Collective and extended knowledge

As individuals we know things. The epistemological investigation of knowledge then naturally starts from the assumption that knowledge is some state of an individual's mind with the most common assumption being that knowledge is a species of belief—the justified and true. This individualistic epistemic approach has then been criticised along the following two fronts. First, it has been argued that knowledge can be collectively achieved, and this requires recognizing that an individual's knowing things can depend on a collective knowing things (Hardwig, 1985, 1991; Hutchins, 1995). Second it has been argued that belief is not merely an individual matter because belief can extend beyond an individual's ‘skull and skin’ (Carter et al., 2018; Clark & Chalmers, 1998; Menary, 2010). Knowledge can be collective and belief can be extended, and on the supposition that knowledge is a species of belief, it follows that there can be collective belief and extended knowledge too.1 Thus both epistemic and metaphysical challenges have been raised to the individualistic assumptions common in epistemology.

This paper hopes to show a connection between these two criticisms of individualistic epistemology. More precisely, it hopes to rehearse a claim previously made that an adequate account of collective knowledge requires a certain non-individualistic conception of knowledge. And this same non-individualistic conception also offers a basis for arguing that knowledge is extended. However, the non-individualistic conception of knowledge in operation here is one that is largely compatible with an individualist approach to epistemology; it involves no more than a commonplace shift in epistemological perspective. Thus, it is proposed that an account can be given of both collective and extended knowledge that does not undermine the individualist epistemological paradigm. Some shift in epistemic theory is required but not the radical shift away from epistemological individualism that has been canvassed.

The paper proceeds as follows. It starts with the recognition that some knowledge is collectively held, and the question this raises is what explains an individual's possession of this collective knowledge? Section one rehearses arguments for a previous answer, (Faulkner, 2006, 2011, 2018). Collective knowledge, it will be claimed in this section, is best understood in terms that roughly equate to Popper's (1972) idea of objective knowledge. An individual's possession of collective knowledge simply requires the right relations to something that is objective knowledge. We can thereby talk of collective knowledge without having to make any reference to a collective knower. This proposal then receives support from the argument that belief is extended because this argument, it will be claimed, requires an objective conception of knowledge. To show this, sections two and three then outline Clark & Chalmers’ (1998) much discussed argument and show how it can conclude only when knowledge is conceived objectively. The conclusion then situates this objective conception of knowledge with respect to individualistic epistemology.