The thesis examines foundational arguments of design and assessment of social epistemic systems, an area of epistemology which studies epistemic properties of social and institutional arrangements. First chapter presents the historical overview of institutional epistemology, focusing on pragmatism, experimentalism and democracy in the work of John Dewey, ignorance, norms, pluralism and market in the work of Friedrich Hayek, and the contemporary use of simulations in epistemological research. Second chapter condenses the advances in the discipline: (i) comparative standard for the assessment of social epistemic systems is defined; (ii) baseline conditions of the epistemic life of the population are defined; (iii) instrumentalist arguments fo...