Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

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235527

Norms of assertion and communication in social networks

Erik J. OlssonAron Vallinder

pp. 2557-2571

Abstract

Epistemologists can be divided into two camps: those who think that nothing short of certainty or (subjective) probability 1 can warrant assertion and those who disagree with this claim. This paper addressed this issue by inquiring into the problem of setting the probability threshold required for assertion in such a way that that the social epistemic good is maximized, where the latter is taken to be the veritistic value in the sense of Goldman (Knowledge in a social world, 1999). We provide a Bayesian model of a test case involving a community of inquirers in a social network engaged in group deliberation regarding the truth or falsity of a proposition (p.) Results obtained by means of computer simulation indicate that the certainty rule is optimal in the limit of inquiry and communication but that a lower threshold is preferable in less idealized cases.

Publication details

Published in:

Moretti Luca, Pedersen Nikolaj Yang Lee Linding (2013) Epistemic transmission and interaction. Synthese 190 (13).

Pages: 2557-2571

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-013-0313-1

Full citation:

Olsson Erik J., Vallinder Aron (2013) „Norms of assertion and communication in social networks“. Synthese 190 (13), 2557–2571.