 

as knowledge in the long run. 

Epistemic practices are understood to mean the different 

pathways in generating knowledge. Put elaborately, epistemic 

practices “are the socially organized and interactionally accomplished 

ways that members of a group propose, communicate, assess, and 

legitimize knowledge claims”19 Epistemic practices are therefore 

basically interactional in which case it is a construction among 

people. It is also contextual as it involves norms of a particular social 

system. It is also intertextual in which case it involves communication 

through a history of coherent discourse, signs and symbols. It is also 



8     Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

consequential in which case it both instantiates power and legitimize 

knowledge.20 Karin Knorr Cetina expatiates on the concept in point 

by maintaining that epistemic practices are considered to be included 

in epistemic cultures, ‘the culture of knowledge settings’21, which are 

linked to and form the basis of a broader contemporary concept, the 

knowledge society. Epistemic practices, therefore, are related to a 

frame of meaning which regulate people’s lives. It is this knowledge 
which determines what people do, how they are related to and what 

constitutes people’s actions. When we talk of epistemic practices in a 
given social context or background, we are referring to a framework 

of how knowledge is formed and applied. We also refer to all those 

pathways for arriving at these, including interpersonal epistemic 

transactions. Therefore, as long as there is a social given, epistemic 

practices necessarily abound. Our concern in epistemic practices in 

priestly formation is how we form knowledge about others especially 

with the operation of social power and also how we make sense of our 

social experiences. Our concern also oscillates around how we think 

about our epistemic relations if they produce epistemic advantage or 

disadvantage especially within the context of priestly formation. 

In priestly formation, the seminary is the epistemic 

community in context. Within this epistemic community are students 

(seminarians); those in training to become priests and Formators; 

those training the students. There are a number of epistemic 

transactions that take place within this epistemic community; 

epistemic transaction between fellow students and between formators 

and students. The latter is of greater importance because in it there is 

a power play; the formator seen as superior. The epistemic transaction 

between the formator and student is important, that it ultimately helps 

in his overall evaluation and how his vocation is eventually discerned. 

Since the factor of evaluation is at stake, the whole epistemic practice 

must be looked to see how testimonial excess or deficit can play a 

role in judgment and knowledge formation. One area of concern is 

how Formators listen to their students’ concern and how the students 
make themselves known to their Formators so as to be helped. 

Another area is how the student can provide completely irrelevant 

information or provide a superfluous assessment of themselves and 

not allowing themselves to be known and assisted in the formation 

process. This can create a wrong epistemic relationship for assistance 

and support. The difficulty that can be created is a complicated 



      Prejudicial Dysfunctions, Epistemic Practices and Priestly…       9 

epistemic relationship sometimes arising from the compromising of 

information because of a prejudged understanding that such 

information can be used negatively against him. This kind of situation 

has a lot of consequences for the student and for the intended outcome 

of formation altogether.22 The practical implication is that this can 

jeopardise the opportunities of being properly assisted and eventually, 

the essence of the formation is in all defeated. 

Another area in the epistemic practice within the seminary as 

an epistemic community is that there are sporadic cases of 

communicative failure which can lead to false belief and knowledge 

formation. This can be due to what I can regard as some gaps in the 

student-formator relationship. Within this relationship, the power 

relations play a key role in either the widening of the gaps or its 

closure. Once there is no proper management of the balance of power, 

it can lead to silencing sometimes of the student, leading to wrongs or 

harm in the epistemic relations. Unless there exist an atmosphere of 

symmetric power relations, sometimes there cannot be openness in 

the relationship. The epistemic starting point for this discussion is that 

students (seminarians) can be vulnerable in the epistemic relationship 

and that prevalent stereotypes and prejudices within the structural 

framework of the seminary as an epistemic community, some are 

prejudices they have about the epistemic community which can 

hamper a holistic and healthy epistemic situation which in turn can 

hinder proper understanding of the student and eventually influence 

how he is judged or evaluated. A caveat must be established here that 

it is not the case that at all times seminarians are epistemically 

vulnerable or oppressed, but, that they can be susceptible to this based 

on the imbalance power relation that sometimes exists between the 

formator and the seminarian. 

