Would we recognize instances of philosophical knowledge?

Abstract It is a widespread assumption that permanent philosophical dissensus indicates that none of the parties has philosophical knowledge. However, this assumption is based on the view that the philosophers’ community would recognize instances of individual philosophical knowledge if someone had such epistemic achievement. The problem is that it is challenging to justify this view because the idea that the community of philosophers is epistemically deprived is neither self-contradictory nor falsified by the available evidence. So it seems that one should be agnostic about the abilities of the community of philosophers. In our paper, we propose a non-evidential way of defending the trust in the philosophers’ community. We argue that one can hold—without (almost) any evidence—the belief that the community would recognize instances of philosophical knowledge because one is epistemically entitled to believe in the minimal reliability of the community of philosophers.