«Social» in Social Epistemology

Abstract

The paper analyzes the main social contexts constituting social epistemology. It describes external so­cio-political contexts which define the framework and required procedures for open research, scientif­ic consensus and epistemic justice. However, the article argues for special importance of internal social contexts – those of knowledge production in research groups. The treatment of knowledge as a collective enterprise requires, in turn, discussion of a new set of problems: the ways and mechanisms of creating the collective subject of knowledge, ways of overcoming disagreements between individual researchers and research teams, explanation of scientific change and others. The «social turn» in epistemology calls for a careful study of these two types of interacting contexts – external and internal ones.