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| + | #REDIRECT [[Subtypes of Epistemic Agent]] |
| − | |Question=Who can be a ''bearer'' of a ''mosaic''? Can a ''community'' be a bearer of a mosaic? Can an ''individual'' be a bearer of a mosaic? Can an ''instrument'' be a bearer of a mosaic?
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| − | |Topic Type=Descriptive
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| − | |Description=An agent is defined as an entity with a capacity to act.[[CiteRef::Schlosser (2015)]] The actions in question for an epistemic agent are epistemic actions such as taking [[Epistemic Stances|stances]] towards [[Epistemic Elements|epistemic elements]] or being the bearer of a [[Scientific Mosaic|scientific mosaic]]. The question at issue is who or what can be an epistemic agent. Can individuals be epistemic agents, or communities, or perhaps artificial systems such as databases or instruments? For example, consider a [[Epistemic Community|community]] that [[Authority Delegation|delegates authority]] over a certain topic to its sub-community. Then this sub-community delegates authority over a sub-topic of this topic to its sub-sub-community. Finally, this sub-sub-community delegates one very specific question to a single expert. Does this mean that an individual scientist can be an epistemic agent?
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| − | |Parent Topic=Ontology of Scientific Change
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| − | |Authors List=Kevin Zheng, Hakob Barseghyan,
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| − | |Formulated Year=2016
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| − | |Academic Events=Scientonomy Seminar 2016,
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| − | |Prehistory==== Individual human beings ===
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| − | For most of the history of western science and philosophy, human individuals were treated as the sole or primary epistemic agents. The question of how to explain and justify the capacities of human individuals as epistemic agents has long been of interest. In the early modern period, [[Rene Descartes]] (1596-1650) [[CiteRef::Descartes (2004)]][[CiteRef::Descartes (2017)]] and [[John Locke]] (1711-1776) [[CiteRef::Locke (2015)]] produced classic works on these matters. Their theory of ideas maintained that all of our experiences were of ideas in our own minds, some of these ideas being caused by our senses. Descartes maintained that he could show through reason alone that our senses, being the gifts of an omnibenevolent God, were reliable sources of knowledge about an external world of material objects.
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| − | Descartes maintained that he could show through reason alone that our senses were reliable sources of know
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| − | seeking to explain and justify the capacities of human individuals as epistemic agents. Discussion of the role of social interaction in the production of knowledge was confined largely to discussion of when one should accept the testimony of others. This took place, for example, in the works of [[David Hume]] (1711-1776) and [[Thomas Reid]] (1710-1796).[[CiteRef::Goldman and Blanchard (2016)]] Beginning in the nineteenth century, the concept that groups of interacting human individuals can function collectively as epistemic agents with a role distinct from their individual parts began to receive increasing attention.
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| − | === Human groups ===
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| − | The nineteenth century British philosopher and political economist [[John S. Mill|John Stuart Mill]] (1806-1873) argued, in a political essay called ''On Liberty'' (1859),[[CiteRef:: Mill (2003)]] that because individual human knowers are fallible, critical discussion of ideas between persons with differing views is necessary to help individuals avoid the falsity or partiality of beliefs framed in the context of only one point of view. For Mill, then, the achievement of knowledge is thus a social rather than an individual matter, and human groups can function as epistemic agents.[[CiteRef::Longino (2016a)]] The American philosopher and logician Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) emphasized the instigation of doubt and critical interaction within a community as means to knowledge. He formulated a consensual theory of truth, in which the acceptance of the truth of a proposition depends on the agreement of a community of inquirers, and that only reality can typically produce such agreement. For Peirce then, communities are epistemic agents that can take stances towards propositions.[[CiteRef::Peirce (1878)]][[CiteRef::Longino (2016a)]]
