Abstract:

In this paper, I explore three related notions that animate Jewish epistemology. I then go on to claim that these notions collectively tend towards a "communitarian epistemology."

The first notion is knowledge by testimony. Primarily, Jewish thinkers take themselves to know things about God and God’s will on the basis of a reliable chain of testimony.

The second notion is corporate knowledge. According to Maimonides an individual who lacks belief that p can still be part of a community that knows that p.

The third notion I call epistemic rootedness. This notion plays a role in explaining the distinctive contours of conversion to Judaism, a process that seems to care more about the candidate's feeling a sense of belonging to the community than believing in its creed. This, I argue, is because a person can only flourish as an epistemic agent within the context of a community.

Previous claimants to the title of "communitarian epistemologists" have cast communities as corporate epistemic agents. Jewish epistemology does this too. But previous claimants have gone further still and argued that communities are the only real or fundamental epistemic agents. Jewish epistemology, it seems, doesn’t go that far. Individuals are agents too. Previous claimants to the title of communitarian epistemology have argued that all knowledge is, essentially, testimonial. Jewish epistemology demurs. Testimonial knowledge is fundamental but it isn’t the foundation of all knowledge.

What makes an epistemology communitarian shouldn’t be neglect of the individual in favour of the collective. That sounds more like a communist epistemology! What makes an epistemology communitarian, I argue, should be that it situates individuals within a community and recognises that their epistemic agency, as individuals, is bound up with their communal identity. We may not be metaphysically constituted by membership in a community, but it is what makes us epistemic agents, hence the claim of this chapter that Jewish epistemology is communitarian, and is more worthy of that label than other theories that have claimed it in the past.

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Rabbinic Philosophy and Communitarian Epistemology