Epistemically Prior to the Individual
The sharing of knowledge creates a new subject of knowledge: the community.
From Knowledge by Agreement, by Martin Kusch, which is mostly referencing ideas from Michael Welbourne:
The community is central to our idea of knowledge. It seems right to say that sharing knowledge with others amounts to sharing entitlements and commitments with them. At least this is so in many prototypical cases of knowledge. The entitlements include drawing on this knowledge as premisses in arguments, or referring to this knowledge as an objective and external standard for what others ought to reckon with. Commitments include answering to others' entitlements, building further upon this knowledge, and seeking to spread new items of knowledge to interested others. Assume that I claim to know how long it takes to travel from Cambridge to Edinburgh; I tell you, and you believe me and tell me so. In doing so, we agree that we should not consent to anyone who suggests a different travel period, that we shall inform each other in case it turns out that we did not possess knowledge after all, that we shall let this information figure in an unchallenged way in travel plans, and so on . . .
The sharing of knowledge creates a new subject of knowledge: the community. And, once this community is constituted, it is epistemically prior to the individual member. This is so since the individual community members' entitlement and commitment to claiming this knowledge derive from their membership in this community. The individual knows as 'one of us', in a way similar to how I get married as 'one of a couple', or how I play football as 'one of a team'.
