Dr. Sonja Riegler
riegler@em.uni-frankfurt.de
Philosophy / Feminist & Political Epistemology / Critical Race Studies
About Me
I’m a postdoctoral fellow in philosophy at the Research Centre Normative Orders at Goethe University Frankfurt. My work sits at the intersection of social and political philosophy, feminist and political epistemology, empirically grounded epistemology, feminist philosophy of science, and critical race studies.
I completed my PhD at the University of Vienna. My dissertation, A Functionalist Approach to Ignorance, develops a novel framework for analyzing socially and politically significant forms of ignorance. Its main innovation is not to define ignorance, but to characterize it via its social and epistemic functions. The project is also applied, including a qualitative case study on the overlooked history of “guest worker” migration to Austria.
I also do some science journalism and co-host a philosophy podcast on Radio Orange 94.0 (Philosophische Brocken)
Research
Within feminist and political epistemology, my work focuses on epistemologies of ignorance, epistemic oppression, epistemic paternalism, and the epistemology of expertise. My current research brings bureaucracy into the field of political epistemology, examining knowledge practices, expertise, and power asymmetries in bureaucratic encounters. It is empirically grounded in a case study on migration bureaucracy and analyzes key epistemic processes such as classification and standardized judgment. I treat bureaucracy not merely as an administrative domain, but as a central site where political and epistemic processes are enacted, contested, and made consequential. Accordingly, my project develops a critical political epistemology of bureaucracy, offering a normative, empirically informed, and power-sensitive account of the epistemic foundations of administrative governance.
A second core strand of my research engages with epistemic injustice and oppression, building on my dissertation and subsequent publications. This includes work on resistant counter-knowledge (Riegler 2022) and, with Sophie Veigl, on “meaning dominance” and hermeneutical injustice (Social Epistemology, 2025).
Within (feminist) philosophy of science, I examine expertise, the relationship between science and democracy, as well as the role of values and bias in scientific practice. In a work-in-progress paper, I develop a framework for understanding “group ignorance” in science. I explore how collective forms of ignorance emerge in scientific communities and what it means for groups, especially loosely structured ones, to be ignorant as groups.
Find out more about my research via ORCID & PhilPeople below:
Selected Publications
“Meaning Dominance – When Polysemy Creates Hermeneutical Injustice” (2025)
In: Social Epistemology, DOI: 10.1080/02691728.2025.2595704
(with Sophie Juliane Veigl)
Abstract: In this paper, we introduce a novel type of hermeneutical injustice. Traditional renderings of hermeneutical injustice describe situations in which marginalised groups encounter gaps in collective epistemic resources or find that such resources do not address their specific experiences. Conversely, the phenomenon we trace arises when certain concepts are polysemous – they mean something different for different groups. This constitutes a hermeneutical injustice when, along a gradient of power/oppression, the dominant understanding of a particular term impedes marginalised groups from being understood. In this paper, we develop a meaning finitist model to capture the dynamics of polysemy-based hermeneutical injustice. We exemplify the process through the example of ‘detransitioning’. We explore the harms generated by this type of hermeneutical injustice and discuss concept pluralism and concept eliminativism as possible ways to address these harms.
“Interference By Whom? Advocating for Experienced-Based Forms of Expertise in Debates on Epistemic Paternalism” (forthcoming 2026)
In: The European Face of Political Epistemology, Palgrave MacMillan, Eds. Hana Samarzija & Robin McKenna
This paper critically examines the justification of epistemic paternalism (EP), especially
regarding expert interference in policymaking. It argues that current debates overlook two key aspects. First, understanding the legitimacy of EP requires a deeper analysis of the social mechanisms behind it, including the roles of situated knowledge, ignorance, and the division of epistemic labor. Second, the notion of who qualifies as an appropriate epistemic paternalist should be broadened beyond traditional high-level specialist expertise. In policymaking, scientific experts are essential for navigating uncertainty. And yet, social power structures influencing (the recognition of) expertise must be acknowledged. The chapter proposes that a more nuanced understanding of relevant expertise, including lived experience, will enrich discussions surrounding EP and improve policymaking processes. These arguments are illustrated with a case study from Austria, that is, the incorporation of the experiences, perspectives, and expertise of long-term domestic care workers into recent policy reforms.
IN PROGRESS – “A Functionalist Approach to Ignorance” (submitted to Episteme)
In this paper, I introduce a novel approach to the study of ignorance, the “functionalist approach”. My account builds on insights from a conceptual genealogy of ignorance, rooted in function-first and state-of-nature epistemology. In contrast to the definitional paradigm in epistemologies of ignorance, I present an account that prioritizes function over analysis. The functionalist approach also integrates insights from feminist epistemology and social theory. While I agree with feminist epistemologies in describing ignorance as a “substantive epistemic practice” (Alcoff, 2007), the functionalist approach refines these theories by identifying specific mechanisms through which ignorance functions as a practice. Additionally, my approach considers a range of social functions of ignorance, acknowledging that not all are negative or oppressive.
Other Work-in-progress papers:
• “Group Ignorance”
• “The Liberatory Value of Ignorance”
• Co-authored paper (with Arnisa Tepelija) on hierarchies of expertise and epistemic exclusion in EU enlargement processes, with a particular focus on Albania, forthcoming in Global Constitutionalism (2026).
• Article in progress for a special issue on political epistemology in Midwest Studies in Philosophy (eds. Michael Hannon & Elise Woodard), which situates bureaucratic expertise within existing typologies and examines where it converges with or departs from standard accounts of expertise.
Public Outreach
PRINT: Freelance journalism and science communication (Articles: Period Magazin, Falter, Standard)
RADIO: Radio host of a philosophical radio show at Radio Orange 94.0: Philosophische Brocken
Sonja Riegler 