Toward a truly social epistemology: Babbage, the division of mental labor, and the possibility of socially distributed warrant

In what follows, I appeal to Charles Babbage's discussion of the division of mental labor to provide evidence that-at least with respect to the social acquisition, storage, retrieval, and transmission of knowledge-epistemologists have, for a broad range of phenomena of crucial importance to actual knowers in their epistemic practices in everyday life, failed adequately to appreciate the significance of socially distributed cognition. If the discussion here is successful, I will have demonstrated that a particular presumption widely held within the contemporary discussion of the epistemology of testimony-a presumption that I will term the personalist requirement-fails to account for those very practices of knowers that I detail here. I will then conclude by suggesting that an alternate account of testimonial warrant, one that has heretofore been underappreciated, ought to be given more serious consideration-in particular because it is well suited to account for those actual practices of knowers that the personalist requirement leaves unrecognized.

Title	Toward a truly social epistemology: Babbage, the division of mental labor, and the possibility of socially distributed warrant
Creator	Shieber, Joseph
Publisher	Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
Academic Department	Philosophy
Division	Humanities
Organization	Lafayette College
Date Issued	March 2013
Date Available	2015-03-05T14:40:48Z
Type	Article
Language	English
Bibliographic Citation	Shieber, J. (2013 Mar.) "Toward a truly social epistemology: Babbage, the division of mental labor, and the possibility of socially distributed warrant." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 86 (2): 266-294.
Standard Identifier	DOI 10.1111/j.1933-1592.2011.00524.x
Standard Identifier	Handle 10385/1717
Permalink	http://hdl.handle.net/10385/1717
Rights Statement	In Copyright
Rights Holders	Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LLC