It suffices to begin by identifying stereotype structures and 

practices that are generated and sustained in the seminary as an 

epistemic community. Stereotypes are sometimes brewed from a 

warped understanding and belief that those who underperform within 

the system will not always be promoted for the Orders that they are 

there for, regardless of the context. Also, some are within the 

seminary community with a fixed understanding and stereotype that 

not all who begin can finish in the program. This creates a Darwinian 

survival mentality; the survival of the fittest. Again, since the process 

of assessment is basically done by formators and so, the students 



10     Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

sometimes could attempt to play a positive image before them, so a 

positive impression could be formed and consequently influence 

positively the judgement of them, without it being their true image 

and personality. The primary work of a formator is not to pass 

judgment, but to form. Assessment is only part of this process of 

formation, it is not the principal role. To say that the students think 

this way, is a structural stereotype from what they have understood 

and interpreted over time. Thus, the system has foisted a negative 

stereotype which reinforces a negative attitude in them.  Another 

stereotype can be that anyone who is found out to consistently 

manifest a negative or an unapproved behaviour would be dismissed 

from the community. This is an incomplete picture of the process, 

because, this runs contrary to what a seminary should be or of its 

formation program. However, this stereotype affects how the 

students, therefore, open up in the process. These stereotypes portray 

a wrong image of the epistemic community and of the epistemic 

relation between the student and formator. These kinds of stereotypes 

already create prejudice to the epistemic transaction and interaction. 

Thus, there is epistemic distrust from the beginning of the interaction 

and this is an epistemic vice. 

There are other levels of stereotypes arising from the part of 

the formator to the student, based on certain understanding and 

experience in the past. This may sometimes be accidental, not 

habitual. For instance, to think that people from a certain region are 

poised to behave in a certain way, based on the experience of others 

from that area. There is also a case of testimonial excess, where a 

student who is academically sound is perceived as a morally balanced 

individual. His academic brilliance can create a situation of 

testimonial excess and a mirror or lens for seeing every other action 

of his in the light of brilliance. Conversely, to think that a person who 

is not academically sound is not suitable enough in other areas and so 

judged on the basis of that alone. It suffices to say that stereotype can 

also be created systemically, wherein, much of what is known about 

the individual are relied upon by information and accounts about him 

from others, not necessarily a personal experience of the student.  

Hypothetically speaking, in a situation where all the reports 

that have been written about the candidates are by people who have 

had a negative bias against the candidate in question, then, the 

Formator may be relying on such a negatively biased report, unknown 



      Prejudicial Dysfunctions, Epistemic Practices and Priestly…       11 

to him to make an assessment. And so, if there are any pointers to 

such situations, whether confirmed or not, the Formator is likely to 

admit it a sequence and moral difficulty of the candidate. Here, we 

can find a case where negative bias is perpetuated and judgment 

formed on the basis of prejudicial dysfunctions. There are also 

possible situations where judgments about individuals are based on 

disparaging associations, social groups and one or more objectionable 

attributes, not just on the basis of an individual situation. When 

judgments are made on such merits, we sometimes can talk about a 

version of injustice Fricker talks as the basic form of injustice; 

testimonial injustice.23 This situation as Fricker and some 

commentators on Fricker uphold can lead to credibility deficit; that 

whatever they say is viewed in this light with some prejudice. This 

can gradually lead to eroding the epistemic confidence of the speaker 

or group. If this situation endures, it can lead to a crush of their 

confidence in their epistemic capacities. “A person or group suffering 
from such a situation will not expect what they say to be heard, and in 

time might not speak at all, as the constant assault upon their 

testimonial practices gradually undermines their epistemic and social 

confidence”.24 This is the kind of situation that can sometimes lead to 

silencing of the other or speaker with the constant erosion of his 

epistemic confidence. This can pose some difficulty in the epistemic 

practice in the seminary.  These are possible instantiations of 

structural stereotypes that build up our prejudices which eventually 

influence judgment and knowledge formation in the seminary as an 

epistemic community. One of the consequences of a negative 

stereotype is that it leads to a deflated level of credibility to the 

speakers’ word.25 In our case in point, stereotypes can cause either the 

student to be suspect of what the formator is saying or on the 

contrary, it can cause the formator to have a deficit of trust in what 

the student is saying.  In any case, stereotypes create a prejudicial 

dysfunction and this weakens a complete epistemic situation for either 

a chance for a fair judgment or a balanced and comprehensive 

understanding of an epistemic transaction. 

