From Doubt to Despair – A Wittgensteinian Perspective on Gaslighting

Abstract

‘Gaslighting’ describes a form of manipulation that induces doubt in someone’s perceptions, experiences, understanding of events or conception of reality in general. But what kind of doubt is it? How do ‘ordinary’ epistemic doubts differ from those doubts that can lead to despair and the feeling of losing one’s mind?

The phenomenon of ‘gaslighting’ has been attracting public attention for some time and has recently found its way into philosophical reflections that address moral, sexist and epistemic aspects of gaslighting. Little has been said, however, about the nature of gaslighting-induced doubts themselves, how they differ from ordinary, even ‘reasonable’ epistemic (self-) doubts and how it can come to someone doubting their own perception and conception of reality in the first place.

The aim of this paper is to shed some light on these aspects by drawing on some of Wittgenstein’s remarks on doubt, published mainly in On Certainty. To this end, I will first outline the phenomenon of gaslighting as an epistemic injustice before presenting Wittgenstein’s reflections on doubt(ing). These will then be applied to the phenomenon of gaslighting, with a more specific focus on the evocation of such fundamental self-doubt in successful gaslighting, again drawing on some of Wittgenstein’s remarks.

About Jasmin Trächtler

We are holding this seminar quite quickly after our first one of this year due to a special guest who is flying in from Dortmund, Germany -- Dr. Jasmin Trächtler, the former leader of BNKF. Jasmin is currently working on her post-doc at TU Dortmund. In this seminar, she will be presenting on the topic of gaslighting, describing it as an epistemic injustice before presenting some of Wittgenstein's reflections on doubt. This seminar should call for some very interesting discussions.