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Socio‐functional foundations in science: The case of measurement
Author(s) -
Khalifa Kareem,
Goldberg Sanford C.
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
philosophical issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.638
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 1758-2237
pISSN - 1533-6077
DOI - 10.1111/phis.12218
Subject(s) - foundationalism , epistemology , outsourcing , phenomenon , social epistemology , philosophy , epistemology of wikipedia , philosophy of science , skepticism , sort , political science , computer science , law , information retrieval
Abstract We present a novel kind of “socio‐functional” foundationalism rooted in the division of scientific labor. Our foundationalism is social in that it involves a socio‐epistemic phenomenon we dub epistemic outsourcing , whereby claims from one group of scientists provide epistemological foundations for another group of scientists. We argue that: (1) epistemic outsourcing results in a legitimate form of epistemic foundationalism, (2) this sort of foundationalism can be used to shed light on the epistemology of measurement; and (3) epistemic outsourcing is a distinctively collective epistemic phenomenon.