Stereotypes as Fricker notes are windows for prejudices and 

the first it does is the impairment of listening. It functions on how we 

listen to others. For the lecturer, once he has a negative stereotype of 

a candidate, how he listens to him becomes lopsided or impaired. The 

same is true about the student, once he forms a prejudice about a 



12     Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

lecturer, he is always at a  loosing end, not paying attention to details, 

but only listening with the wrong aid of his prejudice. He thinks of all 

the teacher says in the light of this. So, he becomes perpetually 

suspect of his contributions. This can be a major form of deflection 

for a wholesome epistemic interaction. This short-circuited interaction 

necessarily will lead to communicative failure as there would not be 

an anticipatory openness as Gadamer recommends in dealing with 

prejudice rather, there would be anticipatory reticence and deflection. 

This outcome of such epistemic practice can only be incomplete, 

imbalance and an unproductive epistemic interaction. Formation 

process in this context is skewed and lead to error. Negative prejudice 

takes a progression not only for testimonial deficit, but can also lead 

to hermeneutical injustice. Hermeneutical injustice is the second 

variant of epistemic injustice outlined by Miranda Fricker. This is the 

phenomenon that occurs “when the intelligibility of communicators is 
unfairly constrained or undermined when their meaning-making 

capacities encounter unfair obstacles”.26 Fricker puts it as “when a 
gap in collective interpretative resources puts someone at an unfair 

advantage when it comes to making sense of their social 

experiences”.27 What is needed in this situation are epistemic 

practices that lead to openness, epistemic trust and testimonial justice.  

There is an entirely new way we can evaluate epistemic 

practices in the seminary as an epistemic community and this can be 

in the pedagogical exchange; the teaching-learning process. Arguably, 

the formator as a teacher is considered as an epistemically privileged 

person possessing epistemic authority. The essence of this authority is 

to facilitate students’ learning. There are, however, ways within this 

mutual interaction that there are harms and wrongs due to prejudice 

both on the part of the student and on the part of the formator as a 

teacher. Ben Kotzee explains that epistemic harm or injustice could 

occur in such a relationship “if teachers systematically gave learners 
less epistemic credit than they deserve due to some negative identity 

prejudicial stereotype pertaining to learners in a particular setting”.28 

Epistemic credit, in this case, is understood as the testimonial value 

attached to a student. When teachers tend to place more value on 

some or a group of students at the expense of others, this can cause 

some level of epistemic harm. Although this is peculiar to many 

pedagogical settings, there is a tendency to always give more 

attention to students who are brighter than others who are less 



      Prejudicial Dysfunctions, Epistemic Practices and Priestly…       13 

academically inclined. Malcolm Gladwell describes this as the 

Matthew Effect29 in his book, Outliers.30 Kotzee corroborates this 

point in detailed terms thus: 

 

Teachers may give more epistemic credit to the views 

of students from epistemically privileged groups. On 

the testimonial level, they may believe or praise such 

students more often due to their identity as members of 

an epistemically privileged group. On the 

hermeneutical level, teachers, but more so, the school’s 
culture, language and ethos may give more credence to 

such students’ perspectives, engage more naturally 
with these perspectives and fail to comprehend the 

perspectives of less privileged students.31 

 

Conversely, there is another way that there can be epistemic harm on 

the part of students to teacher and even causing the student to be at a 

loss. Once a student has a set of stereotypes about a teacher, it forms 

some negative prejudices against such a teacher and this becomes 

refraction that impairs his openness to learning because of his bias. 

This is another form of a detour in the student-formator epistemic 

transaction. From our analysis of epistemic practices in a seminary as 

an epistemic community, prejudicial dysfunctions play roles in 

impairing proper understanding of an epistemic situation and making 

the most of an epistemic exchange. The concern to have a wholesome 

epistemic situation is the concern of analytic epistemology. This leads 

us to the third part of our conversation, the contributions of Anselm 

Jimoh to the pursuit of genuine knowledge 

 

