Truth and Weak Knowledge in Goldman’s Veritistic Social Epistemology
(preliminary version)
In his groundbreaking book Knowledge in a Social World1Alvin Goldman develops a
veritistic approach to social epistemology in great detail. Social epistemology is a recently
developed branch of epistemology that stresses the multiple social dimensions of knowledge.
Social epistemologists emphasize the fact that we are an integral part of a community and that
the acquisition and justification of our beliefs is massively determined by various forms of
social interaction. These social dimensions of knowledge are either negated or neglected in
traditional epistemologies, in particular, in classical rationalism or empiricism.
Traditional epistemological enterprises are mainly focused on private and asocial ways of
knowing. Traditional epistemology is therefore mainly individualistic in character since its
central goal is to identify and assess methods and processes of knowledge acquisition from
the perspective of an isolated individual subject. As a result, the proper use of certain
cognitive abilities of epistemic subjects such as reasoning, sense perception, memory, and
introspection is regarded as the only legitimate source of knowledge in most traditional
epistemologies. In order to account for the social factors in knowledge acquisition, in
particular, for the important role of testimony as an essential source of knowledge, social
epistemologists like Goldman claim that traditional epistemology needs to be extended to a
theory of societal knowledge.
Goldman does not regard his project of a social epistemology as a complete paradigm shift in
epistemology. Instead, Goldman’s social epistemology is a continuation of classical
(individual) epistemology. Classical (individual) epistemology and social epistemology are
both essentially truth-oriented. They both regard the pursuit of truth as the ultimate
motivation of our epistemic endeavours, and they both evaluate our epistemic processes and
practices in relation to their contributions to the acquisition of true beliefs and the avoidance
of false beliefs. Whereas individual epistemic accounts assess the truth-conduciveness of
those practices that are typically considered as non-social, it is the main concern of
Goldman’s veritistic social epistemology to examine the veritistic properties of various socialepistemic practices, such as testimony, argumentation, technology-based communication,
speech regulation, that operate in different areas of the social world (science, law, democracy,
1
See Goldman (1999)
1
education). Since Goldman understands knowledge in the “weak sense of true belief”,2
veritistic social epistemology can also be described as a normative discipline whose main
concern is to assess the impact on knowledge of social-epistemic practices.
Goldman’s veritistic social epistemology sharply contrasts with certain postmodern and
radical constructivist positions in which knowledge is, according to Goldman, exclusively
determined by interpersonal and cultural processes and in which a realistic conception of truth
as a cross-culturally concern of epistemic subjects and as an objective goal of all of our
epistemic endeavours is rejected. Goldman not only distances himself from proponents of
anti-realist radical constructivist accounts (which he calls “veriphobes”) but also from
proponents of epistemic, pragmatic, and relativist theories of truth since they deny “the basic
correspondence idea that what makes sentences or propositions true are real-world truth
makers.”3 Goldman contends that a social epistemology worth the name should go beyond
mere social doxology and should account for the truth-orientation of our various social
epistemic practices. That is why a social epistemology must be veritistic in character and
should embrace the root correspondence idea that truth is defined non-epistemically as a
certain successful descriptive relation between a proposition (belief, statement etc.) and a
portion of an independently existing external reality.
In the following, I am going to make two main critical remarks about Goldman’s veritistic
conception of social epistemology. I agree with Goldman that a social epistemology should be
truth-oriented and should evaluate social-epistemic processes with regard to their contribution
to the production of true beliefs and the avoidance of error. But I do not agree with some
aspects of Goldman’s account of truth and knowledge within his veritistic social
epistemology. My first criticism concerns Goldman’s own version of a correspondence
account of truth and his extremely negative attitude towards pragmatism, epistemic
relativism, social constructivism, and all anti-correspondence theories of truth. To my mind,
Goldman’s conception of truth consists in an extremely weak “root idea” about truth which is
in no way specific to correspondence theories of truth. Many proponents of epistemic,
pragmatic, or deflationist approaches to truth subscribe to Goldman’s requirement that truth
bearers should describe reality. In particular, certain ideas that are associated with epistemic
and pragmatic accounts of truth seem to form a more adequate and useful veritistic basis for
the project of social epistemology than a mere correspondence approach. Furthermore, I think
2
3
See Goldman (1999), 5.
Goldman (1999), 68.
