Abstract

In this talk I will argue for what I call the ‘Permission View’ of knowledge. According to the Permission View we need others’ permission in order to know: social permission is partially constitutive of knowledge. Whilst work from various sources outside analytic epistemology speaks in favour of this view, in this talk I argue for it on the basis of a set of pressures which arise from within accounts of knowledge offered by analytic epistemology. Focusing in particular on the discussion of pragmatic encroachment, and knowledge norms of assertion and action, I argue that we see the analytic epistemologist fire-fighting against a set of difficulties which can be better accommodated by giving up the individualism of standard analyses of knowledge in favour of the more radically social approach offered by the Permission View. I then go on to explore and defend some of the controversial implications of the view.