Most of our modern epistemic problems arise in the process by which we defer to authority.
Since human knowledge and understanding is so vast, and since any single individual can only comprehend a small fraction of the total, we are left relying on others’ knowledge and expertise for everything from checking our email to turning on the lights at night.
This is fine for things that are easily demonstrated (your car gets you to work, the lights turn on), but for subjects with more nuance that don’t have any obvious direct impact on our lives, we have to figure out who and what to trust.
There are two categories of solutions for this problem:
- Solutions that rely on historical information to determine trust.
- Solutions that rely on intuition and “gut” to determine trust.
Solutions in category #1 can be valid (some more than others).
Solutions in category #2 are inherently invalid.
A modern study of epistemology ought to be, in one way or another, a study of the first category.
A modern study of disinformation is, one way or another, a study of the second category and its consequences.