2
that Goldman’s radical and undifferentiated attack on epistemic relativists, pragmatists and
social constructivists is unfair to many philosophers who are sympathetic to versions of those
theories but who do not embrace radical non-realistic ideas. I would even claim that social
epistemology is well-suited to incorporate certain ideas of pragmatism or social
constructivism. My second criticism concerns Goldman’s weak understanding of knowledge
as mere true belief. Of course, it is not truth simpliciter that epistemic subjects strive for, but
truths that are somehow interesting and relevant for the epistemic project in question. That is
why Goldman thinks that veritistic values should only be assessed relative to the agent’s
interests. It is also almost universally acknowledged among epistemologists that knowledge
excludes some kind of epistemic luck. A mere true belief that we arrive at via an unreliable
belief-forming method, cannot count as knowledge. So it seems that we not only strive for
relevant and interesting truths, but also for truths that are in some way reliable or epistemic
safe. So, in order to attain a conception of knowledge that is in accordance with his
conception of veritistic value and with a certain reliability requirement, Goldman should
embrace a stronger version of knowledge.
I will now elaborate on my first criticism. In the second chapter of Knowledge in a Social
World Goldman offers the following “Descriptive Success” (DS) account of truth:
“(DS) An item X (a proposition, a sentence, a belief, etc.) is true if and only if X is
descriptively successful, that is, X purports to describe reality and its content
fits reality.”4
Goldman admits that a full theory in terms of (DS) needs to explain, in particular, what
portions of the reality are considered to be truth-makers, what determines a descriptive
content, and what exactly the relation of “fitting” between the content of X and the reality
consists in. Of course, Goldman need not answer these questions. They are clearly beyond the
scope of a book on social epistemology. But in trying to develop a full-fledged
correspondence theory of truth by spelling out its core notions such as that of the
correspondence relation between a truth-bearer and the worldly truth-maker severe problems
for the whole project of defining truth in terms of a correspondence relation have emerged.
Correspondence theories only seem appropriate for very limited formal language-fragments
with no vagueness, figurative speech, pragmatic implicatures, causal statements, subjunctive
conditionals, self-reference.
4
Goldman (1999), 59.
3
Without any specifications of the core notions of (DS), the requirement of the descriptive
success approach that “what makes sentences true are wordly truth-makers” is not one that
only correspondence theories of truth endorse. To my mind, many epistemic, pragmatic, and
relativist theories that Goldman explicitly excludes as unsatisfactory wouldn’t deny that the
truth or falsity of a sentence is somehow related to how the world is. According to Goldman,
the great pragmatist William James defines truth exclusively in terms of the usefulness a
proposition has to the prospective believer, and therefore disconnects truth completely from
reality.5 But this interpretation of James’ truth theory does not do justice to James’ actual
concern as a pragmatist philosopher. Just like Goldman, James points out that we have a vital
interest in acquiring true beliefs. The possession of true beliefs is of utmost importance for us
in order successfully to find our way through the world.6 Furthermore and most importantly,
James does not deny the core idea of a correspondence theory: “Truth”, James writes quite at
the beginning of his lecture on the pragmatism’s conception of truth, “as any dictionary will
tell you, is a property of certain of our ideas. It means their ‘agreement’, as falsity means their
disagreement, with ‘reality.’ Pragmatists and intellectualists both accept this definition as a
matter of course.”7 To be sure, James does not equate truth with usefulness. For James it is an
“impudent slander” if critics accuse him of claiming that whatever a person finds pleasant and
useful to believe fulfils every pragmatic requirement and should therefore be called “true”. 8
James happily subscribes to the core idea of a correspondence theory that truth involves a
relation to reality. That is why he writes, for example, that “[t]ruths emerge from facts”9 and
that we are under the influence of the “coercions of the world” such that we feel an “immense
pressure of objective control under which our minds perform their operations.”10 But James
also points out that the core idea of a correspondence account is not much more than a
platitude and as such is of little use for answering the difficult questions about the nature of
truth. First of all, many ideas (such as “power”, “spontaneity” etc.) do not correspond directly
to reality. They are, as James put it, rather symbols than copies of realities.11 Furthermore, in
most cases we cannot directly confront our beliefs with reality. We only gain knowledge
about the past by its effects on the present. James is also quite aware of the theory-ladenness
of observation, and the underdetermination of theories by empirical evidence. But these
factors are not necessarily obstacles to correctness and objectivity in scientific knowledge.
