Kant and the Enlightenment's Contribution to Social Epistemology

Abstract

The present paper argues for the relevance of Immanuel Kant and the German Enlightenment to contemporary social epistemology. Rather than distancing themselves from the alleged ‘individualism’ of Enlightenment philosophers, social epistemologists would be well-advised to look at the substantive discussion of social-epistemological questions in the works of Kant and other Enlightenment figures. After a brief rebuttal of the received view of the Enlightenment as an intrinsically individualist enterprise, this paper charts the historical trajectory of philosophical discussions of testimony as a source of knowledge, via such philosophers as C. Thomasius, C. A. Crusius, J. M. Chladenius, G. F. Meier, and finally Kant. Building on recent work on Kant's epistemology of testimony, the paper considers Kant's broader contributions to social epistemology. This includes an analysis of Kant's comments on the social basis of contingent epistemic standards, e.g. in the sciences, as well as on problems arising from the management of what Kant calls the growing ‘volume of knowledge’. Special attention is paid to the relation between Kant's views and contemporary problems arising both in the context of education and from our increased reliance on scientific experts.

Revista de Estudios Kantianos 5.1

“…;Pasternack 2014: 50-61). Esta sugerencia hace plausible el señalamiento de Kant respecto de la posibilidad de que con suficiente evidencia Meinen se torne Wissen (Stevenson 2003: 84), así como la posibilidad de que el testimonio constituya un conocimiento de segunda y tercera mano (Gelfert 2006).…”

“…diversos textos, de ahí que, muchos autores hablen de Glaube doctrinal, teorética, pragmática, histórica, etc. (véase Chignell 2007b;Stevenson 2003;Gelfert 2006). 20 vi) Es bien conocido que Kant considera sumamente valiosos los intereses morales de la razón, por ende, Kant estaría en contra de un principio evidencialista, pues piensa que es completamente racional tomar una proposición como verdadera con un alto grado de confiabilidad incluso si no tenemos fundamentos objetivos.…”

A Estratégia pós-verdade

“…A percepção de que a mídia tradicional é manipuladora (Madden et al, 2007) (Gelfert, 2010). Há que se destacar o elemento emancipatório dessa 2 Cf.…”

Kant and Crusius on Belief and Practical Justification

“…16Many scholars have emphasized interesting features of Crusius’s account of probable knowledge (cf. Danneberg 1994; Alexander 1996; Scholz 2009; Spoerhase 2009; Gelfert 2010; Perinetti 2014), but no one, at least to my knowledge, has thrown light on his account of belief and practical justification.…”