Knowledge by Agreement defends the ideas that knowledge is a social status (like money, or marriage), and that knowledge is primarily the possession of groups rather than individuals. Ch. 1–6 develop a new theory of testimony. They break with the traditional view according to which testimony is not, except accidentally, a generative source of knowledge. One important consequence of the new theory is a rejection of attempts to globally justify trust in the words of others. Ch. 7–12 propose a communitarian theory of empirical knowledge. It is argued that empirical belief can acqu ... More

Knowledge by Agreement defends the ideas that knowledge is a social status (like money, or marriage), and that knowledge is primarily the possession of groups rather than individuals. Ch. 1–6 develop a new theory of testimony. They break with the traditional view according to which testimony is not, except accidentally, a generative source of knowledge. One important consequence of the new theory is a rejection of attempts to globally justify trust in the words of others. Ch. 7–12 propose a communitarian theory of empirical knowledge. It is argued that empirical belief can acquire the status of knowledge only by being shared with others, and that all empirical beliefs presuppose social institutions. As a result all knowledge is essentially political. Ch. 13–20 defend some of the controversial premises and consequences of Chs 1–12: the community‐dependence of normativity, epistemological and semantic relativism, and anti‐realism, and a social conception of objectivity.