Anselm Jimoh and the Pursuit of Genuine Knowledge 

The growing breakdown in epistemic practices reflects an increased 

need and relevance for the pursuit of genuine knowledge which is the 

goal of epistemology. The term, ‘genuine knowledge’ is specialized. 
In the analysis of knowledge, epistemologists talk of legitimate or 

genuine knowledge to differentiate it from unsubstantiated claims or 

knowledge that is not warranted. Thus, “genuine”, “legitimate”, 
“warrant” are designates to protect the process that leads to 
knowledge formation. Genuine knowledge is one that is free from the 

encumbrances of prejudice for instance and scepticism. This explains 



14     Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

the role of justification as a condition for knowledge. Efforts in 

understanding the justification condition have made some scholars 

talk about epistemology as a theory of justification. Jimoh Anselm is 

one scholar who has made substantial contributions to the subject 

matter of justification in epistemology. He maintains that epistemic 

justification describes when a person’s belief is in right standing with 
knowledge32. Jimoh notes that epistemic justification clarifies or 

reduces doubt about the genuineness of our beliefs33. The question of 

epistemic justification lends itself to various understandings, 

interpretations and theories. Justification is so central to our 

knowledge claims, yet, establishing a paradigm is very herculean.  

 Regardless of the inconclusiveness on the topic of 

justification, Jimoh Anselm subscribes to a context-dependent version 

of epistemic justification. In his article, “Context-Dependency of 

Human Knowledge: Justification of an African Epistemology”, he 
argues “that knowledge is ultimately dependent on some human and 
social factors, rather than being an objective, impersonal relation 

between the object known and the knowing subject.”34 The essence of 

context, consideration of human and social factors are at the heart of 

overcoming prejudice in our knowledge claims and this is the vision 

of Anselm Jimoh’s philosophical theorizing on justification.  

Contextualism as a theory of justification reacts against the 

incoherency of coherentism and foundationalism as theories of 

epistemic justification. Foundationalism holds that some beliefs are 

incorrigible and infallible and so do not need to be justified; those 

beliefs are said to be self-evident or derived from intuition.35 It 

suffices to say that prejudices act like foundational belief, that the 

epistemic agent, tend not to seek their justification because they are 

believed to be self-justifying or intuitive. However, it is precisely for 

this reason that foundationalism is criticized as an incomplete theory 

of justification. The most evident albatross for this theory is how 

some beliefs are infallible. Similarly, in seeking justification and 

freedom from prejudicial dysfunctions, when all our beliefs are 

interrogated and a warrant is provided for them, then, our knowledge 

claims can be genuine. This is precisely the advocacy of 

contextualism as a theory of epistemic justification which Anselm 

Jimoh subscribes and promotes. 

 It suffices to say, that Jimoh Anselm’s devotion in 

epistemology is for clearer grounds of belief or certitude and 



      Prejudicial Dysfunctions, Epistemic Practices and Priestly…       15 

dismantling grounds for doubt. This is the focus of what can be 

regarded as opus magnum or one of his most cited work, Certitude 

and Doubt: A Study Guide in Epistemology.36 Through this work, he 

treats key themes in epistemology which can aid the acquisition of 

certitude in our knowledge claims and the diminishing or elimination 

of doubts in epistemology. It suffices to say that Jimoh devotes 

special attention to African Epistemology. African Epistemology 

takes to cognizance the epistemic peculiarities of the African man as 

an epistemic agent. It, therefore, analyses issues, concepts and 

perspectives in epistemology from an African perspective. In fact, he 

advanced in one of his papers, “An African Theory of Knowledge”. 37 

In this work, he reinforces his position advanced by his subscription 

to the contextualist thesis of justification by further advancing that 

“our knowledge claims among traditional Africans are not validated 
in objectivist terms, as required by rationalists and empiricists, but 

with regards to the habits and customs of the people.38 It suffices to 

cite Jimoh in some details: 

 

Justification in African epistemology is culture-bound 

and therefore context-dependent. The truth-value or 

falsity of our epistemic claims is ultimately dependent 

on factors that are human, social and culture-based. 

