An Epistemic-Consequentialist Social Epistemology as an Epistemological Perspective Concerning the Investigation of a Common, European Knowledge Community

Abstract

Since epistemology has traditionally been heavily individualistic in focus, the investigation of a European space of knowledge, which has its focus on a specific European space of knowledge production and on processes of knowledge exchange and dissemination in Europe, and hence on social dimensions of knowledge, at first sight does not seem to be a task of modern epistemology. However, from the 1970s on a new branch of epistemology was gradually established which tries to investigate social conditions of knowledge and cognition: Social epistemology. Based on a critical reflection of the two opposing fundamental positions in this field, revisionism and preservationism-expansionism, this chapter sketches an account of social epistemology, a so-called “epistemic-consequentialist social epistemology”, which might be expected to provide a suitable framework for further epistemological investigations concerning a common European knowledge community. Following Alvin Goldman’s veritistic social epistemology, this account seeks to investigate social-epistemic practices regarding their epistemic outputs while trying to overcome the shortcomings of Goldman’s theory. That is to say, it presumes a classic concept of knowledge, which includes the justification condition, it stays open to an integration of epistemic relevant values other than knowledge, and it dispenses with a precise numerical quantification of a social-epistemic practice’s epistemic output. Instead, an epistemic-consequentialist analysis of social-epistemic practices is based on rational considerations, aimed at plausibly qualifying a practice’s epistemic output as better or worse in comparison to one of another social-epistemic practice regarding the same range of applications.