5
See Goldman (1999), 42.
See, for example, James (1991), 89.
7
James (1991), 87.
8
See James (1991), 102f.
9
James (1991), 99.
10
James (1991), 103.
11
See James (1991), 94.
6
4
There are, according to James, objective criteria of scientific rationality that govern and
control our pursuit of truth. So, for example, “[…] consistency both with previous truth and
with novel fact is always the most imperious claimant.”12
By giving the example of one of the most prominent proponents of a pragmatist account of
truth I have tried to show that pragmatist theories are not necessarily incompatible with a
project of a veritistic social epistemology. Pragmatists in the tradition of James are not radical
anti-realists who deny the existence of an external reality or deny the important role that
reality plays in the acquisition of knowledge. To my mind, James does not really want to
engage in the metaphysical project of identifying defining conditions of truth in terms of
usefulness or utility. According to James, we do have a pragmatic interest in acquiring true
beliefs, and James’ main concern is to point out the various factors that determine our
processes of verifying our beliefs. These processes are driven inter alia by empirical data,
coherence with already accepted “truths” and also pragmatic considerations, such as interests,
usefulness, fruitfulness etc. I cannot see that such a pragmatist account is in any way hostile to
a veritistic approach to social epistemology that Goldman has in mind.
In a similar vein I would like to argue that Goldman’s critique of social constructivism does
not do justice to many philosophers associated with social constructivism. Goldman
characterizes social constructivism by six claims. The first two claims express a radical antirealist attitude: what we call “true” are merely the products of social constructions, but not
features of an external world. There is no language-independent reality. There are no
objective facts of the matter that make our statements true or false. Even if there were
transcendent truths, those truths are inaccessible for us, as the third claim asserts. The fourth
claim consists in a certain version of epistemic relativism: There are no neutral, transcultural
epistemic standards for settling disagreements. In claim 5 and 6 any attempts to attain truth
are rejected since putatively truth-oriented practices are mere instruments of domination or
repression and are corrupted by various self-serving interests.13
Admittedly, there might be social constructivists who subscribe to such radical anti-realist and
relativist positions. But to my mind the main concern of most social constructivists is to
emphasize that many epistemic endeavours are social enterprises and as such are determined
by social or political interests and goals. This does not necessarily lead to “veriphobia” or to
12
13
James (1991), 96.
See Goldman (1999), 10.
5
radical anti-realism, for example, with regard to science. It is one thing to claim that scientific
facts only come into existence when they are invented and constructed by scientists, as Bruno
Latour seems to hold when claiming that before Robert Koch discovered tuberculosis the
bacillus had no real existence.14 It is another, and less radical, thing to claim that scientific
investigations (such as investigations into infectious diseases) as well as scientific
descriptions and conceptualizations (such as the conceptualization of tuberculosis) are in part
determined (and as such constructed) by human interests and goals. The latter claim in no way
implies that the phenomena scientists investigate and conceptualize do not exist
independently of them and do not have real natural properties that scientists can detect. John
Dupré, for example, argues that “social constructivism is in some ways a fairly banal doctrine,
and that the controversy that has surrounded it derives from further claims that are wrongly
alleged to follow from it.”15 Dupré contends that few social constructivists “deny that
scientific belief has some important dependence on interactions with the world”. But,
according to Dupré social constructivists also point out that in most scientific disciplines
“interactions with nature are insufficient to determine scientific belief”, and since scientists
have personal, social or political goals these social factors also have an influence on scientific
belief formation.16 These social influences can be obstacles to the scientific pursuit of truth
and can corrupt scientific objectivity. Nonetheless, conceding that science has social
influences does not mean that science is not truth-oriented. Science, as Dupré argues, can
overcome these obstacles by correcting the errors that derive from these social influences.17
So, I am not quite sure whether there are really many philosophers who would subscribe to all
of Goldman’s radical six claims of “veriphobia”. At least there is a branch of social
constructivism whose proponents would be quite sympathetic with Goldman’s project of a
veritistic social epistemology. As with the version of pragmatist accounts of truth I outlined
above, social constructivism is not necessarily hostile to veritistic approaches to social
epistemology.
I now turn to my second critical remark about Goldman’s veritistic social epistemology.
