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|Ontological Question Type=Subtypes

|Description=

For most of the history of western science and philosophy, human individuals were treated as the sole or primary epistemic agents. The question of how to explain and justify the capacities of human individuals as epistemic agents has long been of interest. In the early modern period, [[Rene Descartes]] (1596-1650) [[CiteRef::Descartes (2004)]][[CiteRef::Descartes (2017)]] and [[John Locke]] (1711-1776) [[CiteRef::Locke (2015)]] produced classic works on these matters. Their theory of ideas maintained that all of our experiences were of ideas in our own minds, some of these ideas being caused by our senses. Descartes maintained that he could show through reason alone that our senses, being the gifts of an omnibenevolent God, were reliable sources of knowledge about an external world of material objects.

seeking to explain and justify the capacities of human individuals as epistemic agents. Discussion of the role of social interaction in the production of knowledge was confined largely to discussion of when one should accept the testimony of others. This took place, for example, in the works of [[David Hume]] (1711-1776) and [[Thomas Reid]] (1710-1796).[[CiteRef::Goldman and Blanchard (2016)]] Beginning in the nineteenth century, the concept that groups of interacting human individuals can function collectively as epistemic agents with a role distinct from their individual parts began to receive increasing attention.

In the eighteenth century David Hume argued that certain knowledge was impossible, and that we could only assess the probability of our beliefs. He argued for the role of acceptance by a social community in assessing these probabilities. He wrote that:

The nineteenth century British philosopher and political economist [[John S. Mill|John Stuart Mill]] (1806-1873) argued, in a political essay called ''On Liberty'' (1859),[[CiteRef:: Mill (2003)]] that because individual human knowers are fallible, critical discussion of ideas between persons with differing views is necessary to help individuals avoid the falsity or partiality of beliefs framed in the context of only one point of view. For Mill, then, the achievement of knowledge is thus a social rather than an individual matter, and human groups can function as epistemic agents.[[CiteRef::Longino (2016a)]] The American philosopher and logician Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) emphasized the instigation of doubt and critical interaction within a community as means to knowledge. He formulated a consensual theory of truth, in which the acceptance of the truth of a proposition depends on the agreement of a community of inquirers, and that only reality can typically produce such agreement. For Peirce then, communities are epistemic agents that can take stances towards propositions.[[CiteRef::Peirce (1878)]][[CiteRef::Longino (2016a)]]