Abstract
In spite of the booming interest in social epistemology, explicit analyses of group knowledge remain rare. Most existing accounts are based on theories of joint intentionality. I argue that this approach, though not without merit or useful applications, is inadequate both when it comes to accounting for actual group knowledge attributions and for purposes of meliorative social epistemology. As an alternative, I outline a liberal, de-intellectualized account, which allows for the complex distribution of epistemic states typical of most real-world collectives, and makes minimal requirements as to the psychological underpinnings of collective states of knowing and the formal features of groups. The account is inspired by theories of distributed and extended cognition. It is guided by the principle that we should use the same standard when dealing with social and individual epistemology. Careful attention to what is normally required—and, in particular, not required—for attributing knowledge to individuals lends support the more liberal view.
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Notes
This holds even for work that appears to be explicitly concerned with group knowledge, like the papers of Goldman (2004) and List (2005). Symptomatically, Lackey’s (2012) account of “paradigmatic instances of group knowledge attributions” is presented more as a means for correcting certain views of knowledge in general than as positive theory of collective knowledge. Of all the extant accounts, Bird (2010) comes closest to mine, both by being fairly directly concerned with collective knowledge and, not least, by being more liberal than the received view, acknowledging the division of epistemic labor typical of most real-world cases. An earlier, sketchier version of my own account was presented in Klausen (2010). Tollefsen (2002) has defended a reliabilist account that bears some resemblance to mine, but remains focused on group intentionality and justification on group beliefs. Hardwig’s (1985) ideas about “epistemic dependence” also pointed in a similar direction.
Huebner (2014) advocates a partial skepticism, arguing that group mentality is, in principle, a sound notion, but that it is seldom instantiated in the real world, and that many attributions of mental states to groups found in the literature should be read rather as a shorthand for more complicated claims about the group members. Rupert (2005, 2011, forthcoming) also argues for a tentative skepticism.
Though some proponents of the joint intentionality approach may also have acknowledged its limitations as a basis for a full-fledged, explicit theory of knowledge (Klausen 2010).
Examples include Schmitt (1994), Tuomela (2004, 2007), Mathiesen (2006) (though she requires epistemic collectives to be jointly committed to a method rather than to a believing a proposition), List and Petitt (2011) (though they make a number of mitigating statements—e.g. pointing to the potential benefits of distributed cognition (ibid. p. 97) and allowing that a group “may form and enact certain attitudes without all its members jointly intending that these particular attitudes be formed and enacted” (ibid., p. 35)—they do require that group members be “licensed by the group” (loc. cit.), and they do come very close to making a joint intention requirement [ibid., p. 33)].
The specific term “joint commitment” is associated with the work of Gilbert, but all those to whom I attribute the received view have adopted similar notions. Thus Schmitt speaks about “a willingness to act jointly” (1994, p. 260), and Tuomela uses the term “collective commitment” (2004, p. 113; 2007, p. 5). As I use the notion of joint commitment, it carries no specific Gilbertian connotations, but simply refers to a situation where each member of a group is committed some belief or action in a specifically “collective” sense, i.e. with a (perhaps implicit) understanding that it ought to be held by, or carried out by, the group.
See e.g. (Tuomela (2007), pp. 20, 35).
Huebner (2014) acknowledges the distributed character of scientific work and the typical disunity of scientific communities, but argues (following Kukla 2012) that because of the resulting lack of accountability, the outcome of such processes should not count as knowledge (p. 214). Tollefsen (2014) rightly points out that this argument depends on an internalist view of knowledge as requiring access to reasons. Like she, I favour a reliabilist approach; but even a more relaxed version of internalism, which allows for the distribution of epistemic factors within the group, could license the ascription of knowledge to scientific communities or research groups. Huebner does acknowledge that in some cases of actual scientific collaboration, we might correctly ascribe genuine knowledge to the group in question (2014, pp. 250ff.), but only because it meets something like a joint commitment–requirement.
It may be said to be more of an open question whether there are higher-order requirements on individual knowledge. Quite a few philosophers have maintained such requirements for belief (for a survey and convincing criticism of such views—which can be found in the work of Sellars, Davidson, Shoemaker, Haugeland, Brandom and Williams—see Kornblith 2012, pp. 42ff.). Still, it seems that there is a tendency within mainstream analytic epistemology to make relatively modest requirements in terms of reflection and metacognition, in order to be able to accommodate cases of unsophisticated knowers. Besides, if one is attracted to some kind of higher-order requirement, a suitable analogue in the field of collective knowledge would be to require that within the group, some individual has to be able and disposed to critically monitoring the group’s first-order processes—that is, a distributed reflective capacity. This is still significantly weaker than the full reflexivity requirement.
