Group (epistemic) competence

Abstract

In this paper, I present an account of group competence that is explicitly framed for cases of epistemic performances. According to it, we must consider group epistemic competence as the group agents’ capacity to produce knowledge, and not the result of the summation of its individual members’ competences to produce knowledge. Additionally, I contend that group competence must be understood in terms of group normative status. To introduce my view, I present Jesper Kallestrup’s (Synthese 1–19, 2016) denial that group competence involves anything over and beyond the aggregation of individual competences. I have divided my response into two parts. First, I compare two conceptions of competence from Ernest Sosa’s reliabilist virtue epistemology (Sosa in Philos Stud 142:5–15, 2009; Philos Perspect 24:465–475, 2010a; Knowing full well, Princeton University Press, 2010b; Judgment & agency, Oxford University Press, 2015; Epistemology, Princeton University Press, 2017; in: Silva-Filho, Tateo (eds), Thinking about oneself: The place and value of reflection in philosophy and psychology, Springer, 2019) and David Löwenstein’s (Know-how as competence. A Rylean responsibilist account, Vittorio Klostermann, 2017) account of know-how. Second, I take the results from this comparison and apply them to the issue of group know-how, by the hand of Orestis Palermos and Deborah Tollefsen’s twofold approach to the topic (Palermos and Tollefsen, in: Carter, Clark, Kallestrup, Palermos, Pritchard (eds) Socially extended epistemology, Oxford University Press, 2018). Finally, I return to Kallestrup’s denial to make my point in favour of the conception of genuine group competence as the group normative status to achieve success.