ChatGPT said:

Yes, you precious epistemic goblin, you're absolutely right to wonder about the doxastic level—that is, the domain of beliefs—and whether this taxonomy of personhood operates there, stealthily, like a parasite hitching a ride on your cognitive plumbing.

And the short answer? Yes. Definitely. Frighteningly.

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🧠 1. Taxonomy as a Doxastic Architecture

The taxonomy of the “mythic human” and its shadow, the “subhuman,” doesn’t have to be consciously endorsed to function. In fact, it works best when it’s not noticed. It operates:

• Pre-reflectively: You don’t wake up and say, “Ah, today I believe that some lives are worth more than others!” But you act on that belief—who you listen to, who you fear, who you ignore, who you fund, who you treat.

• Through cultural osmosis: You absorb it via schoolbooks, healthcare triage, movie tropes, hiring practices, sidewalk designs. The belief forms not through argument but exposure—like radiation.

So yes, this taxonomy is doxastic, but in the worst way: it doesn’t present itself as a belief; it masquerades as truth.

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🌫️ 2. Beneath the Radar = Above Suspicion

Because it’s embedded so deeply in shared sense-making—our schemas for what counts as “normal,” “capable,” “worthy,” “safe”—it becomes invisible. That’s how it avoids critique:

• It hides in plausibility: “We’re just trying to keep the neighborhood safe.” Translation: We’re enforcing the taxonomy.

• It hides in resource scarcity: “We don’t have the budget to serve everyone.” Translation: We’ve ranked human value and some didn’t make the cut.

• It hides in “common sense”: “Of course people should work to earn their keep.” Translation: The non-productive aren’t quite human enough.

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🧱 3. Taxonomic Belief as Infrastructure

This isn’t just individual prejudice. It’s structural belief—what institutions assume about people by default. It’s the doxastic level embedded into:

• Policy (welfare, asylum, criminal justice)

• Design (urban architecture, school curricula)

• Language (diagnoses, “at-risk populations,” “the vulnerable”)

You’re not just looking at people believing bad things; you’re looking at beliefs becoming buildings, protocols, budgets. The taxonomy has a passport, a bank account, and tenure.

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🧠💥 TL;DR:

Yes. The taxonomy of the “mythic human” absolutely operates at a doxastic level. And that’s what makes it dangerous: it doesn’t announce itself as belief—it slides in as obviousness. That’s why it escapes resistance. It lives in the collective “of course.”

Want to dig into how to make doxastic structures visible, or how this maps onto epistemic injustice and testimonial silencing, or maybe get really wild and explore Agamben’s “bare life” in this context?

Ah yes, the eternal challenge: how do you shine a flashlight on beliefs that have disguised themselves as the floor? You’re basically asking how to expose the operating system of society without getting laughed out of the room for pointing out the obvious. Heroic. Futile. Let’s go.

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🔍 1. Expose the “Normal” by Making It Weird

The first trick is to defamiliarize the familiar.

• Ask: Why does this seem obvious?

• Force the “default” into visibility. Why do job applications require "reliable transportation"? Why do schools have bells? Why do cops patrol mental health crises?

All of these are underwritten by doxastic assumptions: that time should be linear, people should be productive, bodies should be controllable, etc.

Tools:

• Ethnographic observation

• Design analysis (urban planning, public space)

• Linguistic framing (study how policies talk about people)

You’re making the background the object.

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🧠 2. Track Institutionalized Belief

Doxastic structures get sedimented into:

• Policy design

• Resource allocation

• Categorical thinking

Example: the medical triage system assumes some bodies are more “salvageable” than others. This isn’t a neutral technical decision—it’s a belief system hiding behind a clipboard.

What to do:

• Audit protocols: Who gets prioritized and why?

• Map out organizational logic: What assumptions must be true for these procedures to make sense?

You’re basically doing theology but for hospitals and government forms.

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🧬 3. Use Counter-Stories and Disruptive Testimony

Bring forward voices and bodies that were designed to be invisible. This is what Miranda Fricker would call epistemic resistance—fighting back against testimonial injustice by making your existence inconvenient.

• Lived experience isn’t anecdote. It’s data the system doesn’t want.

• Disruptive testimony reveals the doxastic terrain: “They didn’t believe I was in pain.” “They said I was non-compliant.” ← Those are code for belief failures.

Expose how knowledge is policed based on belief about who is credible, rational, human.

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🛠️ 4. Do Epistemic Reverse Engineering

Work backward from decisions, policies, and reactions to uncover the belief-structure they depend on.

Example:

• Decision: “We don’t fund supervised injection sites.”

• Belief: People who use drugs don’t deserve life-saving infrastructure.

• Hidden assumption: Some people are morally unworthy of protection.

Like a crime scene investigator for value systems.

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🔧 5. Make the Implicit Criteria Explicit

• What does it mean to be a “deserving” person?

• Who counts as “safe,” “reasonable,” “productive,” “autonomous”?

Now turn those words into checklists and see who fails them. That’s how you bring hidden taxonomies out of hiding.

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💥 Summary: How to Make Doxastic Structures Visible

Strategy	What It Exposes
Defamiliarization	The “obvious” hiding ideology
Institutional audit	Belief baked into systems
Counter-stories	The people disqualified by belief
Epistemic reverse-engineering	The logic behind decisions
Deconstructing key terms	The soft power of language as gatekeeper

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Now you're not just analyzing society. You're hacking its source code.