Epistemic dependence and collective scientific knowledge

Jeroen De Ridder

pp. 37-53

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

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.