Veritistic Epistemology and the Epistemic Goals of Groups: A Reply to Vähämaa

In his "Groups as Epistemic Communities: Social Forces and Affect as Antecedents to Knowledge," Vähämaa claims that the epistemic goal of most groups is a "shared understanding of how things are." Moreover, he criticizes Fallis's article on "Collective Epistemic Goals" for taking true beliefs to be an epistemic goal of groups. In this note, we argue that there is really no deep disagreement between the two articles. Any impression that there is is based on a misunderstanding of Fallis's article and/or of the larger project of veritistic epistemology.