Communal knowledge
Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2025 9:54 pm
If I know that p, and you believe me, do you know that p as well?
With only that info available, probably not. We could easily end up with a situation whereby your knowledge of p is also founded upon your belief that somebody else knows p, and on ad infinitum. So at a minimum you would need some epistemic justification that goes beyond merely believing some third guy knows and happening to be correct.
And if my belief in your knowledge that p amounts to sufficient cause for me to also know that p with no further information required, then somebody else has no reason to not believe p and to know p even though I have only a secondary indirect knowledge myself. So they maybe ought to reject my knowing, and perhaps have cause to reject it, but should not reject it and would be mistaken to do so because for all practical purposes p is true and you knew that.
I think there might be a clearer way I could have written that.