An appraisal of the factors discussed above gives us a 

clear assessment of rational certainty. African 

epistemologists should consider the role played by the 

human person and the society in establishing our 

knowledge claims. There are no epistemic claims 

whose justification rests wholly on the prescribed 

objectivist terms of the rationalist and empiricist as 

seen in traditional Western epistemology. If the 

justification of our knowledge claims is situated 

within social practices, we would no longer think of 

knowledge, truth and rational certainty in abstract 

terms. Therefore, there would be no need to study 

these concepts independent of the factors alleged as 

necessary conditions for human knowledge.39 

 

The submission of Jimoh with reference to the justification of our 

knowledge claims is that both the social and cultural parameters must 



16     Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

be assessed and analysed if we must get at genuine knowledge. This 

is giving a place to the context in seeking justification. When we have 

an objective lens with which we want to see or pursue certainly, we 

cannot but create stereotypes or have set foundations with which each 

situation is judged. This is what fosters prejudice; making judgements 

from stereotypes. If we can examine issues and epistemic contents 

within each given context, as Jimoh advances, we certainly would be 

on a path for a holistic epistemic portrait in our epistemic practices.  

The contributions of Jimoh apart from advancing a picture for 

our search for certitude has also helped in reconstructing, what he 

considered as fractured indigenous knowledge systems (IKS). By 

indigenous knowledge system, Jimoh explicates is “the system of 
investigating, understanding, assimilating and attributing African 

conception of reality that is distinctively African and philosophical.”40 

As part of his project in pursuit of genuine knowledge and certainty, 

Jimoh seeks to also reconstruct the fractured epistemological template 

by which Africans evaluate their epistemic experiences. This was a 

kind of objective lens with which they investigate, interrogate and 

evaluate knowledge practices. Western logic, models and paradigms 

were the objective epistemological lens African hitherto used. This he 

believed caused epistemological silencing41, which is also known as 

epistemic injustice. This epistemic injustice which was caused by the 

bequest of a monochrome logic of western epistemology as either a 

lens, foundation or stereotype for evaluating African indigenous 

knowledge practices fractured our African epistemology. His efforts 

at a reconstruction of the fractured epistemology were advocacy of 

taking the African context, culture and circumstances to cognizance. 

This is a further search of genuine knowledge in African 

epistemology and the breaking down of the walls of stereotypes and 

prejudices which impair our vision for a holistic epistemic picture. 

It suffices to say that Jimoh’s quest for genuine knowledge is 
also evident in his contributions to the priestly formation and 

vocation. One very notable important contribution to this is in his 

article, “Priestly Formation in the Face of Contemporary Challenges 
in Nigeria: Lessons for Consideration in Auchi Diocese”42. He 

highlights some misgivings in priestly formation today and advanced 

ways for a correct understanding of what it should be. He notes: 

‘redefining the priesthood is not an option. If things are not as they 
should be, the option is to go back to the roots and make them what 



      Prejudicial Dysfunctions, Epistemic Practices and Priestly…       17 

they ought to be”.43 It is clear that the vision of Jimoh over time has 

been the reconstruction of fracture epistemic templates both for how 

we arrive at knowledge claims and what the priesthood should be. 

 

Concluding Remarks 

This paper has discussed common dysfunctions in our epistemic 

practices and how they lead to prejudice. It has been elaborately 

stated in this paper that prejudice refracts our understanding and 

impairs us from achieving a holistic epistemic picture. Although 

prejudice, at least, philosophically speaking is not itself negative, 

however, when used as an end, a judgment in itself, it always brings 

about an incomplete or partial understanding. Stereotypes reinforce 

prejudice and until we get rid of stereotypes, our understanding will 

keep being impaired by prejudice, what Francis Bacon calls the “idols 
of the mind”. Taking a seminary as an epistemic community as this 
work has established, both stereotypes and prejudice can refract a 

balanced view of things and the consequence is harms and wrongs 

done at certain levels. Apart from various harms and wrongs certainty 

or genuine knowledge also becomes scarce. The pursuit for 

knowledge that is warranted has become exigent in contemporary 

analytic epistemology since the epochal challenge by Edmund 

Gettier44 that the tripartite traditional conditions for knowledge, 

namely, “belief”, “truth” and “justification” although individually and 
jointly necessary, are not always jointly sufficient for knowledge. 

With Gettier’s hypothetical interrogation of the traditional 

understanding of knowledge, it has become expedient to tighten the 

grounds for our knowledge claims. This is the concern for “genuine 
knowledge”. Prejudice can sometimes lead to knowledge but one that 
is not warranted. Hence, the focus in contemporary analytic 

epistemology for genuine knowledge.  

