Customary knowledge is legitimated by communal consensus the Greeks called opinion

Evidence

What is a “good” prescriptive or evaluative utterance, a “good” performance in denotative or technical matters? They are all judged to be “good” because they conform to the relevant criteria (of justice, beauty, truth, and efficiency respectively) accepted in the social circle of the “knower’s” interlocutors. The early philosophers called this mode of legitimating statements opinion. The consensus that permits such knowledge to be circumscribed and makes it possible to distinguish one who knows from one who doesn’t (the foreigner, the child) is what constitutes the culture of a people. — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 187

Categorization

• XREF: This consensus-based legitimation is precisely what Lyotard later contrasts with the performativity criterion — and what Jameson reads as the effacement of local consensus by multinational capital. — connects to: The people’s consensus and scientific consensus are the same legitimation model — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on…, 251; Pragmatism relates to ancient skepticism via valuing opinions by utility — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 399; Social consensus precedes individual competence in judgment — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 268 (+3 more)
• DEFINE: Grounds the concept of opinion as a mode of legitimation distinct from scientific proof.

Broader Connections

• Pragmatism relates to ancient skepticism via valuing opinions by utility #expands (0.85) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 399
• Scientific legitimation rests on consensus among experts about language rules #corroborates (0.82) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 324
• Social consensus precedes individual competence in judgment #expands (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 268
• Philosophy works by replacing one common sense with another aligned to the ruling group #expands (0.80) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1507
• Advanced societies conflate knowledge with decision-competence and truth with power #expands (0.75) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 634