Philosophy
The Epistemology of Collective Knowledge and Group Epistemic Agents
Quick fact
Philosopher Margaret Gilbert argued that a group can have a belief even if no individual member personally holds it, as long as they jointly commit to accepting that proposition as the group's view.
Why this is interesting
A jury declares someone guilty, a scientific panel announces a consensus, a government issues a report—but who exactly knows these things? Do groups have minds of their own, or is collective knowledge just a convenient fiction?