Alvin Plantinga, citing Thomas Reid, stated in 1993: "Reid is surely right in thinking that the beliefs we form by way of credulity or testimony are typically held in the basic way, not by way of inductive or abductive evidence from other things I believe. I am five years old; my father tells me that Australia is a large country and occupies an entire continent all by itself. I don’t say to myself, “My father says thus and so; most of the time when I have checked what he says has turned out to be true; so probably this is; so probably Australia is a very large country that occupies an entire continent by itself.” I could reason that way and in certain specialized circumstances we do reason that way. But typically we don’t. Typically we just believe what we are told, and believe it in the basic way. … I say I could reason in the inductive way to what testimony testifies to; but of course I could not have reasoned thus in coming to the first beliefs I held on the basis of testimony."

Authors

• Person: Not available Organization: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  Epistemology of Testimony | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Sources

• Epistemology of Testimony | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy via serper

Referenced by nodes (4)

• testimony concept
• Thomas Reid entity
• Australia location
• Alvin Plantinga entity