Knowledge in a Social World

422 Pages·1992·2.09 MB·English

by  Alvin I. Goldman

Knowledge in a Social World
This page intentionally left blank
Knowledge in a Social World
Alvin I.Goldman
CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD
GreatClarendonStreet,OxfordOX26DP
OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford
ItfurtherstheUniversity'sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship,
andeducationbypublishingworldwidein
OxfordNewYork
AucklandBangkokBuenosAiresCapeTownChennai
Dar esSalaamDelhiHongKongIstanbulKarachiKolkata
KualaLumpurMadridMelbourneMexicoCityMumbaiNairobi
SãoPauloShanghaiTaipeiTokyoToronto
Oxfordisaregisteredtrademark ofOxfordUniversityPress
intheUK andincertainothercountries
PublishedintheUnitedStates
byOxfordUniversityPressInc., NewYork
©AlvinI.Goldman1999
Themoralrightsoftheauthorshavebeenasserted
DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker)
Firstpublished1999
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,
storedinaretrievalsystem,or transmitted,inanyform orbyanymeans,
withoutthepriorpermissioninwriting ofOxfordUniversityPress,
oras expresslypermittedbylaw, or under termsagreedwiththeappropriate
reprographcsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction
outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,
OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove
Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover
andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
Dataavailable
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Dataavailable
ISBN0–19–823777–4 (Hbk.)
ISBN0–19–823820–7 (Pbk.)
To my brother Malcolm
whose intellectual challenges kindled my early
curiosity
This page intentionally left blank
Preface
Thisisthebestoftimes,orthisistheworstoftimes,forthesocialpursuitofknowledge.Optimistspointwithprideto
theWorld Wide Web and theInformationSuperhighway. Theyexult inthefact thatwith every new photograph from
theHubbleSpace Telescope we get more preciseinformationaboutdistant galaxiesand greater insight intotheorigin
of the universe. When have we been better endowed with information and knowledge? Pessimists point to more
worrisome conditions. Broadcast political news in America increasingly comes in bite-sized morsels, and the average
citizen has been shown to have sparse political knowledge. Ownership and control of news outletsincreasingly reside
ina few powerfulmediaconglomerates. A smallnumberofindustrialcorporationshavemore publiccommunications
power than any private businesses have ever possessed in world history (Bagdikian 1997: ix–x). On this scenario we
seem perilously close to an Orwellian nightmare.How should these dramaticallydivergentperspectivesbe reconciled?
Just how good or how bad are the prospects for knowledge in contemporary society?
This bookdoes notprovide an inventory of thecurrentconditions for knowledge. Itdoes, however, explore theways
thathumanknowledgecanbeincreasedvia socialtransactions, whatever thepresentstarting pointhappenstobe. Itis
aclichéthatoursisaninformationage;certainlyitisanerainwhichissuesofknowledgeandinformationbombardus
from every direction. What is missing, however, is a general theory of societal knowledge. What exactlyis knowledge,
as opposed to ignorance and error, and how can social factors contribute to its growth? This book attempts to
construct such a theory. It lays philosophical foundations for a social theory of knowledge, and it assesses particular
practices and institutions in terms of these foundations. It might be viewed as a philosopher's contribution to the
shaping of an information-rich society.
This project falls within the subfield of philosophy that is standardly called “epistemology,” but the project aims to
widen epistemology's vista. Traditional epistemology has long preserved the Cartesian image of inquiry as an activity
of isolated thinkers, each pursuing truth in a spirit of individualism and pure self-reliance. This image ignores the
interpersonal and institutional contexts in which most knowledge endeavors are actually undertaken. Epistemology
mustcometogripswiththesocialinteractionsthatbothbrightenandthreatentheprospectsfor knowledge. Although
initial steps in the social direction have been taken in recent years, the present book aims to
viii PREFACE
construct a unified framework and a more detailed agenda for this epistemological expansion.
There is another reason to pursue this project. Many academic corridors are flooded by the fashionable currents of
postmodernism and (radical) social constructionism, which purport to be replacements for traditional epistemology.
These movements are appropriately sensitive to social factors in thought and discourse, but they repudiate the
hallmarks of traditional epistemology: the quest for truth, reason, and objectivity. They imagine that social factors
necessarily cripple the prospect of anybody ascertaining truth at all; the very intelligibility of objective truth or
knowledge is denied. These misguided ideas have led to rampant relativism in fields outside of philosophy, including
law,history,education,culturalstudies,andsciencestudies.Manyphilosophersserenelydismissthesemovementswith