Goldman characterizes veritistic epistemology as a discipline that “is concerned with the
production of knowledge, where knowledge is here understood in the ‘weak’ sense of true
belief.”18 According to Goldman, dealing with issues concerning strong knowledge, i.e.,
14
See Boghossian (2006), 26.
Dupré (2004), 83.
16
Dupré (2004), 74.
17
Dupré (2004), 82.
18
Goldman (1999), 5.
15
6
knowledge in which, apart from true belief an additional internalistic or externalistic
condition of justification is required, would be a digression from the main concern of his
book. Furthermore, he thinks that our dominant epistemic goal is “to obtain true belief, plain
and simple.”19 Admittedly, our epistemic endeavours are truth-oriented. We strive for true
beliefs since we are interested in being correctly informed. The possession of true beliefs and
the absence of erroneous beliefs usually helps us in successfully navigating through life and in
satisfying our interests and needs. But mere true beliefs, plain and simple, are not per se
epistemic valuable. To be sure, people’s dominant epistemic goal is not the mere collection of
random or trivial true beliefs or beliefs that are of no importance and relevance for our
epistemic projects. Unless, for example, the correct information about the exact number of
leaves on a particular tree in my backyard at a certain time is of any relevance for an
epistemic project, having this information does not seem to be a desirable goal we should aim
at.20
Goldman seems to be aware of the fact that from an epistemic point of view the possession of
interesting true beliefs is more valuable that the possession of mere true beliefs that are
uninteresting, trivial or irrelevant. While introducing his account of veritistic value (V-value),
i.e. the measure he employs in order to evaluate (social) practices with regard to their
contribution to knowledge, Goldman assumes that the V-values of belief states “should
always be assessed relative to questions of interests.”21 That is why he only assigns V-values
to belief states on the assumption that the epistemic subject has an interest in knowing
whether the respective proposition is the case:
“Suppose, then that S has an interest in a yes/no question: ‘Is it the case that P?’ […]
Then we can assign the following V-values to the three possible states in the
trichotomous scheme. If S believes the true proposition, the V-value is 1.0. If he
rejects the true proposition, the V-value is 0. And if he withholds judgement, the Vvalue is .50. The first state constitutes knowledge, the second error, and the third
ignorance.”22
So, in his epistemic evaluation of belief states in terms of V-values, Goldman does not regard
having true beliefs, plain and simple, but having interesting true beliefs, as epistemically
19
Goldman (1999), 24.
That is why some virtue epistemologists, such as Wayne Riggs, do not regard truth simpliciter, but what he
calls wisdom as the highest epistemic human good. Wisdom, according to Riggs, means a “grasp of the truth
about the subjects that are most important” and about those things that contribute to the understanding of these
subjects (see Riggs (2003), 216.).
21
Goldman (1999), 89.
22
Goldman (1999), 89.
20
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valuable. As a consequence, knowledge in Goldman’s theory, is not epistemically valuable
per se since knowing, i.e., merely believing something true, need not have veritistic value.
Let’s assume that a person S is not at all interested in football. In particular, he does not give a
damn about who won the champions league in 1998/1999. In a boring conversation between
his friends about football, S picks up the (correct) information that Manchester United won
the champions league in 1998/1999 (2:1 against Bayern Munich). As a result, he forms the
true belief that Manchester United won the champions league 1998/1999. Since S has no
interest in this information, his knowing that Manchester United won the champions league
1998/1999 has no veritistic value.23
Furthermore, in order to evaluate social practices in terms of their causal contributions
towards V-values of belief states, the fulfilment of a certain kind of a reliability requirement
is necessary.24 According to Goldman, a practice can only be evaluated with regard to its
veritistic outcome if we take into account the performance of this practice “across a wide
range of applications, both actual and possible”. We must therefore consider the veritistic
“propensities” of social practices.25 This means that we must consider the reliability of
practices (whether they already have a track record or whether they haven’t been employed so
far) with respect to their veritistic impact. Consequently, methods or practices which are not
reliable but lead to (epistemically lucky) true beliefs in single cases – as, for example, in
Gettier cases or in Goldman’s famous “barn-façade” example,26 or in cases of true beliefs that
arise out of wishful thinking – are, according to Goldman’s weak conception of knowledge,
knowledge-producing, but they do not deserve any epistemic credit. So, in defining
knowledge as mere true belief, neither the possession of knowledge nor practices of acquiring
knowledge are per se epistemically valuable. In Goldman’s account the notions that have
positive epistemic value are true belief states with a V-value of 1.0 and practices with high
veritistic propensities that deserve positive credit because they increase the V-values of the
belief states of epistemic subjects. These notions are analysed in terms of the agent’s interests
and in terms of certain reliability requirements, respectively – and as such they are richer than
Goldman’s notion of (weak) knowledge.
