Review - Knowing, Knowledge and Beliefs

Epistemological Studies across Diverse Cultures by Myint Swe Khine (Editor)

The Norton Dictionary of Modern Thought has this entry:

Social epistemology. An intellectual movement of broad cross-disciplinary provenance that attempts to reconstruct the problems of epistemology once knowledge is regarded as intrinsically social. It is often seen as philosophical science policy or the normative wing of science studies. Originating in studies of academic knowledge production, social epistemology has begun to encompass knowledge in multicultural and public settings, as well as the conversion of knowledge to information technology and intellectual property.

 

The institutional presence of the field began with the quarterly, Social Epistemology (Taylor & Francis, 1987- ). Despite their many internal differences, social epistemologists agree on two points:

1.   classical epistemology, philosophy of science and sociology of knowledge have presupposed an idealized conception of scientific inquiry that is unsupported by the social history of scientific practices;
2.   nevertheless, one still needs to articulate normatively appropriate ends and means for science, given science's status as the exemplar of rationality for society at large.

The question for social epistemologists, then, is whether science's actual conduct is worthy of its exalted social status and what political implications follow from one's answer. Those who say "yes" assume that science is on the right track and offer guidance on whom people should believe from among competing experts, whereas those who say "no" address the more fundamental issue of determining the sort of knowledge that people need and the conditions under which it ought to be produced and distributed.

Consider these statements:

1.I didn't believe she'd slap me until she did.

2.I didn't believe it would rain, but here I am soaked to the skin.

Beliefs come in several flavors and they are fascinating entities. If you know you cannot be wrong, but if you believe you might be wrong. And yet as in the examples we can see that once she slapped me I could no longer believe that she would not. And, of course, once the rain started it would be irrational to continue to believe it was a "no rain today" day.

Epistemology has been at the centre of philosophy since Plato drew his famous line between appearance and reality. The Myth of the Cave has influenced our world view for 2,500 years. One thing we learn from examples like the above is that beliefs, like perceptions, have a mind-to-world fit. Belief that P is a necessary condition for knowing that P. But what else is required? Is knowledge equivalent to justified true belief? Philosophers wrestle with these epistemological complexities, looking for Gettier-like counter-examples to the justified true belief theory.

In the meantime, over in another area of academe, social scientists are gathering empirical evidence about beliefs by doing research in epistemological studies across diverse cultures. According to some writers, social epistemology should retain the same general mission as classical epistemology, revamped in the recognition that classical epistemology was too individualistic. According to other writers, social epistemology should be a more radical departure from classical epistemology, a successor discipline that would replace epistemology as traditionally conceived.  Perhaps the first use of the phrase "social epistemology" appears in the writings of a library scientist, Jesse Shera, who in turn credits his associate Margaret Egan. "[S]ocial epistemology," says Shera, "is the study of knowledge in society…. The focus of this discipline should be upon the production, flow, integration, and consumption of all forms of communicated thought throughout the entire social fabric" (1970: 86). [See:  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-social/]

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