Collective Epistemology

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal This collection of essays addresses a philosophical problem raised by the first clause of these famous words. Does each signatory of the Declaration of Independence hold these truths individually, do they share some kind of a common attitude, or is there a single subject over and above the heads of its individual members that possesses a belief? Collective Epistemology is a name for the view that cognitive attitudes can be attributed to groups in a non-summative sense. The aim of this volume is to examine this claim, and to place it in the wider context of recent epistemological debates about the role of sociality in knowledge acquisition, in virtue and social epistemology, and in philosophy and sociology of science.

Auteur
Hans Bernhard Schmid is SNF-Professor of Philosophy at the University of Basel. His areas of specialization include Phenomenology, Social Philosophy, Social and Sociological Theory. His current Research Project is on the Metaphysics of the Social World . Main publications: Plural Action. Essays on Philosophy and Social Science (Hamburg: Springer 2009); Rationality and Commitment (ed. with Fabienne Peter; Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007).
Daniel Sirtes is a visiting scholar at the University of Konstanz. His areas of specialization include social epistemology, philosophy of biology and peer review research. He is about to submit his PhD thesis entitled: Explaining Mechanisms. A Pragmatic-Ontic Account of Mechanisms in Biology.
Marcel Weber is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Konstanz. His research focuses on the philosophy of biology, general philosophy of science and social epistemology. Main publications: Philosophy of Experimental Biology (Cambridge University Press 2005) and Menschliches Leben (with Sebastian Knell, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2009).

Texte du rabat
?We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...? This collection of essays addresses a philosophical problem raised by the first clause of these famous words. Does each signatory of the Declaration of Independence hold these truths individually, do they share some kind of a common attitude, or is there a single subject over and above the heads of its individual members that possesses a belief? ?Collective Epistemology? is a name for the view that cognitive attitudes can be attributed to groups in a non-summative sense. The aim of this volume is to examine this claim, and to place it in the wider context of recent epistemological debates about the role of sociality in knowledge acquisition, in virtue and social epistemology, and in philosophy and sociology of science.