 Anselm Jimoh, the silver jubilarian is a consummate 

epistemologist who has pursued the vision for genuine knowledge in 

epistemology as an intellectual focus in general and in different 

epistemic contexts in particular. With his advocacy of epistemic 

contextualism, he has made clearer the vision for genuine knowledge 

as an epistemic possibility. Through his works, he has pursued 

activism against the objectification of means for knowledge. He 

further has self-engaged in a reconstruction of fractured epistemic 

portraits of different epistemic pictures, including those fractured by 



18     Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

stereotypes and prejudice. His epistemic template of contextual-

dependency for justification of our knowledge is what this work has 

advanced for a reconstruction of the fractured epistemic situations in 

priestly formation. In synopsis, therefore, in priestly formation, the 

taking of an individual context, background and situations are 

important if we must get the best from the formation process. In our 

epistemic transactions in priestly formation, if we undermine context, 

there would be different harms, wrongs and deficits that would be 

incurred in the process. Therefore, each epistemic interaction must be 

subject to individual contextual clarification, interrogation and 

justification. If we keep having beliefs that are foundational or 

incorrigible, then we cannot make the most from our epistemic 

exchanges. But, if we subscribe to the advocacy of Anselm Jimoh for 

context-based interaction and justification in our epistemic practices, 

then, even if we cannot get a complete or holistic epistemic picture or 

certitude, we are sure to have diminished the embers of errors and 

wrongs in our epistemic exchange. The resultant outcome would be a 

healthy outlook and basis for discussing other issues in priestly 

formation. 

 

 

Endnotes 
                                                           
1 Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, 

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 
2 Mirander Fricker, “Precis- Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of 

Knowing”  in Theoria, 61, 2008: 69-71 
3 Anja Steinbauer, “The False Mirror: A Brief History of Prejudice” in 
Philosophy Now, Issue 123, December 2017/January 2018, retrieved  on 

October 13, 2019 

https://philosophynow.org/issues/123/The_False_Mirror_A_Brief_History_of_P

rejudice  
4 René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, ed. Stanley Tweyman, New 

York: Routlegde, 1993, p. 36, translated by Elisabeth S Haldane and G.R.T 

Ross). 
5 Voltaire on Prejudice as cited in “Prejudice, Philosophies and Language: 
Spinoza and His strategy of Liberation”, Conference Proceedings in Nordicum-

Mediterraneum, Icelandic E-Journal of Nordic and Meditterranean Studies 

https://nome.unak.is/wordpress/volume-12-no-3-2017/conference-proceeding-

volume-12-no-3-2017/prejudices-philosophies-language-spinoza-strategies-

liberation/#_edn2 



      Prejudicial Dysfunctions, Epistemic Practices and Priestly…       19 

                                                                                                                                  
6 Anja Steinbauer, “The False Mirror: A Brief History of Prejudice” Ibid. 
7 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method,  second, revised edition, London: 

Continuum, 1975. p. 270 
8 Cynthia R. Nielsen, “Gadamer and Fricker on Prejudice and Testimonial 
Injustice” in 
https://www.academia.edu/40149778/Gadamer_and_Fricker_on_Prejudice_and

_Testimonial_Injustice 
9 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 271 
10 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 273 
11 Cynthia R. Nielsen, “Gadamer and Fricker on Prejudice and Testimonial 
Injustice” Ibid. 
12 Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, 9-17 
13 Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, 9 
14 Michael Foucault contests this understanding of power as operative even 

when not put into use. Foucault generally holds that power exists only when put 

into action. See, Michael Foulcault, Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, 

Hemel Hempstead: Haverster Press, 1982. 
15 Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing,  13 
16 Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing,  14 
17 Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing,  14 
18 Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing,  14 
19 Gregory J Kelly and Peter Licona, “Epistemic Practices and Science 
Education” in Michael R. Matt History, Philosophy and Science Education, 

Dordrecht: Springer International Publishing, 2018. 139-165. 
20 Gregory J. Kelly and Peter Licon, “Epistemic Practices and Science 
Education” Ibid. 
21 Knorr Cetina, K. “Knowledge Cultures” in M. Jacobs and N Weiss Hanrahan 
(Eds), The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology,  Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. 

