Preface

Abstract

Extract This book has its origins in a class I taught on social epistemology at the University of Vienna in 2016. While preparing the class I was struck by a divide between two camps in social epistemology. One camp worked with idealized models of human beings, the social interactions between them, and the social spaces in which they interacted. This camp tended to focus on foundational issues in the epistemology of testimony (under what conditions am I justified in accepting what someone tells me?) and disagreement (what should I do when I learn that someone whom I regard as my epistemic peer disagrees with me?). While they acknowledged the importance of social interactions, this camp tended to view social interactions as a means of transferring epistemic goods (knowledge, information), and paid little attention to the ways in which social power differentials coloured and shaped these interactions. The other camp did not do these things. When they talked about the same issues as the first camp, their interests seemed different. They were less concerned with the foundational issues and more concerned with the ways in which social power differentials shaped testimonial and other social interactions. More generally, they wanted to ask different questions. In what ways are our systems of knowledge production and dissemination dysfunctional? How might we improve these systems? How do our social identities and situations influence the evidence to which we have access? Can epistemological frameworks and systems themselves be sources of oppression? Why is it that so many of us are ignorant of the reality of oppression and injustice? What can epistemology do to help us answer all these questions?