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| − | The epidemiologist [[Ludwik Fleck]] (1896-1961) made one of the first attempts to apply the concept of communities as epistemic agents specifically to the process of scientific change. In ''Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact'' (1935)[[CiteRef::Fleck (1979)]], he argued that cognition was necessarily a collective social activity, since it depends on prior knowledge obtained from other people. New ideas arise within collective epistemic agents which he called ''thought collectives''; groups of people who participate in the mutual exchange of ideas. As an emergent consequence of mutual understandings and misunderstandings within such a group, a particular ''thought style'' arises, which determines how individual members of the thought collective think and perceive within the relevant domain. Scientific facts are socially constructed by thought collectives interacting with the world through observation and experiment, and can be revised or abandoned based on these interactions.[[CiteRef::Fleck (1979)]][[CiteRef:: Sady (2016)]]
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| − | [[Karl Popper]] (1902-1994)[[CiteRef::Popper (1963)]][[CiteRef::Popper (1972)]] advocated a falsificationist view of theory assessment, and, like Pierce, stressed the importance of criticism in the production of knowledge. For Popper, members of a scientific community attempt to demonstrate the inadequacies of one another's theories by finding observational shortcomings or conceptual flaws. This is, necessarily, a community activity in which the community acts as an epistemic agent either accepting or rejecting a theory based on the outcome of such attempts. The outcome is that only the most empirically adequate and conceptually sound theories survive such community scrutiny. Since this process resembles that of biological evolution by natural selection, it is called evolutionary epistemology.[[CiteRef::Longino (2016a)]]
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| − | The role of social communities as epistemic agents was also stressed by [[Thomas Kuhn]] (1922-1996) in his ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions''.[[CiteRef::Kuhn (1962a)]] Kuhn maintained that the work of a scientific community was united by adherence to a ''paradigm'' of shared beliefs, practices, and exemplars. The ''paradigm'' guided puzzle solving research to explain more phenomena in its terms. In the course of such research, anomalies may arise. Anomalies were phenomena that resisted explanation in terms of the theories, methods, and epistemic values that constituted the paradigm. Persistent anomalies could sometimes lead to a scientific revolution, in which the paradigm was displaced by a rival framework. [[CiteRef::Longino (2016a)]][[CiteRef::Bird (2011)]] For individual scientists, Kuhn emphasized the non-rational aspects of paradigm choice, comparing it to a religious conversion experience or a gestalt shift. [[CiteRef::Kuhn (1962a)]] However, he later discussed the role of shared epistemic values in paradigm choice by communities. [[CiteRef::Kuhn (1973a)]] [[Imre Lakatos]] (1922-1974) and [[Larry Laudan]] (1941-) did not share Kuhn's holism with respect to paradigms. They instead wrote of communities of scientists united by research programs consisting of groups of related theories. Individual scientists chose to adopt or abandon such programs, which could co-exist. [[CiteRef::Losee (2001)]]
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| − | Interest in communities as epistemic agents was also spurred by the increasing prevalence of large scientific research groups during the second half of the twentieth century. During World War II, the Manhattan Project involved large numbers of theoretical and experimental physicists working at several sites to produce the atomic bomb for the United States. [[CiteRef::Longino (2016a)]]
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| − | Sociologists of science placed a greater emphasis on the role of non-rational social factors, such as political and professional power structures, in the production of scientific knowledge than did Kuhn. [[CiteRef::Barnes (1977)]][[CiteRef::Shapin (1982)]][[CiteRef::Colins (1983)]]
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| − | === Non-human animals ===
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| − | === Scientific Instruments ===
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| − | |Related Topics=Scientific Community, Applicability of the Laws of Scientific Change, Scientific Mosaic, Epistemic Stances Towards Theories,
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| − | |Page Status=Needs Editing
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| − | }}
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| − | {{Acceptance Record
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| − | |Community=Community:Scientonomy
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| − | |Accepted From Era=CE
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| − | |Accepted From Year=2016
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| − | |Accepted From Month=March
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| − | |Accepted From Day=1
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| − | |Accepted From Approximate=Yes
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| − | |Acceptance Indicators=It was acknowledged as an open question by the [[Scientonomy Seminar 2016]].
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| − | |Still Accepted=Yes
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| − | |Accepted Until Approximate=No
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