Abstract

In this paper, I present an account of group competence that is explicitly framed for cases of epistemic performances. According to it, we must consider group epistemic competence as the group agents’ capacity to produce knowledge, and not the result of the summation of its individual members’ competences to produce knowledge. Additionally, I contend that group competence must be understood in terms of group normative status. To introduce my view, I present Jesper Kallestrup’s (Synthese 1–19, 2016) denial that group competence involves anything over and beyond the aggregation of individual competences. I have divided my response into two parts. First, I compare two conceptions of competence from Ernest Sosa’s reliabilist virtue epistemology (Sosa in Philos Stud 142:5–15, 2009; Philos Perspect 24:465–475, 2010a; Knowing full well, Princeton University Press, 2010b; Judgment & agency, Oxford University Press, 2015; Epistemology, Princeton University Press, 2017; in: Silva-Filho, Tateo (eds), Thinking about oneself: The place and value of reflection in philosophy and psychology, Springer, 2019) and David Löwenstein’s (Know-how as competence. A Rylean responsibilist account, Vittorio Klostermann, 2017) account of know-how. Second, I take the results from this comparison and apply them to the issue of group know-how, by the hand of Orestis Palermos and Deborah Tollefsen’s twofold approach to the topic (Palermos and Tollefsen, in: Carter, Clark, Kallestrup, Palermos, Pritchard (eds) Socially extended epistemology, Oxford University Press, 2018). Finally, I return to Kallestrup’s denial to make my point in favour of the conception of genuine group competence as the group normative status to achieve success.

Highlights

  • The capacity of groups of individuals to perform actions is a well-known phenomenon in the literature

  • I have defended an account of genuine group epistemic competence that identifies it with the group normative status that guides its performance when attempting to produce knowledge successfully

  • I suggested that the discussion may move forward by focusing on epistemic agency instead of getting stuck on the contentious issue of group belief

Read more

Summary

Introduction

The capacity of groups of individuals to perform actions is a well-known phenomenon in the literature. There are debates regarding whether this capacity results from aggregation (the summation of each member’s capacity) or integration (the reflection of irreducible group properties) This picture parallels another debate which focuses on one particular outcome that results from action: the nature of group propositional knowledge. According to this debate, the main question at issue is whether we should consider group knowledge in terms of summativism (as the summation of each member’s knowledge or the representation of the majority of the members’ knowledge) or some form of non-summativism (as the result of group knowledge that is not reducible to its members’ knowledge). I present an account of a group agent whose normative status instantiates its epistemic competence

Group knowledge
Group belief
Group epistemic agency
The crucial disanalogy
Summativist competences vs Non‐summativist knowledge
The first defence of group epistemic competence
Objection to the first response to the crucial disanalogy
A twofold account of group know‐how
Conclusion
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call