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testimonially-based beliefs
Also known as: testimonially-based belief
Facts (35)
Sources
Epistemology of Testimony | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu 35 facts
claimYoung children lack the intellectual capacity to evaluate the reliability of parents or other testifiers, making it improper to place high epistemic demands on their testimonially-based beliefs.
claimGreen (2006) argues that testimonially-, memorially-, and perceptually-based beliefs are on an epistemic par, meaning the set of explanations for the epistemic status of beliefs from these three sources displays the same structure.
claimCritics of Alvin Plantinga and Robert Audi argue that testimonially-based beliefs can check or trump perceptually- or memorially-based beliefs, such as when an individual seeks confirmation from others after observing a strange phenomenon.
claimPeter Graham (2006) is lenient regarding "pro tanto" justification for testimonially-based beliefs but demanding regarding whether a subject has sufficient pro tanto justification to possess a justified belief.
claimThe Reidian approach to testimony holds that testimonially-based beliefs are properly non-inferential, or direct.
claimGreen claims that treating a testifier's earlier actions as the subject's own actions makes the transfer of information from a testifier to a subject equivalent to the transfer of information from a subject at one time to the same subject at a later time via memory.
claimA testimonially-based belief is formed when a person accepts a statement (p) told to them by another person.
claimA testimonially-based belief is formed when a person accepts a statement (p) that has been communicated to them by another person.
claimA common objection to imposing high epistemic demands on testimonially-based beliefs is that such demands would disqualify many cases that are intuitively considered knowledge or justified belief.
claimSandy Goldberg (2006) argues that forming a testimonially-based belief allows the epistemic subject to 'pass the epistemic buck' to the testifier under the right conditions.
claimFrederick Schmitt (2006) argues that testimonially-based beliefs involve 'transindividual reasons,' where the testifier's initial reasons are transferred to the epistemic subject, even if the subject does not fully comprehend those reasons.
claimA testimonially-based belief is formed when an epistemic subject (S) accepts a proposition (p) told to them by a testifier (T).
claimThe inferentialist view of testimony sees testimonially-based belief as the acceptance of an argument where a person (S) concludes that a proposition (p) is true because a testifier (T) is telling them (p), and T or people like T have generally been reliable in the past.
claimThe argument that free actions are particularly indeterministic suggests that the environment for testimonially-based beliefs cannot be as regular and law-governed as the environment for perceptually-based beliefs.
claimGreen argues that transforming testimonially-based beliefs into perceptually-based beliefs requires treating the testifier as a machine, similar to a telescope.
claimMitchell Green argues that using a category other than 'testimonially-based belief' for machine-generated linguistic output unnecessarily multiplies epistemic categories beyond necessity.
perspectiveSome epistemologists argue that testimony is a type of speech act that requires the testifier to be conscious, and therefore machine testimony does not qualify as 'testimonially-based belief'.
claimFaulkner and Lackey argue that human freedom is a factor that distinguishes perceptually-based beliefs from testimonially-based beliefs.
claimGreen argues that turning memorially-based beliefs into testimonially-based beliefs requires treating the subject at one time as a different person from the subject at a later time.
claimIn the epistemology of testimony, the basic case of testimonially-based belief is defined as a testifier (T) saying a proposition (p) to an epistemic subject (S), where S subsequently believes that p.
perspectiveGreen (2006) argues that human freedom is not a distinctive feature of testimonially-based beliefs.
claimMatthew Weiner argues that testimonially-based beliefs are typically accompanied by beliefs about the teller, whereas beliefs formed through perception may occur automatically without specific beliefs about how the perceptual system functions.
claimIf the possibility of deception necessitates that a subject (S) requires positive reasons to believe a testifier (T), then there is an equally strong reason to require that a subject (S) have positive reasons to believe that the objects of their perceptually-based beliefs are genuine.
claimJames Van Cleve argues that children lack epistemic justification for their testimonially-based beliefs because they pass through a credulous phase where they believe nearly everything they are told without reason.
claimMiranda Fricker suggests that a subject (S) possesses an unusual amount of freedom regarding the formation of testimonially-based beliefs.
claimTomoji Shogenji argues that the ubiquity of testimonially-based beliefs and the reliance on the reliability of testimony can be used to provide greater confirmation for the reliability of testimony.
claimJennifer Lackey argues that a general inductive basis for belief in testimony fails because the category of testimonially-based beliefs is too heterogeneous to support a single, relevant induction.
claimThe debate between David Hume and Thomas Reid regarding testimonially-based beliefs can be characterized by the extent to which such beliefs are implicitly inferential.
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.
claimSome liberals support lenient principles for testimonially-based beliefs based on their similarity to principles governing perceptually-based beliefs.
perspectiveThe claim that deception is always a possibility for testimonially-based beliefs is conceptually flawed because it is possible for a testifier (T) to be a reliable robot that lacks freedom.
claimC.A.J. Coady, Tyler Burge, and Peter Graham argue that there is an a priori reason to accept testimonially-based beliefs, though they differ on whether to demand that such beliefs be based on specific reasons.
claimHuman free action is not always involved in testimonially-based belief, as there are cases in common human experience where people lack the time to deliberate about potential deception.
claimRobert Audi distinguishes between hypothetical and actual inferences, holding that testimonially-based beliefs are formed directly but are justified on the basis of other beliefs that could support the testimonially-based belief without being part of its actual genesis.
claimGreen claims that transforming testimonially-based beliefs into memorially-based beliefs preserves the structure of the explanation of the epistemic status of the resulting belief.