Stags, Hares and Knowledge: is the Knowledge System a Mutual Assurance Game?

TY - UNPB

T1 - Stags, Hares and Knowledge

T2 - is the Knowledge System a Mutual Assurance Game?

AU - Thomas, Alan Price

PY - 2017/4/1

Y1 - 2017/4/1

N2 - This paper assesses the account of the social role of the concept of knowledge implied by reductive, irreducibilist and genealogical accounts of the concept. It is argued that a point by point analogy between the knowledge system and a market economy suggests that the former, like the latter, is an instance of a mutual assurance game. On that basis only the genealogist can give an explanation of the concept of knowledge and its social – although this account is consistent with the position of those who claim the concept is not definable at all.

AB - This paper assesses the account of the social role of the concept of knowledge implied by reductive, irreducibilist and genealogical accounts of the concept. It is argued that a point by point analogy between the knowledge system and a market economy suggests that the former, like the latter, is an instance of a mutual assurance game. On that basis only the genealogist can give an explanation of the concept of knowledge and its social – although this account is consistent with the position of those who claim the concept is not definable at all.

KW - Epistemology, game theory, mutual assurance games

M3 - Working paper

BT - Stags, Hares and Knowledge

ER -