Knowledge on the Horizon: A Phenomenological Inquiry into the “Framing” of Rodney King

Abstract

Using the 1991 police beating of Rodney King as case study, this paper draws on Husserlian phenomenology to establish a coherentist account of knowledge as situated with respect to its concrete circumstances of production (e.g., social, cultural, historical, political). I take as my point of departure Gail Weiss’s phenomenological investigation into the jury’s assessment of evidence in the “Rodney King incident,” and in particular, her interest in Husserl’s conception of the “horizon” as a structure of consciousness that mediates what is present in perceptual awareness. Making use of Anthony Steinbock’s work on Husserlian phenomenological method – drawn from his extensive study of Husserl’s unpublished manuscripts – I develop an epistemological framework that treats knowledge claims as inextricably bound to the horizons of meaning from which they arise, and provides standards of epistemic responsibility pertaining to an agent’s “framing” of evidence.