Social Epistemology: The Benefit of "We"

Social Epistemology: The Benefit of “We”

In many situations and events, many seek to find an individual to who will be praised for the success or criticized for the failure. Frequently, those in reflection ignore or either fail to recognize the collaborative efforts of many who initiated and developed such situations. A contemporary example is how most frequently blame President Barack Obama for negative events such as the current recession, and even simple things such as gas prices, welfare, ect. Many decide to ignore other political parties and politician that effect nationwide decisions. Also, the idea that decisions made in previous presidential tenures affect the range of resources the incumbent has to work with. Examples like this contribute to the overall idea that many fail to see the group effect on situations/events and rather attempt to find individuals to either praise or blame.

This ideology or mind-set can be found within certain disciplines, especially epistemology. Throughout its discourse, many seek to define knowledge in aspects of the individual without giving reference to group contributions. Alvin Goldman (2010) believes that even though much reference is given to the individual, the history of epistemology has many social aspects that are frequently overlooked. Also, Cynthia Townley (2011) believes that the study of epistemology downplays the importance of epistemic dependence in order to give credit to individual examples of knowledge. She defines dependence as a communal exchange of knowledge and distinguishes it from independence, which is self-generated or an individual act of knowledge. In any case, one can see, upon reflection, that many propositions of knowledge are rarely self-generated. ...

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...l epistemology and epistemic dependence contributes to the “good life.”

Works Cited

Duncan, P. (2006). What is this thing called knowledge. (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Goldman, A. (2010). Social epistemology. In E. Zaltha (Ed.), The stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/epistemology-social/

McInnis, R. G. (2001). Discursive communities/interpretive communities: The new logic, john locke, and dictionary-making, 1660-1760 (pp. 325-345). In R. McInnins (Ed.), Discourse synthesis: studies in historical and contemporary social epistemology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.

Townley, C. (2011). A defense of ignorance: its values and roles in feminist and social epistemology. (pp. 1-23). Layham, MD: Lexington Books.

Zagzebski, L. (2009). On epistemology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.