Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

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235426

Epistemic dependence and collective scientific knowledge

Jeroen de Ridder

pp. 37-53

Abstract

I argue that scientific knowledge is collective knowledge, in a sense to be specified and defended. I first consider some existing proposals for construing collective knowledge and argue that they are unsatisfactory, at least for scientific knowledge as we encounter it in actual scientific practice. Then I introduce an alternative conception of collective knowledge, on which knowledge is collective if there is a strong form of mutual epistemic dependence among scientists, which makes it so that satisfaction of the justification condition on knowledge ineliminably requires a collective. Next, I show how features of contemporary science support the conclusion that scientific knowledge is collective knowledge in this sense. Finally, I consider implications of my proposal and defend it against objections.

Publication details

Published in:

Imbert Cyrille, Muldoon Ryan, Sprenger Jan, Zollman Kevin (2014) The collective dimension of science. Synthese 191 (1).

Pages: 37-53

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-013-0283-3

Full citation:

de Ridder Jeroen (2014) „Epistemic dependence and collective scientific knowledge“. Synthese 191 (1), 37–53.