Cooperation and Shared Inquiry

We inquire together all the time, yet the norms of such inquiring are poorly understood. Parallels from norms of individual inquiry fall short in accurately characterizing our inquiring together. The need then for an account of inquiring together which provides normative guidance is pressing. This paper unpacks and defends a version of a crucial norm of such inquiry, inspired by Harman (1986), which codifies the kind of evidence necessary for a shared inquirer to permissibly settle her shared question. It is informed by the demands of directed openness between inquirers, characteristic of much shared activity generally, and shared inquiry specifically. In defending this norm, a general account of shared inquiry is developed, one which sheds light on the complex and surprising relationship between human cooperation and epistemic rationality.