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This chapter introduces a modeling language for representing the epistemic states of networked human agents at both the individual and collective levels. The new ‘epistemic description language’, or ‘EDL’, has a graphical component and a syntactical component. The language is used to articulate the relationships between individuals and their beliefs as elementary blocks of interactive epistemic networks. The chapter shows how epinets can be used to capture causally relevant states of social networks, and argue for the compilation of an epistemic description language for social interactions and networks.

This chapter illustrates how epinets ground the analysis of social network phenomena. Logical and epistemic pre-conditions for co-mobilization and coordination – important capabilities of social networks – are rendered precise and examined empirically. The epistemic properties of pivotal agents (‘coordinators’ and ‘mobilizers’) and propositions (‘coordinata’) at the epistemic core of coordination and co-mobilization processes are described. The epistemic properties of ‘brokerage’ and epistemic operations embedded in brokers are also brought into relief by the use of epinets. The epistemic approach is further extended to the analysis of status to make more precise distinctions among levels of knownness and fame of connected agents.

This chapter extends the use of epinets to the characterization of dynamic processes in networks. Epinets are employed in two distinct ways: first as instruments for specifying changes in the epistemic states of linked or interacting agents, and second as a toolkit for representing strategic interactions. Using epinets to represent interactions among epistemically-linked agents resolves ambiguities inherent in game theoretic approaches and enables explicit modeling of subtle phenomena including mind games, dialogical games, and information brokerage games.

Using examples and unstructured intuitions that highlight the importance of knowledge, beliefs, and mutual beliefs to the outcomes of social situations and interpersonal relations, this chapter argues for the usefulness of epistemic models of human interactions and networks. The notions of an epistemic state – a link between individuals and propositions they may know or believe – and an epistemic tie among individuals – a link connecting individuals’ epistemic states to one another, are introduced. The chapter shows how the structure of epistemic networks formed by such links are relevant to the dynamics of human interactions, and how the dynamics of these networks are critical elements of complex interpersonal narratives.

This chapter analyzes the epistemic structure of trust in social networks. Trust is defined in terms of the epistemic states of networked agents, and a model of trust is advanced in which trust is characterized as a form of confidence in the competence and integrity of another agent, wherein the trustful knows that the trusted would know a fact if that fact were true, and would say it if he or she knew it, is advanced and examined empirically. The approach is used to measure trust, and show how epistemically-defined trust relationships can function as safeguards for coordination and information flow in networks. This unpacking of trust permits exploration of the dark side of trust – how trust can be broken without appearing that way, as well as the interplay between breaches of trust in integrity and trust in competence.

This chapter considers the Epistemic Description Language (EDL) introduced in the previous chapters through an epistemic prism, offering an interpretation of the development of an epistemic approach to social network analysis as a set of brokering and closure-producing moves, where brokering happens across research communities with different representational and methodological commitments (epistemic game theory, network sociology) and closure acts at the level of a nascent group interested in the epistemic structure and dynamics of networks. The chapter concludes with a discussion of future directions for research and development.