Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:45:45.802Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

META-INDUCTION IN EPISTEMIC NETWORKS AND THE SOCIAL SPREAD OF KNOWLEDGE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2012

Gerhard Schurz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Indicators of the reliability of informants are essential for social learning in a society that is initially dominated by ignorance or superstition. Such reliability indicators should be based on meta-induction over records of truth-success. This is the major claim of this paper, and it is supported in two steps. (1) One needs a non-circular justification of the method of meta-induction, as compared to other (non-inductive) learning methods. An approach to this problem (a variant of Hume's problem) has been developed in earlier papers and is reported in section 2. It is based on the predictive optimality of meta-inductive learning, under the assumption that objective success records are globally available. (2) The rest of the paper develops an extension of this approach, so-called local meta-induction. Here individuals can access only success records of individuals in their immediate epistemic neighborhood. It is shown that local meta-inductive learning can spread reliable information over the entire population, and has clear advantages compared to success-independent social learning methods such as peer-imitation and authority-imitation.

Type
Signaling and Information Transmission
Information
Episteme , Volume 9 , Special Issue 2: Formal Social Epistemology, in memory of Horacio Arló-Costa , June 2012 , pp. 151 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Cesa-Bianchi, N., and Lugosi, G. 2006. Prediction, Learning, and Games. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coady, C. A. 1992. Testimony: A Philosophical Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Craig, E. 1990. Knowledge and the State of Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
DeGroot, M. H. 1974. ‘Reaching Consensus’, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 69(345): 118–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeMarzo, P. M., Vayanos, D., and Zwiebel, J. 2003. ‘Persuasion Bias, Social Influence, and Uni-Dimensional Opinions.’ Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118: 900–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Douven, I., and Rieger, A. 2010. ‘Extending the Hegselmann-Krause Model I.’ Logic Journal of the IGPL, 18(2): 323–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricker, E. 2002. ‘Trusting Others in the Sciences: A Priori or Warrant?’ Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 33A/2: 373–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gigerenzer, G., Todd, P.K., and the ABC Research Group. 1999. Simple Heuristics that Make us Smart. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. 1999. Knowledge in a Social World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, A. 2001. ‘Experts: Which Ones Should You Trust?’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 63(1): 85–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, A. 2006. ‘Social Epistemology, Theory of Evidence, and Intelligent Design: Deciding What to Teach.’ Southern Journal of Philosophy, 44: 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golub, B., and Jackson, M. O. 2010. ‘Naive Learning in Social Networks and the Wisdom of Crowds.’ American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2(1): 112–49.Google Scholar
Hartmann, S., Martini, C., and Sprenger, J. 2009. ‘Consensual Decision-Making among Epistemic Peers.’ Episteme, 6: 110–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hegselmann, R., and Krause, U. 2005. ‘Opinion Dynamics Driven by Various Ways of Averaging.’ Computational Economics, 25(4): 381–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hegselmann, R., and Krause, U. 2009. ‘Deliberative Exchange, Truth, and Cognitive Division of Labour: A Low-Resolution Approach.’ Episteme, 6: 130–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Insole, C. 2000. ‘Seeing off the Local Threat to Irreducible Knowledge by Testimony.’ Philosophical Quarterly, 50 (198): 44–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lackey, J. 2006. ‘It Takes Two to Tango: Beyond Reductionism and Non-Reductionism.’ In Lackey and Sosa (2006: 160–89).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lackey, J. and Sosa, E. (eds) 2006. The Epistemology of Testimony. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehrer, K., and Wagner, C. 1981. Rational Consensus in Science and Society: A Philosophical and Mathematical Study. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norton, J. 2003. ‘A Material Theory of Induction.’ Philosophy of Science, 70: 647–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pennock, R. T. 2011. ‘Can't Philosophers Tell the Difference between Science and Religion? Demarcation Revisited.’ Synthese, 178(2): 177–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reichenbach, H. 1949. The Theory of Probability. Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rendell, L. et al. 2010. ‘Why Copy Others? Insights from the Social Learning Strategies Tournament.’ Science, 328: 208–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Salmon, W. C. 1957. ‘Should we Attempt to Justify Induction?’ Philosophical Studies, 8(3): 45–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schurz, G. 2008. ‘The Meta-Inductivist's Winning Strategy in the Prediction Game: A New Approach to Hume's Problem.’ Philosophy of Science, 75: 278–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schurz, G. 2009a. ‘Meta-Induction and Social Epistemology: Computer Simulations of Prediction Games.’ Episteme, 6: 201–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schurz, G. 2009b. ‘Meliorative Reliabilist Epistemology: Where Externalism and Internalism Meet.’ Grazer Philosophische Studien, 79: 41–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schurz, G. 2009c. ‘Meta-Induction: A Game-Theoretical Approach’, in Glymour, C., Wang, Wei, and Westerståhl, D. (eds), Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, pp. 241–66. London: College Publications.Google Scholar
Schurz, G. 2011. ‘Truth-Conduciveness as the Primary Epistemic Justification of Normative Systems of Reasoning’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34: 266–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schurz, G. 2012. ‘Meta-Induction and the Problem of Fundamental Disagreement.’ In Jäger, C. and Löffler, W. (eds), Epistemology: Contexts, Values, Disagreement. Frankfurt/M.: Ontos.Google Scholar
Zollmann, K. 2012. ‘Social Network Structure and the Achievement of Consensus.’ Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, 11(1): 26–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar