Online research in philosophy

A comparison is made between some epistemological issues arising in computer networks and standard features of social epistemology. A definition of knowledge for computational devices is provided and the topics of nonconceptual content and testimony are discussed.

This paper will first examine the different versions of social or socialized epistemology, a field that has gathered much support among epistemologists in recent years. After the necessary classification, the paper goes on to suggest that socialized epistemology could benefit from contemporary social theory, and Derek Layder's views are presented as especially fruitful in this respect. To give grounds for this suggestion, features of Layder's theory will be contrasted with certain shortcomings in 'conservative' and 'feminist' versions of socialized epistemology.

This volume will be of great interest to scholars and students in epistemology.

This paper lays the groundwork for normative-yet-naturalistic social epistemology. I start by presenting two scenarios for the history of epistemology since Kant, one in which social epistemology is the natural outcome and the other in which it represents a not entirely satisfactory break with classical theories of knowledge. Next I argue that the current trend toward naturalizing epistemology threatens to destroy the distinctiveness of the sociological approach by presuming that it complements standard psychological and historical approaches. I then try to reassert, in Comtean fashion, the epistemologist's credentials in regulating knowledge production. Finally, I consider how social epistemology may have something exciting and relevant to say about contemporary debates in the theory of knowledge.

More than one philosopher has expressed puzzlement at the very idea of feminist epistemology. Metaphysics and epistemology, sometimes called the 'core' areas of philosophy, are supposed to be immune to questions of value and justice. Nevertheless, many philosophers have raised epistemological questions starting from feminist-motivated moral and political concerns. The field is burgeoning; a search of the Philosopher's Index reveals that although nothing was published before 1981 that was categorized as both feminist and epistemology, soon after, the rate of publication in feminist epistemology rose to between 15 and 25 articles per year.1 At the same time, social epistemology was also beginning to grow as a separate identifiable field of inquiry.

The fifteen new essays presented in this volume aim to show the fertility and variety of social epistemology and to set the agenda for future research.

Margaret Egan and Jesse Hauk Shera's original conception of social epistemology has never been defined unambiguously, or developed significantly beyond its early formulation. An interesting consequence of this lack of conceptual clarity has been the application of several interpretations of social epistemology. This article discusses how social epistemology was linked with the ideology of apartheid, and with racially segregated library and information services in the Republic of South Africa. In a fraudulent scientific vision for librarianship, social epistemology was assigned a role that violated its original purpose. The intellectual content of social epistemology needs to be articulated in order to prevent further examples of such conceptual abuse. The paper ends with an attempt to do this with some suggestions based on Shera's own seminal ideas.

What is social epistemology? Or what might it be? According to one perspective, social epistemology is a branch of traditional epistemology that studies epistemic properties of individuals that arise from their relations to others, as well as epistemic properties of groups or social systems. A simple example (of the first sort) is the transmission of knowledge or justification from one person to another. Studying such interpersonal epistemic relations is a legitimate part of epistemology. A very different perspective would associate ‘social epistemology’ with movements in postmodernism, social studies of science, or cultural studies that aim to replace traditional epistemology with radically different questions, premises, or procedures. Although these enquiries examine the social contexts of belief and thought, they generally seek to debunk or reconfigure conventional epistemic concepts rather than illuminate the nature and conditions of epistemic success or failure. Under the first construal social epistemology is a bona fide part of the mainstream, and hence ‘real’ epistemology. Under the second construal, it is not part of epistemology at all. If protagonists of the latter-day movements marketed their products under the guise of epistemology, they would be imposters. Their products are not real epistemology. ‘Is social epistemology real epistemology?’ is a question posed by William Alston (2005). He raises it en passant, while noting that epistemology’s boundaries are controversial, drawn differently by different thinkers. To illustrate his point, he suggests that much of the material in my book on social epistemology, Knowledge in a Social World (Goldman 1999), ‘would be rejected by many contemporary epistemologists as ‘‘not real epistemology’’ ’ (Alston 2005: 5). The epistemologists in question, says Alston, would relegate much of this so-called social epistemology to sociology, social psychology, or other social sciences, or perhaps to the philosophical foundations thereof..

Social epistemology is an expanding sector of epistemology. There are many directions of expansion, however, and the rationales for them may vary. To illustrate the scope of social epistemology, consider the following topics that have occupied either whole issues or single articles in Episteme, A Journal of Social Epistemology: (1) testimony, (2) peer disagreement, (3) epistemic relativism, (4) epistemic approaches to democracy, (5) evidence in the law, (6) the epistemology of mass collaboration (e.g., Wikipedia), and (7) judgment aggregation. How can social epistemology (SE) be characterized so that all of these topics fit under its umbrella? Why does each topic qualify as epistemology and in what respects is it social? This paper begins by proposing a tripartite division of SE. Under this classification scheme the first variety of SE is highly continuous with traditional epistemology, whereas the second and third varieties diverge from the tradition to a lesser or greater extent. The divergences are not so great, however, as to disqualify their inclusion under the social epistemology heading. After explaining the proposed classification, the paper examines in greater depth the third variety of SE, systems-oriented SE, which is the least familiar and most adventurous form of SE.