Grundzüge und Grundpositionen der sozialen Erkenntnistheorie

On the basis of the individualistic philosophy of the founder of modern epistemology, Rene Descartes, the topics and questions of epistemology were normally treated from the perspective of a single and social isolated individual.

Social conditions of knowledge first really came to the fore of philosophical investigation within the so called "social turn in epistemology" during the 1970s. On this basis and in the course of a intensifying philosophical discourse a new branch of epistemology was finally established: The Social Epistemology.

Within this new branch there are - following a terminology of Alvin Goldman - especially two basic positions: Revisionism and preservationism or expansionism. Revisionistic positions thereby challenge fundamental concepts and projects of classic individualistic epistemology - for those positions the social of Social Epistemology leads to epistemic-relativistic positions concerning knowledge and justification and Social Epistemology is understood as the legitimate follow-up project of failed classic epistemology. Preservationistic and expansionistic positions seek to supplement the individualistic perspective on knowledge and justification of classic epistemology with the investigation of social conditions of knowledge and justification in contrast - for those positions the social of Social Epistemology does not lead to epistemic-relativistic positions concerning knowledge and justification and Social Epistemology is understood as a extension of classic epistemology.

The paper "Main Features And Basic Positions Of Social Epistemology" investigates foremost which of these two basic positions is more feasible. Therefore two theories of leading representatives of these two positions, Martin Kusch’s communitarian epistemology of "Knowledge by Agreement" and Alvin Goldman’s veritistic social epistemology of "Knowledge in a Social World", are examined.

It is shown that Goldman’s theory is in principal more feasible than Kusch’s, which leads - together with the fact that some of the problems of Kusch’s theory discussed in "Main Features And Basic Positions Of Social Epistemology" might also be applied to other revisionistic positions - to the conclusion that preservationistic-expansionistic positions are in principle more plausible than revisionistic ones. On this basis then the paper suggests a possible design of a preservationistic-expansionistic account and sketches problems and questions as well as areas of reasearch of Social Epistemology so understood.