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testimonial justification
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Epistemological Problems of Testimony plato.stanford.edu Apr 1, 2021 62 facts
claimSome Anti-Individualists argue that acquiring testimonial justification involves features related to both the hearer and other speakers in the hearer's local environment.
claimA qualified hybrid view of testimonial justification posits that adults must possess non-testimonially based positive reasons to trust a speaker, whereas children in the developmental phase are justified in believing testimony unless they possess specific reasons not to.
claimCharlie Pelling (2013) argues against the Inheritance View by presenting a case where a hearer acquires testimonial justification from a speaker who believes a proposition based on an irrational hunch rather than good evidence.
claimTestimonial Reliabilists who endorse an Anti-Individualistic approach explain differences in testimonial justification between scenarios by requiring both the speaker and hearer to be reliable producers and consumers of testimony.
claimHybrid views of testimonial justification explain how young children acquire testimonial knowledge while avoiding gullibility by requiring both speaker reliability and weaker positive reasons from the hearer, as discussed by Jennifer Lackey (2008).
claimReductionists are Individualists because they maintain that testimonial justification consists in an inference made by the hearer, specifically inferring that a claim is true based on the speaker's utterance.
claimSome hybrid views of testimonial justification argue that both the speaker and the hearer play an essential role in the hearer's ability to acquire justification, which may require the hearer to possess non-testimonially based reasons to believe the speaker is reliable on a specific occasion.
claimThe Assurance View (also called the Interpersonal View) posits that if a hearer acquires testimonial justification for believing a proposition on the basis of a speaker's say-so, the hearer's belief is justified, at least in part, by the speaker's non-evidential assurance.
claimPeter Graham (2006b) provides an objection to the Inheritance View that is similar to Jennifer Lackey's 'Persistent Believer' case, challenging the idea that testimonial justification requires the transfer of the speaker's evidence.
claimThe objection regarding the difficulty of testimonial justification targets Reductionist views in general, not just Local Reductionism.
claimMany epistemologists reject the Inheritance View, arguing that testimonial justification is not literally inherited from the speaker because a hearer can acquire justification even when the speaker's evidence does not justify the belief.
claimSome epistemologists propose hybrid views of testimonial justification to capture the strengths of both Reductionism and Non-Reductionism while avoiding the objections associated with each.
claimOpponents of hybrid views of testimonial justification, including Insole (2000), Weiner (2003), and Lackey (2008), argue that these accounts either suffer from the same objections as standard Reductionism and Non-Reductionism or introduce new problems.
claimTestimonial Reliabilism posits that a hearer's testimonial justification consists in the reliability of the processes involved in the production of the hearer’s testimonially-based belief, rather than being justified by evidence or non-evidential assurances.
claimAnti-Individualist Testimonial Reliabilists argue that testimonial justification must be understood through cognitive processes that include both the speaker's production of testimony and the hearer's consumption of that testimony.
claimMikkel Gerken and Paul Faulkner have proposed hybrid views regarding testimonial justification.
claimSome epistemologists argue that testimonial justification cannot be explained in a unified way, leading to the development of hybrid views that combine components of Reductionist, Reliabilist, and Inheritance accounts.
claimThe Inheritance View of testimonial justification posits that a hearer acquires justification for believing a proposition because they literally inherit the justification the speaker has for believing that proposition.
claimAndrew Peet and Eli Pitcovski's 2017 article 'Lost in Transmission: Testimonial Justification and Practical Reason' explores the intersection of testimonial justification and practical reason.
claimThe optometrist thought experiment serves as an objection to the Inheritance View by illustrating that a hearer's belief can be rendered irrational by a defeater—such as a doctor's warning about unreliable vision—even if the belief is true and the speaker's faculties are functioning reliably.
claimThe Assurance View of testimonial justification faces a challenge because assurances often appear epistemically superfluous, meaning they do not change the epistemic status of a belief.
referenceWright (2016a, 2019) identifies a circularity problem that applies to all Reductionist views regarding testimonial justification.
claimReductionist epistemologists maintain that testimonial justification is reducible to a hearer's other epistemic resources, specifically their memorial, perceptual, and inferential capacities.
claimJennifer Lackey (2008), Joseph Owens (2006), and Frederick Schmitt (2010) have raised concerns regarding the epistemic status of assurances in testimonial justification.
referenceCrispin Wright's hybrid view of testimonial justification suggests that a hearer's belief can be justified by the hearer's own evidence for accepting what the speaker says, the reliability of the speaker's testimony, or by inheriting the evidence possessed by the speaker.
claimLocal Reductionists define testimonial justification as a combination of perceptual, memorial, and inferential justification, where a listener perceives an utterance and infers its truth based on the specific occasion.
referenceE. Fricker (1995) argues that a qualified hybrid view of testimonial justification allows young children to be justified in believing the testimony provided by their parents.
