From Epistemic Authority to the Social Ecology of Knowledge: A Reply to Vučković

This reply to Aleksandra Vučković clarifies two aspects of my earlier critique of Pre-emptionism and develops a positive alternative account of epistemic authority. It argues that evidentialist approaches may adequately capture epistemic permissions but fail to explain the positive obligations we may bear toward epistemically superior agents. Drawing on systems theory, it proposes understanding epistemic authority within a broader epistemic ecology structured by multiple social epistemic goods, including reputation, trust, and epistemic character. On this view, norms governing our responses to expert testimony emerge not only from individual knowledge acquisition, but also from the collective maintenance of healthy epistemic environments.