KNOWING THHROUGH BEING TOLD

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 Testimony

In the field of philosophy, testimony is defined as the intentional transfer of a belief from one person to another. The transfer can be verbal, written, or signaled in some way. Testimony is an invaluable source of knowledge. This leads to the development of a theory that gives proper credence to testimony's epistemologically dual nature: both the speaker and the hearer must make a positive epistemic contribution to testimonial knowledge. A testimony can manifest an epistemic value by being evidence for its content. Therefore, competence, conscientiousness, and honesty are also epistemic values. Thus, some moral and social values are epistemic values and have a role to play in the acceptance of scientific beliefs.

An example of testimony is the story a witness tells on the witness stand in court. An example of testimony is what a person says about a religious lesson he believes he learned from God.

Testimony is an invaluable source of knowledge. We rely on the reports of those around us for everything from the ingredients in our food and medicine to the identity of our family members. Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in the epistemology of testimony. Despite the multitude of views offered, a single thesis is nearly universally accepted: testimonial knowledge is acquired through the process of transmission from speaker to hearer. This book shows that this thesis is false and, hence, that the literature on testimony has been shaped at its core by a view that is fundamentally misguided. A detailed alternative to this conception of testimony is then defended: whereas the views currently dominant focus on the epistemic status of what speakers believe, the book advances a theory that instead centers on what speakers say. The upshot is that, strictly speaking, we do not learn from one another's beliefs — we learn from one another's words. Once this shift in focus is in place, the book goes on to argue that though positive reasons are necessary for testimonial knowledge, testimony itself is an irreducible epistemic source. This leads to the development of a theory that gives proper credence to testimony's epistemologically dual nature: both the speaker and the hearer must make a positive epistemic contribution to testimonial knowledge. The resulting view not only reveals that testimony has the capacity to generate knowledge, but it also gives appropriate weight to our nature as both socially indebted and individually rational creatures.

Plato is often characterized as one who dismisses testimony as a source of knowledge. For example, in Thsetetus (Plato, 2005, 201), through the voice of Socrates, he indicts ‘those paragons of intellect known as orators and lawyers’ for ‘making people believe what they want them to believe’, withoutgiving them knowledge. The fact that true belief may on occasion be transferred by such testimony does not convince Plato that knowledge too isconveyed. His portrayal of Socrates’ elenetic discussions shows, however, not a skepticism about testimony but a confidence that if knowledge can be acquired, it will come from a robust examination of the testimony of others.

Application to the Problem of Testimony

Two general sorts of responses have been given to the problem of testimony, and we are now in a better position to see what is wrong with at least one of these approaches:

Reductionism: Our justification for testimonial beliefs comes from perceptual evidence that testimony is reliable (which evidence does not itself depend on testimony).

Anti-Reductionism: Our justification for testimonial beliefs is basic – if someone tells you that p, then that gives you justification for believing that p, unless you have some special reason to doubt p or the trustworthiness of the testifier.

Testimony is an invaluable source of knowledge. This leads to the development of a theory that gives proper credence to testimony's epistemologically dual nature: both the speaker and the hearer must make a positive epistemic contribution to testimonial knowledge.



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