claimTomoji Shogenji defends reductionism regarding the testimonial justification of beliefs in his 2006 paper published in Noûs.
claimJennifer Lackey's 'Persistent Believer' case (2008) argues that the Inheritance View is false because it implies a hearer cannot acquire testimonial justification from a speaker if the speaker's total evidence does not justify the speaker in believing the proposition, whereas intuitively, such justification can be acquired.
claimRobert Audi (1997, 1998, 2004, 2006) defends Non-Reductionism regarding testimonial knowledge but does not defend it regarding testimonial justification.
claimUnder the framework proposed by Robert Audi (1997), Individualism applies to testimonial justification because it depends on the hearer's inferences, while Anti-Individualism applies to testimonial knowledge because the speaker must know the proposition for the hearer to acquire knowledge.
claimCritics argue that Local Reductionism makes testimonial justification difficult to achieve because social psychology research suggests humans are poor at detecting false or unreliable testimony.
claimGoldberg (2010a) argues that because Wilma's internal cognitive processes are identical in both the 'Good' and 'Bad' cases, but she only possesses knowledge in the 'Good' case, the cognitive processes required for testimonial justification cannot be limited to those internal to the hearer.
claimThe Inheritance View of testimonial justification posits that if a hearer acquires justification for believing that p based on a speaker's testimony, the hearer's belief is justified by the same evidence that justifies the speaker's belief that p.
claimFrederick F. Schmitt discusses testimonial justification and transindividual reasons in his 2006 chapter published in the collection edited by Lackey and Sosa.
claimProponents of the Assurance View argue that testimonial justification is non-evidential because a speaker's assurance that a proposition p is true only counts in favor of p if the speaker intends to provide that assurance, whereas evidence (like a fingerprint) counts in favor of a proposition regardless of the agent's intentions.
perspectiveNick Leonard (2016) argues that the Assurance View should be rejected because it excludes young children and people with autism from acquiring testimonial justification, despite evidence that they are capable of acquiring such justification.
claimEpistemologists question whether testimonial justification is based on evidence or on non-evidential assurances.
claimSome Testimonial Reliabilists argue that testimonial justification should be understood Individualistically because it consists only in the reliability of cognitive processes internal to the hearer's mind.
claimTestimonial Reliabilists define testimonial justification as the reliability of the processes involved in both the production and consumption of testimony.
referenceDefenses of Anti-Individualism regarding testimonial justification have been provided by Graham (2000b), Lackey (2008), Goldberg (2010a), Kallestrup and Pritchard (2012), Gerken (2013), Pritchard (2015), and Palermos (forthcoming).
claimGlobal Reductionists argue that testimonial justification can be reduced to a combination of perceptual, memorial, and inferential justification, involving perceiving an utterance, remembering past reliability of testimony, and inferring the truth of the current statement.
referenceJennifer Lackey's hybrid view of testimonial justification posits that justification consists partly in the hearer's evidence for accepting the speaker's testimony, and partly in the reliability of the speaker and hearer at producing and consuming testimony respectively.
claimCritics of the Assurance View object that it is unclear how non-evidential assurances can justify a belief, specifically questioning whether a listener who is the intended recipient of an assurance is epistemically better off than an eavesdropper who hears the same testimony but was not the intended recipient.
claimReductionists argue that testimonial justification depends entirely on features related to the hearer, such as the hearer's perception of the speaker, the hearer's memory of testimony reliability, and the hearer's inference that the speaker's statement is likely true.
claimHybrid views of testimonial justification argue that a hearer's belief does not require strong positive reasons to rely on a speaker, provided the speaker is a reliable reporter and the hearer has some non-testimonial reasons to trust the speaker.
claimAnti-Individualism regarding testimonial justification is the view that a complete account of testimonial justification cannot be given by appealing only to features related to the hearer.
referenceE. Fricker (2006b), Faulkner (2000), Lehrer (2006), and Pritchard (2006) provide defenses of hybrid views regarding testimonial justification.
claimLocal Reductionism implies that humans have less testimonial justification than previously assumed, because it requires hearers to be skilled at monitoring for signs of falsehood and unreliability, a skill humans lack.
claimProponents of the Inheritance View are classified as Anti-Individualists because they maintain that a hearer's acquisition of testimonial justification depends on whether the speaker possesses justification for the hearer to inherit.
perspectiveOpponents of Testimonial Reliabilism argue that the theory faces a significant challenge in specifying which processes—production or consumption—are relevant to a hearer's testimonial justification.
claimThe 'Persistent Believer' case demonstrates that testimonial justification can be generated, meaning a hearer can acquire testimonial justification for a belief even if the testifier was not justified in holding that belief.
referenceAlvin Goldman (1979, 1986) and Alston (1994, 1995) are cited as proponents of the view that testimonial justification consists only in the reliability of cognitive processes internal to the hearer.
