Kremers, Philipp: The Social Epistemology of Bureaucracies

_Synthese_. forthcomingWe admire some bureaucracies for their ability to efficiently organize the production of knowledge on a large scale. At the same time, bureaucracies are commonly associated with serious epistemic shortcomings. As Max Weber noted, they have a reputation for turning their members into ‘specialists without mind.’ This article resolves this apparent tension by advancing a systems-oriented social epistemology of bureaucracies. I show that bureaucracies indeed have the potential