Epistemic Agents

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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?

An agent is defined as an entity with a capacity to act.1 The actions in question for an epistemic agent are epistemic actions such as taking stances towards epistemic elements or being the bearer of a 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 community that 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?

In the scientonomic context, this question was first formulated by Hakob Barseghyan in 2018. The question is currently accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by Scientonomy community.

In Scientonomy, the accepted answers to the question can be summarized as follows:

Broader History

Individual human beings

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) 23 and John Locke (1711-1776) 4 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.


Descartes maintained that he could show through reason alone that our senses were reliable sources of know 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).5 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.

Human groups

The nineteenth century British philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) argued, in a political essay called On Liberty (1859),6 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.7 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.87

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)9, 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.910

Karl Popper (1902-1994)1112 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.7

The role of social communities as epistemic agents was also stressed by Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.13 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. 714 For individual scientists, Kuhn emphasized the non-rational aspects of paradigm choice, comparing it to a religious conversion experience or a gestalt shift. 13 However, he later discussed the role of shared epistemic values in paradigm choice by communities. 15 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. 16

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. 7


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. 171819

Non-human animals

Scientific Instruments

Scientonomic History

Acceptance Record

Here is the complete acceptance record of this question (it includes all the instances when the question was accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by a community):
CommunityAccepted FromAcceptance IndicatorsStill AcceptedAccepted UntilRejection Indicators
Scientonomy8 October 2018Subtypes of Epistemic Agent became accepted by virtue of the acceptance of Epistemic Agent. The publication of Barseghyan (2018) is an indication of the acceptance of the term.Yes

All Theories

The following theories have attempted to answer this question:
TheoryFormulationFormulated In
Epistemic Community Is a Subtype of Epistemic Agent (Barseghyan-2018)Epistemic Community is a subtype of Epistemic Agent, i.e. epistemic agent is a supertype of epistemic community.2018
Individual Epistemic Agent Is a Subtype of Epistemic Agent (Patton-2019)Individual Epistemic Agent is a subtype of Epistemic Agent, i.e. epistemic agent is a supertype of individual epistemic agent.2019

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Accepted Theories

The following theories have been accepted as answers to this question:
CommunityTheoryAccepted FromAccepted Until
ScientonomyEpistemic Community Is a Subtype of Epistemic Agent (Barseghyan-2018)8 October 2018
ScientonomyIndividual Epistemic Agent Is a Subtype of Epistemic Agent (Patton-2019)10 January 2022

Suggested Modifications

Here is a list of modifications concerning this topic:
Modification Community Date Suggested Summary Verdict Verdict Rationale Date Assessed
Sciento-2019-0015 Scientonomy 26 December 2019 Accept that there are two types of epistemic agents – individual and communal. Also accept the question of applicability of the laws of scientific change to individuals as a legitimate topic of scientonomic inquiry. Accepted It was agreed during seminar discussions that the "modification aims to codify our de facto communal stance towards the ontology of epistemic agents".c1 This is confirmed by the fact that several recent articles take this ontology of epistemic agents for granted (e.g., Barseghyan and Levesley (2021), Machado-Marques and Patton (2021)).2021 Even as early as 2017, several of Loiselle's examples of authority delegation concern individual experts (see Loiselle (2017)).22 10 January 2022

Current View

In Scientonomy, the accepted answers to the question are Epistemic Community Is a Subtype of Epistemic Agent (Barseghyan-2018) and Individual Epistemic Agent Is a Subtype of Epistemic Agent (Patton-2019).

Epistemic Community Is a Subtype of Epistemic Agent (Barseghyan-2018) states: "Epistemic Community is a subtype of Epistemic Agent, i.e. epistemic agent is a supertype of epistemic community."

According to Barseghyan, epistemic community is an epistemic agent, i.e. it is capable of taking epistemic stances towards epistemic elements.23

Individual Epistemic Agent Is a Subtype of Epistemic Agent (Patton-2019) states: "Individual Epistemic Agent is a subtype of Epistemic Agent, i.e. epistemic agent is a supertype of individual epistemic agent."

According to Patton, individuals are "capable of taking epistemic stances towards epistemic elements, with reason, based on a semantic understanding of the elements and their available alternatives, and with the goal of producing knowledge".24p. 82

Related Topics

This question is a subquestion of Ontology of Scientific Change.

References

  1. ^  Schlosser, Markus. (2015) Agency. In Zalta (Ed.) (2016). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/agency/.
  2. ^  Descartes, René. (2004) Meditations on First Philosophy. Early Modern Texts. Retrieved from http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/descartes1641.pdf.
  3. ^  Descartes, René. (2017) Principles of Philosophy. Early Modern Texts. Retrieved from http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/authors/descartes.
  4. ^  Locke, John. (2015) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Early Modern Texts. Retrieved from http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/authors/locke.
  5. ^  Blanchard, Thomas and Goldman, Alvin. (2016) Social Epistemology. In Zalta (Ed.) (2016). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-social/.
  6. ^  Mill, John Stuart. (2003) On Liberty. Yale University Press.
  7. a b c d e  Longino, Helen. (2016) The Social Dimensions of Scientific Knowledge. In Zalta (Ed.) (2016). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/scientific-knowledge-social/.
  8. ^  Peirce, Charles Sanders. (1878) How to Make Our Ideas Clear. Popular Science Monthly 12, 286-302.
  9. a b  Fleck, Ludwik. (1979) Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. University of Chicago Press.
  10. ^  Sady, Wojciech. (2016) Ludwik Fleck. In Zalta (Ed.) (2016). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2016/entries/fleck/.
  11. ^  Popper, Karl. (1963) Conjectures and Refutations. Routledge.
  12. ^  Popper, Karl. (1972) Objective Knowledge. Oxford University Press.
  13. a b  Kuhn, Thomas. (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press.
  14. ^  Bird, Alexander. (2011) Thomas Kuhn. In Zalta (Ed.) (2016). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2016/entries/thomas-kuhn/.
  15. ^  Kuhn, Thomas. (1973) Objectivity, Value Judgement, and Theory Choice. In Kuhn (1977a), 320-339.
  16. ^  Losee, John. (2001) A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Oxford University Press.
  17. ^  Barnes, Barry. (1977) Interests and the Growth of Knowledge. Routledge.
  18. ^  Shapin, Steven. (1982) The History of Science and its Sociological Reconstruction. History of Science 20, 157-211.
  19. ^ Colins (1983) 
  20. ^  Barseghyan, Hakob and Levesley, Nichole. (2021) Question Dynamics. Scientonomy 4, 1-19. Retrieved from https://scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/37120.
  21. ^  Machado-Marques, Sarah and Patton, Paul. (2021) Scientific Error and Error Handling. Scientonomy 4, 21-39. Retrieved from https://scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/37121.
  22. ^  Loiselle, Mirka. (2017) Multiple Authority Delegation in Art Authentication. Scientonomy 1, 41-53. Retrieved from https://www.scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/28233.
  23. ^  Barseghyan, Hakob. (2018) Redrafting the Ontology of Scientific Change. Scientonomy 2, 13-38. Retrieved from https://scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/31032.
  24. ^  Patton, Paul. (2019) Epistemic Tools and Epistemic Agents in Scientonomy. Scientonomy 3, 63-89. Retrieved from https://scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/33621.