Abstract
I articulate the question of the value of common knowledge, or the question of why common knowledge is preferred to mere widespread knowledge. I argue that common knowledge often enjoys instrumental value lacked by widespread knowledge, and present a case that suggests that common knowledge sometimes enjoys non-instrumental value lacked by widespread knowledge. But I articulate some doubts about whether we should draw that conclusion from the case.
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Notes
In the language of social network analysis, the abuser is at the center of a “star network”; see Alfano (2016, p. 44).
If we assume that what is known cannot be false, it is common knowledge that p if and only if everyone knows that everyone knows that p. However, I will continue to speak of common knowledge as having two components, namely, widespread knowledge and widespread knowledge of widespread knowledge.
Kvanvig (2003, p. x), Zagzebski (2003), Pritchard (2010, p. 5). Note that I use the term “Meno problem” to refer to the problem that has to do with the relative values of knowledge and mere true belief. The questions of why knowledge is more valuable than its parts (Kvanvig 2003, p. xiii), why knowledge is more valuable than non-knowledge (Pritchard 2010, p. 6), and why knowledge is distinctively valuable (Pritchard 2010, pp. 7–8) are thus separate from the “Meno problem,” in the present sense.
For further discussion, see Hazlett (2013, Chapter 4).
For recent work in the social epistemology of group knowledge, group belief, and group justification, see the essays collected in Lackey (2014) and Brady and Fricker (2016), as well as Bird (2010, 2020), Carter (2015, forthcoming), Tollefsen (2020), Simion, Carter, and Kelp (forthcoming), Palermos (forthcoming).
Craig (1990).
Treatise of Human Nature, Book III, Part II, Section II, SBN 490.
Cf. Sorensen (2010, pp. 612–613). Sorensen’s case involves soldiers who will fight only if it is common knowledge among them that the others will not defect.
Sasse, in an interview with Bill Kristol, April 24th, 2017.
Sasse, in an interview with Jake Tapper, July 2nd, 2017.
Sasse, on Twitter, June 28th, 2016 (https://twitter.com/bensasse/status/747994722057199617?lang=en).
Flake, in an interview with NPR, November 29th, 2017.
Flake, announcing his resignation from the Senate, October 24th, 2017.
“The local-news crisis is destroying what a divided America desperately needs: Common ground,” Washington Post, August 5th, 2018. Sullivan’s argument suggests a question in the philosophy of technology: are there communication technologies that are conducive or counter-conducive to the formation of common knowledge? Social media platforms and cable news channels are often targeted as sources of division and intellectual fragmentation. Face-to-face communication seems ideal for generating common knowledge, given the relative ease with which knowledge can be expressed and recognized in such contexts; dialogical means of communication also seem superior to non-dialogical means, given that only the former facilitate asking someone what they know and receiving an answer.
I use the term “non-instrumental value” here; “final value” would have done just as well. “Intrinsic value” is in the ballpark, but there are cases in which something seems valuable for its own sake (i.e. non-instrumentally, finally) but not intrinsically valuable, e.g. historical artifacts, the individual parts of a great work of art, etc.
My case is loosely based on the 2013 movie Europa Report.
My argument in this section is, of course, not the only way we might push back against the idea that common knowledge of significant truths is non-instrumentally valuable. For example, in the case of the mission to Mars (Sect. 4), you might think that you want to transmit your message back to Earth merely as a means of establishing your legacy as the discoverer of life on Mars.
Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part II, SBN 119.
Treatise of Human Nature, Book II, Part III, Section X, SBN 449.
Ibid., SBN 451.
I presented versions of this paper in 2018 at the Midsouth Philosophy Conference, in Memphis, and at the Academica Sinica, in Taipei. Thanks to my audiences on those occasions, and to Anne Baril, Eric Brown, Jacob Caton, Roy Sorensen, Shane Ryan, and two anonymous referees for Synthese.
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This article belongs to the topical collection "New Directions in Social Epistemology", edited by Adam Carter and Christoph Kelp.
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Hazlett, A. The value of common knowledge. Synthese 200, 11 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03457-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03457-9