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Knowledge Promotion as a Criterion for Evaluating Social Institutions

  • Juha Räikkä
Published/Copyright: March 16, 2010
SATS
From the journal Volume 5 Issue 2

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.

Published Online: 2010-03-16
Published in Print: 2004-November

© Philosophia Press 2004

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