Essays in collective epistemology / edited by Jennifer Lackey.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Lackey, Jennifer, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social epistemology.

Knowledge, Theory of.

Knowledge, Sociology of.

Physical Description:

vi, 253 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2014.

Summary:

We often talk about groups believing, knowing, and testifying. For instance, we ask whether the Bush Administration had good reasons for believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, or whether BP knew that its equipment was faulty before the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Epistemic claims of this sort often have enormously significant consequences, given the ways they bear on the moral and legal responsibilities of collective entities. Despite the importance of these epistemic claims, there has been surprisingly little philosophical work shedding light on these phenomena, their consequences, and the broader implications that follow for epistemology in general. Essays in Collective Epistemology aims to fill this gap in the literature by bringing together new papers in this area by some of the leading figures in social epistemology. The volume is divided into four parts and contains ten articles written on a range of topics in collective epistemology. All of the papers focus on fundamental issues framing the epistemological literature on groups, and offer new insights or developments to the current debates: some do so by providing novel examinations of the epistemological relationship that groups bear to their members, while others point to new, cutting edge approaches to theorizing about concepts and issues related to collective entities. Anyone working in epistemology, or concerned with issues involving the social dimensions of knowledge, should find the papers in this book both interesting and valuable. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part I The Debate between Summativists and Non-Summativists

1 Social Process Reliabilism: Solving Justification Problems in Collective Epistemology / Alvin I. Goldman Goldman, Alvin I. 11

2 When Is There a Group that Knows? Distributed Cognition, Scientific Knowledge, and the Social Epistemic Subject / Alexander Bird Bird, Alexander 42

3 A Deflationary Account of Group Testimony / Jennifer Lackey Lackey, Jennifer 64

Part II General Epistemic Concepts in the Collective Domain

4 How to Tell if a Group Is an Agent / Philip Pettit Pettit, Philip 97

5 The Stoic Epistemic Virtues of Groups / Sarah Wright Wright, Sarah 122

6 Disagreement and Public Controversy / David Christensen Christensen, David 142

Part III Individual and Collective Epistemology

7 Social Roots of Human Knowledge / Ernest Sosa Sosa, Ernest 167

8 Belief, Acceptance, and What Happens in Groups: Some Methodological Considerations / Margaret Gilbert Gilbert, Margaret, Daniel Pitchman Pitchman, Daniel 189

Part IV Collective Entities and Formal Epistemology

9 Individual Coherence and Group Coherence / Rachael Briggs Briggs, Rachael, Fabrizio Cariani Cariani, Fabrizio, Kenny Easwaran Easwaran, Kenny, Branden Fitelson Fitelson, Branden 215

10 When to Defer to Supermajority Testimony-and When Not / Christian List List, Christian 240.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780199665792

0199665796

OCLC:

898752702