Social Epistemology
Social epistemology studies knowledge as a social achievement — how it depends on testimony, disagreement, trust, expertise, and institutions — extending epistemology beyond the solitary knower to the communities and power relations within which inquiry actually takes place.
Definition
Social epistemology is the branch of epistemology that studies the social dimensions and determinants of knowledge and justified belief, including testimony, peer disagreement, trust and expertise, the epistemic effects of social power, and the design of knowledge-producing institutions.
Scope
This area covers the epistemic significance of other people: how to respond to disagreement among peers, how social power distorts the giving and receiving of knowledge through epistemic injustice, and how laypeople rationally rely on experts and decide whom to trust. It also encompasses the social organisation of science as a knowledge-producing enterprise. The bilateral epistemology of testimony is treated as a source of knowledge in a neighbouring area, while this area pursues its collective and political dimensions.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- How should one revise one's beliefs on learning that an epistemic peer disagrees?
- How do social power and prejudice distort who is believed and who can make sense of their experience?
- On what basis can a non-expert rationally defer to and choose among experts?
- How do social practices and institutions help or hinder the production of knowledge?
Key theories
- Veritistic social epistemology
- Goldman evaluates social practices and institutions by their truth-conduciveness, asking which arrangements of testimony, argumentation, and information flow tend to produce more true beliefs in a community.
- Epistemic injustice
- Fricker identifies distinctively epistemic wrongs in which people are harmed in their capacity as knowers — testimonial injustice, when prejudice deflates a speaker's credibility, and hermeneutical injustice, when gaps in shared concepts leave experiences unintelligible.
- Science as social knowledge
- Longino argues that scientific objectivity is achieved socially, through critical interaction among differently situated inquirers, rather than by the isolated application of method by individuals.
History
Although the social character of knowledge was emphasised by Reid on testimony and by Peirce on the community of inquirers, social epistemology consolidated as a field in the late twentieth century. Goldman's 1999 veritistic program and the feminist epistemology of Longino reframed knowledge as social, and Fricker's 2007 account of epistemic injustice opened an ethically and politically engaged strand that has grown rapidly since.
Debates
- Truth-tracking versus political aims of social epistemology
- Veritistic approaches evaluate social practices solely by how well they promote true belief, while feminist and justice-oriented theorists argue that power, exclusion, and the ethics of credibility are central epistemic concerns in their own right, raising the question of what social epistemology is ultimately for.
Key figures
- Alvin Goldman
- Miranda Fricker
- Helen Longino
Related topics
Seminal works
- goldman1999
- frickermiranda2007
Frequently asked questions
- How does social epistemology differ from traditional epistemology?
- Traditional epistemology often models the knower as an individual reasoning in isolation. Social epistemology emphasises that most knowledge depends on others — through testimony, disagreement, trust, and institutions — and studies how these social factors and the power relations among inquirers shape what gets known.
- What is epistemic injustice?
- It is a wrong done to someone specifically in their capacity as a knower. Fricker distinguishes testimonial injustice, where prejudice causes a hearer to give a speaker less credibility than they deserve, from hermeneutical injustice, where a group lacks the shared concepts needed to make sense of and communicate their own experiences.