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Epistemic Systems*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

Roger Koppl
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Abstract

Epistemic systems are social processes generating judgments of truth and falsity. I outline a mathematical theory of epistemic systems that applies widely. Areas of application include pure science, torture, police forensics, espionage, auditing, clinical medical testing, democratic procedure, and the market economy. I examine torture and police forensics in relative detail. This paper is an exercise in comparative institutional epistemics, which considers how the institutions of an epistemic system influence its performance as measured by such things as error rates and the volume of judgments generated.

Type
Research Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , June 2006 , pp. 91 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

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