Towards informational social epistemology

Abstract

Introduction. Luciano Floridi’s claim that library and information science (LIS) and social epistemology (SE) are ‘siblings’ sharing a common parent discipline in the philosophy of information (PI) invites reconsideration of how SE might evolve if grounded in PI. Such an approach would explicitly place information at the centre of SE, reshaping our understanding of its role in shaping epistemic environments and fostering collaboration between SE and LIS.

Method/analysis. The findings were obtained from a review and conceptual analysis of relevant literature in PI, SE and LIS.

Results. This paper introduces informational social epistemology (ISE), a framework that bridges the theoretical insights of PI with the shared concerns of SE and LIS. ISE integrates Sanford Goldberg’s focus on epistemic dependence – how individuals and communities rely on others in social routes to knowledge – and extends this to our growing dependence on technologies, proposing that technologies can be understood as artificial epistemic agents in the framework of Floridi’s theory of knowledge as accounted-for information.

Conclusion. ISE redefines the role of LIS from curating to engineering epistemic environments and places emphasis on accountability rather than traditional notions of responsibility when designing, evaluating and improving the technologies on which our epistemic activities depend.