65-79. See also, Inger Eriksson and Viveca Lindberg, “Enriching ‘learning 
activy with ‘epistemic practices’- enhancing students’ epistemicy agency” in 
Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 2016, 1, 

DOI:10.3402/nstep.v2.32432 
22 Ian James Kidd and Havi Carel dissussed this kind of situation happening in 

conditions of illness or healthcare and medicine. This is discussed in at least two 

of their papers, namely, Ian James Kidd and Havi Carel “Epistemic injustice and 
Illness” in David Coady and Miranda Fricker (eds.), Applied Epistemology,  a 

special issue of the Journal of Applied Philosophy, 33 (4), 2016, 172-190. Also, 

Havi Carel and Ian James Kidd, “Epistemic Injustice in medicine and 
Healthcare, in Ian James Kidd, Jose Medina and Gaile Pohlhaus, (eds.) The 

Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice, New York: Taylor and Francis 

Group, 2017, 336-346. 
23 Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustic: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, 35 



20     Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

                                                                                                                                  
24 Ian James Kidd and Havi Carel, “Epistemic Injustice and Illness” in David 
Coady and Miranda Fricker (ed), Ibid, 177. See also, Miranda Fricker, Epistemic 

Injustic: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, 47-48. 
25 See, Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, 

17 
26 Jose Medina, “ Varieties of Hermeneutical Injustice” in Ian James Kidd, Jose 
Medina and Gaile Pohlhaus, The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice, 

ibid. 41. 
27 Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, 1 
28 Ben Kotzee, “Education and Epistemic Injustice” in in Ian James Kidd, Jose 
Medina and Gaile Pohlhaus, The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice, 

ibid. 326 
29 The Matthew Effect is based on the biblical principle of St. Matthew “for unto 
everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him 

that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”—Matthew 25:29 
30 Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success,  New York: Little, Brown 

and Company, 2008, 15-34 
31 Ben Kotzee, “ Education and Epistemic Injustice”, 327 
32Jimoh Anselm, “On the Question of Justification in Knowledge Enquiry” in 
Nasara Journal of Philosophy (NAJOP), 2.1, 2017, 9-25 
33 Jimoh Anselm, “On the Question of Justification in Knowledge Enquiry” 10 
34 Jimoh Anselm, “Context-Dependency of Human Knowledge: Justification of 

An African Epistemology” in West African Journal of Philosophical Studies, 

vol. 2, 1999, 18-37 
35 Kolawole Owolabi, “The Nature of Epistemology” in Issues and Problems in 

Philosophy, Kolawole Owolabi (ed.), Ibadan: Grovacs Network, 2000, 64. 
36 Jimoh Anselm, Certitude and Doubt: A Guide in Epistemology,  Ibadan: 

Ebony Books and Kreations, 2013. This text has been revised and expanded in 

its second edition, Jimoh Anselm, Certitude and Doubt: A Guide in 

Epistemology,  Benin: Floreat Systems, 2017.. 
37 Jimoh Anselm, “An African Theory of Knowledge” in Themes, Issues and 

Problems in African Philosophy,  Isaac Ukpokolo (ed), Switzerland: Palgrave 

Macmilliam, 2017, 121-136. 
38 Jimoh Anselm, “An African Theory of Knowledge”, 135. 
39

 Jimoh Anselm, “An African Theory of Knowledge”, 138 

40 Jimoh Anselm, “Reconstructing a Fractured Indigeneous Knowledge System” 
in Synthesis Philosophica, 65 .1,  2018. 5–22 
41 Jimoh Anselm, “Reconstructing a Fractured Indigeneous Knowledge System” 
Ibid, 5 
42 Jimoh Anselm, “Priestly Formation in the Face of Contemporary Challenges 
in Nigeria: Lessons for Consideration in Auchi Diocese” in J. A. Onimhawo and 
F. E. Ikhianosime (eds), Diocese of Auchi at Ten: History, Growth and 

Perspectives, Ibadan: Safmos Publishers, 2013. 31-53. 



      Prejudicial Dysfunctions, Epistemic Practices and Priestly…       21 

                                                                                                                                  
43 Jimoh Anselm, “Priestly Formation in the face of Contemporary Challenges in 
Nigeria…”, 53 
44

 Edmund Gettier, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?"  Analysis 23. 6 

(1963): 121-123 


