Valuable and pernicious collective intellectual self‐trust¹

Abstract

Recent years have seen a shift in epistemological studies of intellectual self‐trust or epistemic self‐trust: intellectual self‐trust is not merely epistemologists’ tool for silencing epistemic skepticism or doubt, it is recognized as a disposition of individuals and collectives interesting in its own rights. In this exploratory article I focus on a particular type of intellectual self‐trust—collective intellectual self‐trust—and I examine which features make for valuable or pernicious collective intellectual self‐trust. From accounts of the value of individual intellectual self‐trust I take three frameworks for evaluating collective intellectual self‐trust: an epistemically consequentialist, a virtue‐theoretic and a prudential/pragmatic framework (§2). Then I introduce collective intellectual self‐trust (§3). Against this background I explain what is distinctive of valuable collective intellectual self‐trust (§4) and pernicious collective intellectual self‐trust (§5) within the three frameworks. I close by discussing the relation between the three frameworks and argue that evaluating intellectual self‐trust requires a multi‐perspectival approach constituted by the three frameworks.

First Steps in an Epistemology of Collective Intellectual Self-Trust

“…I cannot adequately address the connections of collective intellectual self-trust to moral and epistemic value in this context, but Section 8 on warranted and unwarranted collective intellectual self-trust sketches relevant considerations. See also El Kassar (2022) for more on these issues. consciousness is also stronger and more intense than in groups with merely privately shared concerns or no shared concerns at all.…”

“…As the case of Querdenken, ultras, white supremacists and other groups with collective intellectual self-trust indicates, collective intellectual self-trust and a shared consciousness are not necessarily epistemically-nor morally-valuable (cf. El Kassar 2022). The German ultra football fans beating up Daniel Nivel, a French police man, during the 1998 football world cup might have had collective intellectual self-trust, but they used it to coordinate horribly violent and destructive behavior.…”

“…Warranted collective intellectual self-trust could also be conceived of as a virtue, with unwarranted collective intellectual self-trust as one of its related vices. See El Kassar (2022) for more on the virtue epistemological framework of valuable and pernicious collective intellectual self-trust.…”