Modelling collective belief

Synthese 73 (1):185-204 (1987)
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Abstract

What is it for a group to believe something? A summative account assumes that for a group to believe that p most members of the group must believe that p. Accounts of this type are commonly proposed in interpretation of everyday ascriptions of beliefs to groups. I argue that a nonsummative account corresponds better to our unexamined understanding of such ascriptions. In particular I propose what I refer to as the joint acceptance model of group belief. I argue that group beliefs according to the joint acceptance model are important phenomena whose aetiology and development require investigation. There is an analogous phenomenon of social or group preference, which social choice theory tends to ignore.

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Margaret Gilbert
University of California, Irvine

Citations of this work

What Is Epistemic Public Trust in Science?Gürol Irzık & Faik Kurtulmuş - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (4):1145-1166.
Group Action Without Group Minds.Kenneth Silver - 2022 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (2):321-342.

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References found in this work

Convention: A Philosophical Study.David Kellogg Lewis - 1969 - Cambridge, MA, USA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Meaning.Stephen R. Schiffer - 1972 - Oxford,: Clarendon Press.
Languages and language.David K. Lewis - 1975 - In Keith Gunderson (ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. University of Minnesota Press. pp. 3-35.

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