claimThe central question in the debate over testimonial justification is whether testimony is a basic source of justification or if it can be reduced to a combination of other epistemic sources.
claimA version of Testimonial Reliabilism that focuses on the processes involved in the speaker's production of testimony and the hearer's ability to discern sincerity is committed to an asymmetric verdict: a hearer lacks testimonial justification for believing an unreliable testifier (Umar) even if the hearer has no reason to prefer a reliable testifier (Rebecca) over the unreliable one.
claimTestimonial Reliabilism is motivated by the theoretical considerations that support Reliabilist theories of justification generally, as well as its perceived ability to avoid problems associated with other views of testimonial justification.
referenceJennifer Lackey (2008) presents a thought experiment involving aliens dropping a notebook containing testimony about tigers eating their friends to argue that Non-Reductionism fails to account for the need for positive reasons in testimonial justification.
claimReductionists argue that to acquire testimonial justification, a hearer must possess positive reasons to believe that the speaker is a reliable testifier.
claimSome Anti-Individualists argue that acquiring testimonial justification involves features related to both the hearer and the speaker.
referenceGoldberg (2010a), Graham (2000b), and Lackey (2008) defend Anti-Individualistic views by requiring that a hearer must be a reliable consumer of testimony and the speaker must be a reliable testifier for the hearer to acquire testimonial justification.
claimIndividualism regarding testimonial justification is the view that a complete account of testimonial justification can be given by appealing only to features related to the hearer.
perspectiveOpponents of Testimonial Reliabilism argue that the theory's asymmetric verdict is counterintuitive because a hearer cannot be justified in believing one testifier over another when the hearer has no reason to think one source is better than the other.
Epistemology of Testimony | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu 10 facts
claimDavid Hume does not include a priori insight among the sources to which testimonial justification is reduced.
quoteTomoji Shogenji states: "[B]y the time the epistemic subject is in possession of testimonial evidence by interpreting people’s utterances, her belief in the general credibility of their testimony is well supported. For, unless the hypothesis that testimony is generally credible is true, the epistemic subject is unable to interpret utterances and hence has no testimonial evidence. … The unintelligibility of testimony without general credibility is … not an objection to reductionism about testimonial justification, but a consequence of the dual role of the observation used for interpretation—the observation confirms the interpretation of utterances and the credibility of testimony at the same time. … [E]ven a young child’s trust in testimony can be justified by her own perception and memory. In order for people’s utterances to be testimonial evidence for her, the child must have interpreted the utterances, but the kind of experience that allows her to interpret the utterances is also the kind of experience that supports the general credibility of testimony."
claimTestimonially-based justification is not indefeasible; a subject S is only justified on the basis of a testifier T's testimony if S lacks a defeater for the belief that p.
claimJennifer Lackey argues that a hearer (S) is unjustified in believing a diary written by an extraterrestrial alien (T) because the hearer lacks positive reasons to believe the diary is written in English, is not ironic, or is otherwise reliable.
perspectiveDavid Hume's reductionist perspective posits that individuals properly form beliefs based on testimony only because they have observed other confirmed instances of the veracity of human testimony, meaning testimonial justification is reducible to perceptual, memorial, and inferential justification.
quote[H]earers need positive reasons in order to acquire testimonial justification, thereby avoiding the charge of … gullibility and intellectual irresponsibility.
claimFricker (2006b) argues that knowledge-preservationism regarding testimonial knowledge requires a demanding approach to testimonial justification, where the hearer's belief is grounded in the hearer's second-order belief that the testifier knows what they asserted.
claimThe debate between David Hume and Thomas Reid regarding internal conditions on testimonially-based beliefs can be characterized by whether testimonially-based justification is reducible to other forms of justification.
claimJennifer Lackey argues that hearers need positive reasons to acquire testimonial justification to avoid gullibility and intellectual irresponsibility, using an example where a subject (S) encounters an extraterrestrial (T) with a diary written in English.
perspectivePeter Graham argues that requiring individuals to reduce testimonial justification to other forms of justification is overly demanding and hyper-intellectualizes the process of testimonial justification.
Social Epistemology - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy plato.stanford.edu Feb 26, 2001 2 facts
claimAnti-individualism about testimonial justification posits that the justification of an audience's testimony-based belief can be affected by factors external to the audience, such as the speaker's epistemic condition or the general reliability of testimony in the audience's local environment.
claimIndividualism in testimonial justification is the view that the conditions for justified testimony-based belief can be specified using only materials from the audience, such as the evidence in their possession or the reliability of their faculties.
Social Epistemology – Introduction to Philosophy - Rebus Press press.rebus.community 1 fact
claimTestimonial justification reduces to other forms of justification, such as observation and memory, because testimony is only considered evidence when supported by inductive evidence.