EPISTEMIC AUTONOMY & THE SOCIAL: Navigating the Socio-Political Interplay of Personal and Social Knowledge Claims

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    I concur with Emily Robertson in asserting that epistemic autonomy aligns with social influences. Knowledge claims, whether personal or social, are not private; knowing occurs personally within the social milieu. For instance, legal doctrines like Pro Reo play a crucial role in the admission of evidence, either furthering or dismissing cases, showcasing the deeply ingrained socio-political nature of humanity.

    Social epistemologists propose that, rather than focusing on the properties of justification as in analytic epistemology, one should examine the range of practices in providing justification within society. Justification often involves giving and asking for reasons for one’s assertions. When a person asserts that p, they simultaneously claim that p is true, entitling them to make further claims.


    Consider Descartes’ unavoidable dualism based on his claim that the 'Cogito' is the indubitable existential fulcrum. However, as pointed out by Franz Brentano and phenomenologists, thinking is always a thinking of something. Therefore, questioning the existence of an external world is odd when one finds oneself as a being-in-the-world. Reformulating Descartes’ “I think” to “I think of x,” where x is any object of thought, eliminates the non-commonsensical nature of Descartes’ dualism.


    G.E. Moore's commonsensical argument for the existence of the external world, presenting his hands, is valid: “There is a hand. If there is a hand, then there exists an external world. Thus, there exists an external world.”


    In a 2008 paper, "Nobody Wins an Argument with a Skeptic," Mike Mackus and Matthew Benton used Moore’s argument for and against 'knowing being in a dream.' In Modus Ponens:


1. One does not know that one is not dreaming.

2. If one does not know that one is not dreaming, then one does not know that there is a hand.

3. Thus, one does not know that there is a hand.


However, applying reductio ad absurdum here results in:


1. One knows that there is a hand.

2. If one does not know that one is not dreaming, then one does not know that there is a hand.

3. Thus, one knows that one is not dreaming.


    Mackus and Benton argued that nobody wins in an argument with a skeptic. However, by asserting that knowledge claims are either personal or social, I argue that the skeptical claim loses its sting by using the Pro Reo legal doctrine that states: “When in doubt, rule for the accused.” In this case, since either claim can be validly proven, but the existence of the external world is at stake, judgment should be rendered in its favor. Personally and socially, claiming that there is an external world is, thus, justified.

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