Epistemic dependence and collective scientific knowledge

• Autores: Jeroen de Ridder
• Localización: Synthese, ISSN-e 1573-0964, Vol. 191, Nº. 1, 2014, págs. 37-53
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • I argue that scientific knowledge is collective knowledge, in a sense to be specified and defended. I first consider some existing proposals for construing collective knowledge and argue that they are unsatisfactory, at least for scientific knowledge as we encounter it in actual scientific practice. Then I introduce an alternative conception of collective knowledge, on which knowledge is collective if there is a strong form of mutual epistemic dependence among scientists, which makes it so that satisfaction of the justification condition on knowledge ineliminably requires a collective. Next, I show how features of contemporary science support the conclusion that scientific knowledge is collective knowledge in this sense. Finally, I consider implications of my proposal and defend it against objections.