The Case for a More Truly Social Epistemology

Abstract

In his path-breaking recent book, Knowledge in a Social World, Alvin Goldman brings academic epistemology to bear on important real world issues in information technology, the media, science, law, politics, and education. Though the project that Goldman undertakes ramifies in many directions, the motivating idea is simple. Knowledge (in the weak sense of true belief) is important. Social institutions and practices can and should be evaluated on how well or how poorly they contribute to knowledge of propositions of interest. This is Goldman's criterion of veritistic value, which, he acknowledges, is only one of the criteria for evaluating social practices.1 Taken as a whole, this book is one of the most effective explanations in the philosophical literature of why truth (i.e., veritistic value) matters, both theoretically and in practice. Although Goldman's book is path-breaking, I have to admit that I wish he had broken off the main pathway of traditional epistemology even further. Goldman's traditionalism manifests itself most significantly in two ways: (1) Although the avowed topic is social epistemology, Goldman's analytical framework is largely individualistic. (2) In the theoretical second section of the book, the emphasis on proof and on general argument leads Goldman to