Knowledge Tree
R. Wolfe Randall
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Pluralism About Group Knowledge: A Reply to Jesper Kallestrup ... social-epistemology.com Jan 20, 2023 21 facts
referenceAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall's NSNS account of group knowledge is developed in the spirit of work by Alexander Bird (2010) and Deborah Tollefsen (2006).
claimAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall propose that groups should be understood as structured entities created by people to perform specific functions, similar to material artifacts, where non-agential devices are ineliminable features of the group's functioning.
claimAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall published a paper titled 'Pluralism About Group Knowledge: A Reply to Jesper Kallestrup' in 2023, which responds to Jesper Kallestrup's 2022 critique of their earlier work on group knowledge.
perspectiveAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall deny that any single account of group knowledge (operative member responsibility, dynamic systems, or joint commitments) is the unique correct account or a necessary condition for group knowledge.
claimAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall agree with Jennifer Lackey's 2020 assertion that knowledge is connected to action.
accountAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall were directed to Rik Peels' discussion of belief distinctions by Tom Yates and Rik Peels in the 'Board Certified Epistemologists' Facebook group.
perspectiveAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall argue that groups do not have occurrent states if those states require a conscious element, as they do not believe groups as a whole are conscious.
perspectiveAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall argue that group knowledge does not locally supervene on the mental states of the group's members, meaning two groups with identical member mental states could differ in their knowledge based on their use of non-agential devices like computers, notebooks, or archives.
claimThe 'non-summative, non-supervenient (NSNS)' account of group knowledge, proposed by Avram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall, asserts that a social group can know a proposition even if no individual member of that group knows the proposition.
claimAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall argue that if a computer or device collates information and draws an inference from basic information known by group members, that inference can count as group knowledge even if it is not accessible to the individual group members.
perspectiveAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall reject the 'extended mind' theory as an explanation for group knowledge because they are hesitant to characterize groups as having minds.
perspectiveAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall assert that a group's knowledge does not supervene on the mental or dispositional states of the individual members of that group.
claimAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall argue that groups can rationally act on information even when that information is not available to the individual members of the group.
perspectiveAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall do not endorse all details of Rik Peels' account of belief, specifically regarding the extension of that account to group dispositional belief.
accountIn the 'MISSING CHILD' example discussed by Avram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall, a group is designed to use a computer to collate information acquired by individual group members, which results in a light turning on and a printout being generated.
perspectiveAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall argue that in the 'MISSING CHILD' example, the group possesses knowledge because the printout constitutes the knowledge, explicitly rejecting the requirement that the knowledge must be accessible to individual group members.
perspectiveAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall advocate for a pluralistic approach to group belief, arguing that different groups possess and use information for reasoning, planning, and action in very different ways.
claimAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall argue that even if groups are denied the status of having beliefs, the functional roles occupied by belief in persons can be fulfilled by 'belief-proxies' (occurrent and dispositional beliefs).
claimR. Wolfe Randall is a philosophy graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, whose research focuses on social epistemology, social ontology, distributed cognition, and normative questions regarding public advocacy.
referenceIn their 2022 work, Avram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall argue that non-agential material objects, such as printouts, should not be understood as parts of the extended mind of individual group members.
perspectiveAvram Hiller and R. Wolfe Randall argue that groups possess epistemic and cognitive states, even though they are hesitant to say that groups as a whole have minds.