23
That is why James Maffie even writes (see Maffie (2000), 251f.) that since according to Goldman it is
interesting knowledge – not knowledge simpliciter – that is epistemically valuable, „knowledge is no longer an
epistemological notion! Indeed, it is no more an epistemological notion than is belief“.
24
Goldman contends that the veritistic notions of reliability and power that he employed, in particular, in
Goldman (1986) and Goldman (1987), “are reflected or encapsulated in the proposed veritistic measure.” (See
Goldman (1999), 90, footnote 16).
25
Goldman (1999), 91.
26
See Goldman (1976).
8
I find it puzzling that Goldman’s account of knowledge is divorced from of his account of the
epistemic evaluation of belief states and (social) practices. In other writings Goldman has
famously argued for a certain kind of reliability requirement for knowledge. Furthermore, our
truth-oriented epistemic practices are interest-driven, and it is interesting knowledge that
Goldman has in mind when he provides the framework for the employment of veritism in his
social epistemology in terms of V-value and V-evaluation. So, why doesn’t Goldman analyse
knowledge as a certain kind of a reliably (via non-social or social practices) produced true
belief with a V-value of 1.0 right at the outset? This richer notion of knowledge would be
more in keeping with Goldman’s conception of a veritistic social epistemology than the weak
notion of knowledge as mere true belief. A conception of societal knowledge of the kind that
interests Goldman shouldn’t deprive itself of epistemically valuable assets.
To conclude, Goldman’s project of a veritistic social epistemology is based on a weak notion
of truth and a weak notion of knowledge as mere true belief. Goldman believes that these
notions provide a sufficient foundation for his veritistic approach to social epistemology. In
particular, he contends that his descriptive-success account expresses the core idea of a
correspondence theory of truth and rules out all epistemic, pragmatic, and relativist truththeories as well as all social constructivist theories on the grounds that they all suffer from
“veriphobia”. I tried to show that Goldman does not do justice to all pragmatist and social
constructivist accounts. As a matter of course, proponents of less radical pragmatist and social
constructivist accounts, such as William James or John Dupré, are happy to embrace the idea
that wordly entities determine the truth of propositions or other truth bearers. But since our
access to the external world is more or less indirect and influenced by many social factors,
they are more concerned with questions of how these factors determine our processes of
verifying and justifying our beliefs then with questions of how truth can ideally be defined.
As such, pragmatism and social constructivism are not necessarily be opposed to the project
of a veritistic social epistemology.
I furthermore tried to argue that Goldman’s weak notion of knowledge as mere true belief can
result in a complete separation of knowledge from epistemic value since in Goldman’s
account the truth-conduciveness of a social practice in a single case is not per se an
epistemically valuable feature. Truth-oriented social practices are only epistemically valuable
9
in so far as they help epistemic subjects to increase the veritistic values of their beliefs relative
to their interests.
My critical remarks do not affect the general idea of Goldman’s veritistic social epistemology.
They are only intended for possible reconsiderations of Goldman’s understanding of truth and
(weak) knowledge in his framework of Knowledge in a Social World.
References
Boghossian, Paul (2006): Fear of Knowledge, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Dupré, John (2004): “What’s the Fuss about Social Constructivism?”, Episteme, June 2004,
73-85.
Goldman, Alvin (1976): “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge“, Journal of Philosophy
73, 771-791.
Goldman, Alvin (1986): Epistemology and Cognition. Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University
Press.
Goldman, Alvin (1987): “Foundations of Social Epistemics”, Synthese 73, 109-144.
Goldman, Alvin (1999): Knowledge in a Social World, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
James, William (1991): Pragmatism (1907), Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Maffie, James (2000): “Alternative Epistemologies and the Value of Truth”, Social
Epistemology 14, 247-257.
Elke Brendel
Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany
10