Abstract:

This paper analyzes, under the framework of applied social epistemology (that is, from an analytical and normative perspective), the debate around the reliability of Wikipedia as a source of knowledge by proposing that Wikipedia is reliable and therefore should be trusted as a source for acquiring real arguments. First, the limitations and strengths of traditional positions on the reliability of Wikipedia are analyzed to question the epistemological role that the notion of trust has acquired in this debate. Second, the notion of ''affective trust'' from the epistemology of testimony is introduced to contrast it with ''hope trust'', to characterize the internal and external social regulations that rule and make Wikipedia reliable. Finally, the findings are summarized in a series of epistemic reasons to trust Wikipedia as a source of knowledge, such as its virtues in relation to the diffusion of information, the internal and external mechanisms that support it, and its survival despite the collapse of the context on the Internet. The suggestion, therefore, is that it is appropriate, from an epistemological point of view, to use Wikipedia reliably in our daily lives.

Keyword: Wikipedia; epistemology; trust; knowledge; use of the Internet