<p>Assuming that groups like individuals have doxastic states, we can apply traditional questions of individual epistemology to groups. In particular, we can ask what it is for a group to have a warranted belief. Drawing on Alvin Plantinga’s proper functionalist account of warrant for the beliefs of individuals, I provide three conditions for a group’s beliefs to be warranted: the members of the group must be (<i>i</i>) functioning properly (<i>ii</i>) in accordance with a good design plan oriented towards truth and (<i>iii</i>) in a social environment sufficiently similar to that for which the group was designed. I defend this account of warranted group belief by examining cases, using it to explain the roles of specialization and deliberation in increasing warrant, and showing how it can contribute to the meliorative project of social epistemology.</p>

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Warranted Group Belief

  • Benjamin Robert Koons

摘要

Assuming that groups like individuals have doxastic states, we can apply traditional questions of individual epistemology to groups. In particular, we can ask what it is for a group to have a warranted belief. Drawing on Alvin Plantinga’s proper functionalist account of warrant for the beliefs of individuals, I provide three conditions for a group’s beliefs to be warranted: the members of the group must be (i) functioning properly (ii) in accordance with a good design plan oriented towards truth and (iii) in a social environment sufficiently similar to that for which the group was designed. I defend this account of warranted group belief by examining cases, using it to explain the roles of specialization and deliberation in increasing warrant, and showing how it can contribute to the meliorative project of social epistemology.