Papers by Chris Dragos
One can know how to ride a bicycle, play the cello, or collect experimental data. But who can kno... more One can know how to ride a bicycle, play the cello, or collect experimental data. But who can know how to properly ride a tandem bicycle, perform a symphony, or run a high-energy physics experiment? Reductionist analyses fail to account for these cases strictly in terms of the individual know-how involved. Nevertheless, it doesn’t follow from non-reductionism that groups possess this know-how. One must first show that epistemic extension cannot obtain. This is the idea that individuals can possess knowledge even when others possess some of the epistemic materials (e.g. evidence possessed, abilities exercised) generating it. I show that only knowledge-that can be epistemically extended, not knowledge-how. Appeal to epistemic extension is a viable way of avoiding group knowledge-that ascriptions but not group knowledge-how ascriptions. Therefore, groups can know how.
Silvia Tossut (2016) offers an insightful reply to my criticism (Dragos 2016) of Rolin (2008). I ... more Silvia Tossut (2016) offers an insightful reply to my criticism (Dragos 2016) of Rolin (2008). I first recap the debate and address two of Tossut’s objections. I then concede to a third: in Dragos (2016) I mistake Rolin’s (2008) argument as a token of a more general argument I reject in a larger project. Now properly understood as a different sort of argument, I apply a criticism offered by de Ridder (2014) to Rolin’s (2008) argument. With considerations from Wray’s (2016) reply to Dragos (2016), I close by addressing a fourth objection from Tossut.
Kristina Rolin and Brad Wray agree with an increasing number of epistemologists that knowledge ca... more Kristina Rolin and Brad Wray agree with an increasing number of epistemologists that knowledge can sometimes be attributed to a group and to none of its individual members. That is, collective knowledge sometimes obtains. However, Rolin charges Wray with being too restrictive about the kinds of groups to which he attributes collective knowledge. She rejects Wray’s claim that only scientific research teams can know while the general scientific community cannot. Rolin forwards a ‘default and challenge’ account of epistemic justification toward her argument that even the general scientific community can know because it’s sometimes the general scientific community, and none of its individual members, that attains epistemic justification. I argue that Rolin faces a dilemma: either she must herself be more restrictive about the kinds of groups to which she attributes collective knowledge or she must concede the general claim that collective knowledge obtains at all.
Book Reviews by Chris Dragos
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Papers by Chris Dragos
Book Reviews by Chris Dragos