Social epistemic dependence
So far, we have seen motivations for rejecting internalism and evidentialism. We have also seen how doing so allows a more realistic estimation of one's own abilities and limitations, and how doing so embraces at least a kind of epistemic dependency on the world.
But all this is still consistent with epistemic individualism and its rejection of social epistemic dependence, or epistemic dependence on other persons. However, just as externalism motivates anti-evidentialism, it also motivates anti-individualism. For once we allow that epistemic status can depend on facts about the external world, it is an easy step to allow that epistemic status can depend on facts about the social world. Just as an individual's epistemic status (of one sort or another) can depend on a friendly external environment, her epistemic status can depend on a friendly social environment as well. In this regard, anti-individualism can be viewed as simply an extension of externalism into the social world.1723.8
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