Phelan et al. (2012) claim that there is a significant difference between attributions of mental states to groups and to individuals, because in the latter case, people do not tend to paraphrase statements about an individual’s mental states into e.g. statements about her neurons. But this could be because the ontological dependence of a group on its members is much more obvious and straightforward than the ontological dependence of e.g. a belief state on an assembly of neurons. And the contention of Phelan, Arico and Nichols that when we attribute mental states to an individual, we take them to be ”fully hers” (p. 711), requires elaboration and is far from obviously correct (we probably do not assume them to be particularly “pervasive”, “central”, “integrated” or whatever else could be meant by that phrase, apart from their being simply her mental states). Moreover, the fact that I am concerned not with mental states as such, but with knowledge states, makes these considerations less relevant to my proposal.
Bird (2010) draws the same analogy.
It is a version of an example first given by Tollefsen (2007).
Corlett (1996) takes the opposite line, arguing—quite implausibly, because overly restrictive—that collective knowledge requires that each member of the collective knows the target belief individually.
(Dretske (1969), Chap. 3) and (Cassam (2007), pp. 27–50) have championed a notion of epistemic perception, arguing that seeing that \(b\) is \(F\) is itself a way of knowing that \(b\) is \(F\). (Williamson (2001), pp. 33ff.) takes knowledge to be the most general factive mental state, making it encompass states likes seing or feeling something.
If we expand the unit of assessment to include the higher CIA authorities, we must of course say that the CIA did not know. But in that case, the summative condition is no longer met.
While the summative account obviously fails as an account of group knowledge in the strong, demanding sense associated wit the standard view, it does not only fail in such cases. It is even less appropriate for cases of genuinely distributed knowledge. Hence the summative-non-summative distinction does not match the distinction between the liberal and the received view (thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me on this point).
In a strong sense of “sharing”. Of course they do share it, if this means simply having the same items of knowledge. But they do not know qua group. I do not think, however, that this gives us reason to not treat such a group as a genuine subject of knowledge ascriptions (pace the suggestions of an anonymous reviewer). Apart from the evidence from linguistic usage, the no double standard-principle also tells against such a move, since we do not require a high degree of reflexive consciousness in cases of individual knowledge attribution. Note, however, that my theory is can accommodate the point that knowing collectively is a distinctive kind of collective knowledge, as it acknowledges the standard view as a fitting description of an important subspecies of group knowledge.
Note, however, that my account does not really commit one to accept the extended mind-hypothesis, even though it is inspired by it. One might maintain that only internal processes count as cognition, but deny that epistemic states supervene on cognitive processes.
Huebner (2014) seem to agree with these requirements, but is more skeptical about the extent to which they are met. Part of this disagreement stems from Huebner’s being concerned with collective mentality, whereas I am concerned with collective knowledge (and do no think the latter needs any very robust psychological foundation). Part of it stems from Huebner’s making, apparently, stricter requirements for explanatory usefulness than I would like to do. This points to the issue of different levels of reality (i.e. is it still legitimate to speak of “mental” or “collective” reality, even if the entities in question are wholly reducible to “lower-level” entities?), the relationship between fundamental and special sciences etc., which I cannot go into here. For relevant criticism of Huebner, see Tollefsen (2014). To resolve the disagreement conclusively, I would have to provide a detailed analysis of concrete cases. As long as it has not been shown that the requirements are widely met, even my permissive account may not suffice to fend off skepticism. This, however, is also a common predicament of theories of individual and group knowledge. But in both cases, softening the requirements will of course make it more likely that they are actually met.
(Simon (1982), p. 43) likewise notes that by including social relations and dispositions among the explanatory factors, methodological individualists are able to make their theories compatible with non-reductionist views of social phenomena.
Note, however, that if one opts for an internalist version of the theory, J will necessarily comprise mental states, and so the psychology requirement will be fulfilled.
Though of course it may be argued that a high price can be worth paying for other than epistemic—e.g. moral or political—reasons.
Famously emphasized by Axelrod (1984) as opposite tendencies that are both required for successful cooperation.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Peter Graham, Eric Schwitzgebel, Esben Nedenskov Petersen, Kay Mathiesen, Don Fallis, Bryce Huebner audiences at the University of Arizona and University of California, Riverside, and two thorough and unusually constructive anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions and comments.
Work on this paper was supported by a grant from the European Union Interreg 4a Project NexusPro2017.
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Klausen, S.H. Group knowledge: a real-world approach. Synthese 192, 813–839 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-014-0589-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-014-0589-9