Knowledge Promotion as a Criterion for Evaluating Social Institutions
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Juha Räikkä
Abstract
One traditional criterion by which social institutions have been evaluated is a knowledge-promoting criterion. According to this criterion, an institutional arrangement is the better the more it promotes knowledge, i.e. justified true beliefs among the members of the institution in question. In this paper I would like to examine what has been said about the knowledge-promoting criterion in the context of social epistemology. In particular, I would like to ask how one of the main proponents of social epistemology, Alvin I. Goldman, understands the knowledge-promoting criterion and its relation to other criteria that can be used in the evaluation of social institutions. I shall try to show that while Goldman's approach may be otherwise well-prepared, he nonetheless leaves unclarified the issue of how the knowledge-promoting criterion can and should be compared with other criteria. My overall aim is to contribute to the discussion on whether the knowledge-promoting criterion has more general relevance in the evaluation of social institutions.
© Philosophia Press 2004
Articles in the same Issue
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- Alenka Zupančič: The Shortest Shadow – Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Two. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts/London, England, 2003. 193 pages. (Second volume in the “Short Circuits” series)
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Articles in the same Issue
- More than a Linguistic Turn in Philosophy: the Semiotic Programs of Peirce and Cassirer
- Kant's Metaphysical Exposition. On Philosophical Expositions Considered as Analysis of Given Concepts
- Ett problem för Hares supervenienstes
- Knowledge Promotion as a Criterion for Evaluating Social Institutions
- Om reduktion
- Death of a Compatibilistic Intuition
- Mais sa volonté est libre: Some Motives for Modal Voluntarism
- Hur den moderna vetenskapen löste försokratikernas problem. En kritisk granskning av ett ledmotiv i Erik Stenius bok Tankens gryning
- Arne Johan Vetlesen: Menneskeverd og Ondskap. Essays og artikler 1991-2002 (Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 2003, 347 s.)
- Stefán Snævarr: Fra Logos til Mytos. Metaforer, mening og erkjennelse. Kristiansand: Sokrates AS, 2003, 227 s.
- Jan-Kyrre Berg Olsen, red. Tid – fysiske, filosofiske og videnskabsfilosofiske perspektiver. Frederiksberg: Biofolia, 2003, 208 s.
- Reflections and Replies: Essays on the Philosophy of Tyler Burge (edited by Martin Hahn and Bjørn Ramberg). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. 504 + xxix pp. ISBN: 0-262-08315-9
- Alenka Zupančič: The Shortest Shadow – Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Two. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts/London, England, 2003. 193 pages. (Second volume in the “Short Circuits” series)
- Kant på svenska
- Hansen, Finn Thorbjørn: Det filosofiske liv. Et dannelsesideal for eksistenspædagogikken, København, Gyldendal 2002