Secrecy: An Epistemological Account

ABSTRACT Although the ethical and political implications of secrecy are significant, I argue here that its fundamental nature is epistemological and that any account of its nature must be based on its epistemological profile. In particular, I propose examining secrecy within the framework of social and political epistemology, considering secrets as intentional disruptions to the social flow of knowledge. This requires us to postulate a crucial distinction between mysteries and secrets. A mystery is something that is difficult to know, thereby frustrating an individual's epistemic interests. By contrast, a secret is a specific kind of mystery that meets the following three conditions: (1) it is known by someone (the knower); (2) it is unknown to someone else (the unknower); and (3) it is intentionally concealed by someone else (the keeper) in a way that frustrates the unknower's epistemic interests.