Preamble / Objectives (Optional): As a point of departure from traditional concerns, social epistemology
privileges the social relations and institutions the epistemic agent finds herself embedded in. This course
discusses the motivations behind expanding the ambit of philosophical concerns, and introduces the
students to contemporary epistemological debates on testimony, disagreement, and knowledge attribution
to collectives.
Course Content/ Syllabus
Social epistemology: traditional epistemology as individualistic, challenge from sociology of knowledge and
social constructivism, veritism, historical antecedents; Testimony: justificatory status of testimony,
testimonial reductionism and anti-reductionism, transmission of warrant, academic publications and peer-
review; Disagreement: rational disagreement, reasonable disagreement, deep disagreement, epistemic
peerhood and expertise, steadfastness and conciliationism, disagreement in science; Epistemology of
groups: judgment aggregation, ontological status of epistemic groups, justifiedness of collective agents,
division of collective labour, epistemology of Wikipedia
Books (In case UG compulsory courses, please give it as “Text books” and “Reference books”. Otherwise
give it as “References”.
Texts: (Format: Authors, Book Title in Italics font, Volume/Series, Edition Number, Publisher, Year.)
References: (Format: Authors, Book Title in Italics font, Volume/Series, Edition Number, Publisher, Year.)
1. A.I. Goldman, Knowledge in a Social World, OUP, 1999
2. C. Coady, Testimony: A Philosophical Study, Clarendon Press, 1992
3. Feldman R. and T. Warfield (eds.), Disagreement, OUP, 2010
4. Goldman, A. I. and D. Whitcomb (eds.), Social Epistemology: Essential Readings, OUP, 2011
5. J. Lackey (ed.), Essays in Collective Epistemology, OUP, 2014
