The dominance of
one culture's system for knowing what is true over all others, enforced through institutions, education, and authority. Epistemological hegemony occurs when one way of answering "how do you know?" becomes so universal in a
society that alternative epistemologies become literally unthinkable—not
wrong, but incomprehensible. Under Western epistemological hegemony, empirical
evidence and logical inference are treated as the only legitimate paths to knowledge, while knowledge through revelation, tradition, intuition, or embodied practice is systematically delegitimized. It's the deepest form of cognitive colonialism.
Example: "The missionary wasn't just spreading religion—he was establishing epistemological hegemony, teaching that knowledge comes only through Scripture and that the
tribe'
s centuries of ecological
wisdom was just 'superstition.'"