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=== Human groups ===
In the eighteenth century David Hume argued that certain knowledge was impossible, and that we could only assess the probability of our beliefs. He argued for the role of acceptance by a social community in assessing these probabilities. He wrote that:
"No algebraist or mathematician is so expert in his science that he places complete confidence in any truth immediately on discovering it, or regards it ·initially· as more than merely probable. Every time he runs over his proofs, his confidence increases; but still more by the approval of his friends; and it is brought to full perfection by the universal assent and applause of the learned world." [[CiteRef::Hume (2017)|p. 93]]
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)]]
