Talk:Social epistemology
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I have changed this page to split social epistemology in to two catagorys as the orginal artical didn't talk about the more radical claims of some social epistemologists who whant to talk not just of social tools for justification but who what to say that knowledge is (entierly) a social construct.
--JK the unwise 12:03, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've tightened up the language a bit in what there was, while preserving the basic two-part structure. I'm considering replacing "non-radical" with "classical" on the model of the Stanford Enc., but I want to think about that for a bit. Added Fuller, who is obviously part of the scene. I think it would be useful to introduce a section on the issues that define both the major divisions already identified, a the smaller divisions within each group, i.e., the current topics of controversy and research problems. Also, a historical sketch will be useful. Here it will be important to point out that SE is one (or several) of many ways of taking the impact of Kuhn and Foucault on the philosophy of science seriously.
--Peloria 23:13, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Big Changes
I'm working this article over in substantial ways over the next couple of days. (I' also Peloria, by the way.) I think I've found a way to maintain the substance of the original article, while making the division in into radical/non-radical less presumptuous (or normative) and more descriptive, wedding it to the two key journals and two key figures. I think most of the people who would feel left out, don't really mind not being signature "social epistemologists". But I guess we'll find out. I think this could be an interesting exercise in social epistemology also.
--Thomas Basboll 13:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Cleaned up a bit, removed Goldman from intro, and Barnes altogether
I've removed Goldman from the introduction since he now constitutes a sort of POV in the main body. (When he says that SE means many different things, even this may apply only to his narrower range of interests.) Likewise, I've removed Bloor from the STS-oriented section, since he's really more an SSK type than an SE type. We may want to work both of these references back into the text, perhaps by pointing to points of contact between social epistemology and other movements. Here's the text I cut:
- As the philosopher Alvin Goldman has pointed out, "many individual writers and groups of writers have sharply divergent views on what social epistemology is or should be"1,
- Knowledge, on this view, is better understood as a "collectively accepted system of belief"2
This leaves some clean up in the notes to be done, and we need to put together a reference list anyway.--Thomas Basboll 07:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Two or three kinds of SE?
I've taken out the footnote to the "two kinds" section since it contradicts it (and we should not have footnotes to headings). I suppose it's a real question, whether Remedios (Francisr10?) is right about the three kinds. But that's something we should achieve a consensus about. My view is that at the relevant level of abstraction there are only two kinds because I don't see SP as a version of SE but a version of SSK, which is part of the back story of SE but not itself part of the development. Anyway, at this point I've taken out the footnote because it results in contradiction.--Thomas Basboll 09:26, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Removed all of "two kinds" section
Francis Remedios has contacted me by email to object to the division of SE into two, not three kinds. The disagreement is substantial enough to warrant considering the matter further, so I've taken then whole section out and put it here. With the changes in the headings, the result actually seems quite nice. We can now put a bit more about SSK and the Strong Programme into the emergence section, and flesh out the current set of problematics in a less polarized fashion. Might work.--Thomas Basboll 07:57, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Two kinds of Social Epistemology
As the name suggests, social epistemology brings together some traditional concerns of sociology and philosophy. The difference between the two main strands of social epistemology can be understood as a difference of emphasis. One kind attempts to modify epistemology by introducing sociological concerns, the other attempts to modify sociology by introducing philosophical concerns. Naturally, both kinds engage in both activities. The differences here are matters of degree.
[edit] Philosophical SE
This approach to social epistemology is essentially the study of the contribution of various social mechanisms to the growth of knowledge. It takes the traditional conception of knowledge as the justified, true beliefs of individuals as a point of departure, augmenting it with the social factors that impinge on these beliefs. This approach is also essentially truth-orientated.
One central topic in social epistemology as thus construed is "testimony," construed broadly i.e. the habit we have of learning from other people. One central question in social epistemology is: assuming that we are very often justified in believing something based on the testimony of other people, where does this justification come from, and in particular, does it necessarily come from observations we have made regarding other people's reliability?
Some contemporary philosophers such as Helen Longino and Miriam Solomon, accepting epistemology's project of justifying knowledge, they have nonetheless argued that knowledge is not primarily held by individuals, but rather by social groups. For them, social processes (or, at least, processes with the approval of a community), are necessary for the justification of knowledge. This move away from knowledge as justified primarily by an individual's relationships to his beliefs and the world marks a departure from more traditional approaches to epistemology.
Jason Stanley's Knowledge and Practical Interests (2005) seems to fit nicely in this tradition.
[edit] Sociological SE
Another approach to social epistemology emerges from the successes of Science and Technology Studies. On this view, our improved understanding of the effects of social factors on the production of knowledge will have much more serious consequences for epistemology than analytic philosophers believe, forcing social epistemology to shift its emphasis properly outside of the purview of philosophy. The preference for talking neutrally about the "production" of knowledge rather than presumptively celebrating its "growth" is characteristic of this approach, and indicates its "sociological" bent. The goal is construct an account of how actual research communities work rather than developing a philosophical justification for their existence. Like their STS peers, their apply the empirical methods of sociology, anthropology, history, economics, psychology to this end to inform the insights of more normative disciplines such as rhetoric and philosophy.
While this naturally implies an empirical or descriptive approach to research communities, some, such as Steve Fuller, explicitly propose to "describe our cognitive pursuits for the sake of prescribing for them"5. That is, social epistemology is not just about describing how knowledge production works, but about coming up with ways to make it work better.
