Description
What if anything justifies us in believing the testimony of others? How should we react to disagreement between ourselves and our peers, and to disagreement among the experts when we ourselves are novices? Can beliefs be held by groups of people in addition to the people composing those groups? And if so, how should groups go about forming their beliefs? How should we design social systems, such as legal juries and scientific research-sharing schemes, to promote knowledge among the people who engage in them? When different groups of people judge different beliefs to be justified, how can we tell which groups are correct? These questions are at the heart of the vital discipline of social epistemology. The classic articles in this volume address these questions in ways that are both cutting-edge and easy to understand. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and students in epistemology.
Table of Contents
IntroductionBy Dennis WhitcombI. Conceptions of Social EpistemologyChapter 1. Alvin I. Goldman, "A Guide to Social Epistemology".Chapter 2. Paul Boghossian, "Epistemic Relativism Defended".Chapter 3. Miranda Fricker, "Rational Authority and Social Power: Towards a Truly Social Epistemology". II. Trust in Testimony and ExpertsChapter 4. Jennifer Lackey, "Testimony: Acquiring Knowledge from Others" .Chapter 5. Sanford C. Goldberg, "If that Were True I Would Have Heard It By Now".Chapter 6. Alvin Goldman, "Experts: Which Ones Should You Trust?".III. Reasonable Peer DisagreementChapter 7. Richard Feldman, "Reasonable Religious Disagreement".Chapter 8. Adam Elga, "Reflection and Disagreement".Chapter 9. Thomas Kelly, "Peer Disagreement and Higher Order Evidence" (selections).IV. Judgment AggregationChapter 10. Christian List, "Group Knowledge and Group Rationality".Chapter 11. Philip Pettit, "Groups with Minds of Their Own".V. Systems DesignChapter 12. Larry Laudan, "Thinking about Error in the Law".Chapter 13. Don Fallis, "Wikipistemology".Chapter 14. Cass R. Sunstein, "Deliberating Groups vs. Prediction Markets (or Hayek's Challenge to Habermas)".Chapter 15. Kevin J. S. Zollman, "The Communication Structure of Epistemic Communities".
