The Research Seminar Series in Philosophy invites you to a seminar with Jesper Kallestrup, Aberdeen, "Knowledge-Qua in Groups".
Abstract: Deflationism about group knowledge is the view that a group has knowledge if and only if most of its members have that knowledge. The case against deflationism has revolved around epistemic divergence arguments, which typically aim to show that members’ knowledge isn’t necessary for group knowledge. This paper is instead devoted to objections against members’ knowledge being sufficient for group knowledge. Focusing on structured groups in which members occupy roles that are connected by internal links in a social network, we develop a notion of knowledge qua such occupancy, where the role occupied can itself be treated as an epistemic object. We then proceed to argue that if deflationists adopt such knowledge-qua as what constitutes knowledge of structured groups, they have the resources to counter worries about the sufficiency condition. That leaves the question of deflationist knowledge of non-structured groups, but since these typically have no unified aim or common purpose, similar worries about that condition have no bite.
All interested are welcome to participate in this seminar.
