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(2013) Synthese 190 (13).
Epistemologists can be divided into two camps: those who think that nothing short of certainty or (subjective) probability 1 can warrant assertion and those who disagree with this claim. This paper addressed this issue by inquiring into the problem of setting the probability threshold required for assertion in such a way that that the social epistemic good is maximized, where the latter is taken to be the veritistic value in the sense of Goldman (Knowledge in a social world, 1999). We provide a Bayesian model of a test case involving a community of inquirers in a social network engaged in group deliberation regarding the truth or falsity of a proposition (p.) Results obtained by means of computer simulation indicate that the certainty rule is optimal in the limit of inquiry and communication but that a lower threshold is preferable in less idealized cases.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-013-0313-1
Full citation:
Olsson, E. J. , Vallinder, A. (2013). Norms of assertion and communication in social networks. Synthese 190 (13), pp. 2557-2571.
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