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Full Idea
If we see knowing not as having an essence, described by scientists or philosophers, but rather as a right, by current standards, to believe, then we see conversation as the ultimate context within which knowledge is to be understood.
Gist of Idea
Knowing has no definable essence, but is a social right, found in the context of conversations
Source
Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], Ch.5), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.5
Book Ref
Fogelin,Robert: 'Walking the Tightrope of Reason' [OUP 2004], p.126
A Reaction
This teeters towards ridiculous relativism (e.g. what if the conversation is among a group of fools? - Ah, there are no fools! Politically incorrect!). However, knowledge can be social, provided we are healthily elitist. Scientists know more than us.
| 10326 | Other men's opinions don't add to our knowledge - even when they are true [Locke] |
| 12417 | Mathematicians only accept their own proofs when everyone confims them [Hume] |
| 6599 | Knowing has no definable essence, but is a social right, found in the context of conversations [Rorty] |
| 8800 | If you would deny a truth if you know the full evidence, then knowledge has social aspects [Harman, by Sosa] |
| 3270 | Justifications come to an end when we want them to [Nagel] |
| 2772 | Coherentism moves us towards a more social, shared view of knowledge [Dancy,J] |
| 10323 | Communitarian Epistemology says 'knowledge' is a social status granted to groups of people [Kusch] |
| 10335 | Myths about lonely genius are based on epistemological individualism [Kusch] |
| 10348 | Private justification is justification to imagined other people [Kusch] |