Justification of Epistemic Authority

The Potential of the Liberal Model of Responsibilism

Abstract

The article attempts to comprehend the justification of epistemic authority in the liberal model of responsibilism in order to determine the heuristic potential of the argumentation proposed within its framework, as well as to show the problem fields promising for the conceptualization of epistemological authority. The model's advantages are revealed, among which is (1) an attempt to explain the mechanism of action of authority; (2) to identify how authorities are ranked in the case of their competitive interaction; (3) to highlight the grounds for subordination to authority on the part of an individual. The existing disadvantages of the model are ignoring the content of epistemic authority, abstracting from the conditions in which the mechanism of trust is formed, and neglecting the principles that determine the choice between epistemic authorities. It is proved that the desire to build a non-classical epistemology as a system of forms of comprehension of being, functioning on a single epistemological basis, when justifying epistemic authority leads either to formalism or to the reduction of one form of comprehension of being to another. The understanding of the cognizing subject — per the epistemological virtues recognized in the liberal model of responsibilism — as an “honest, rational, autonomous actor” is evaluated as an ideal model built on solid assumptions. The problems of competition of epistemic authorities in modern society and the change of the place of science in this confrontation, which is raised by responsibilism, are among the promising tasks of the study.