thewaveofa hand, buttheirinfluencehasserious consequencesandshouldnotbetakenlightly.Worriesonthisscore
have been expressed by Farber and Sherry (1997) concerning the law, and by Appleby, Hunt, and Jacob (1994)
concerning history. Analogous concerns led the physicist Alan Sokal to effecta celebrated spoof of cultural studies by
publishing an article full of gibberish (Sokal 1996a) in a leading postmodern journal. He wanted to demonstrate the
totalabsenceof intellectual standards in thisacademic subculture (Sokal 1996b). While Sokal's spoof was cunning and
amusing, we also need sustained, philosophical responses to these movements. Portions of this book undertake this
task.
In contrast to relativism and anti-objectivism, I maintain that social practices can make both positive and negative
contributions to knowledge. The task is to show just which social practices, under what conditions, will promote
knowledge rather than subvertit.Thenotionthatpositiveepistemicvaluecanflowfrom socialinterchange appears in
at least tworecentepistemological works:C. A. J. Coady's (1992) bookon testimonyand Philip Kitcher's (1993) book
onthephilosophyofscience.Thesecompriseperhaps theclosestneighbors tothepresentessay. Eachoftheseworks,
however, has a fairly restricted scope compared to the wide domain carved out here. Although testimony is a core
example of a social practice, it is not the only social practice that deserves attention from epistemology. Similarly,
althoughscienceisthemostdissectedarenainwhichsocialingredientsinfluenceepistemicoutcomes,itisbynomeans
the only such arena. Journalism, law, politics, and education are also crucial domains in which accuracy of judgment
and communication should be a desideratum, and in which the impact of different institutional practices needs to be
explored.
Because this book offers take-home messages not only for philosophers but for practitioners of many
disciplines—lawyers, political scientists, communication theorists, economists, and educators—I have tried to keep
it as accessible as possible. Although philosophical issues are explored in depth, technicalities are avoided wherever
possible and the essential ideas are explained from scratch. Still, some readers may wish to skip the denser
philosophical
PREFACE ix
material.Chapter 2, ontruth,is themostdifficultchapterbutthemosteasilyomitted. Non-philosopherscanbypass it
without significant loss.
I have been pondering these issues, learning new subjects, and gathering material for this book for over twenty years.
Researchsupporthasfortunatelycomemywayfromseveralnationalfundingsources,towhichIammostgrateful:the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National
Humanities Center, and the National Science Foundation (grant number SES-8204737). In 1975–6, at the Center for
Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, I framed the conceptionof epistemology as a multidisciplinary enterprise
with two main parts: individual and social. Individual epistemology should be linked to the cognitive sciences, and
socialepistemologyshouldbelinkedtothosesocialscienceandpolicydisciplinesthatstudyknowledgeinitssocialand
institutionalcontexts.AtfirstIenvisionedasinglebookthatwouldsynthesizebothindividualandsocialepistemology,
but that was clearly unrealistic. So the first half of the project was published as Epistemology and Cognition (Goldman
1986), a book-length treatment of epistemology and cognitive science. The connection between individual and social
epistemologywasbrieflysketchedthere(andmentionedearlierinGoldman1978).Beginningin1987,aseriesofsocial
epistemologyarticlesappearedthatwereultimatelytransmutedintochunksofthepresentbook:Goldman1987,1991,
1994a, 1994b, 1995a, 1995b, Goldman and Shaked 1991a, Cox and Goldman 1994, Goldman and Cox 1996, and
Talbott and Goldman 1998.
Work on thisbook per se began in thefallof 1994, partlywiththesupport of theUniversityof Pittsburgh's Center for
PhilosophyofScience.LaterinstitutionalsupportcamefromtheUniversityofArizona'sUdallCenterforPublicPolicy
Studies.AninvitationtogivetheEarlandEdnaSticeLectureattheUniversityofWashingtonprovidedanopportunity
to float thegeneral plan of thebook. Drafts of various chapters weresubsequentlyread to philosophy departmentsat
Princeton University, the Universityof Utah, the Universityof Oklahoma, and the University of Glasgow, and to law
school forums at Yale University, the University of Arizona, and the University of California, Berkeley. Helpful
comments were received from audience participants in all of these venues.
I have been the beneficiary of diligent work and sage advice from many research assistants, graduate seminar
participants,andcolleaguesinbothmyownandotherdepartments.Themostsustainedresearchassistancecamefrom
Joel Pust, who carefully read early drafts of many chapters and offered incisive suggestions throughout. Tim Bayne
contributed invaluable advice on later versions of all the chapters, plus dedicated pursuit of bibliographical details.
Mark WunderlichworkedonChapter10, and his formal insights wereespeciallyhelpful.As readers ofthemanuscript
for thepress, William Alstonand ananonymous refereeofferedmanygoodpointersonquitea rangeofchapters. Itis
difficult to recall everyone whose suggestions and criticisms