Knowledge Tree
Green
Also known as: Mitchell Green
Facts (22)
Sources
Epistemology of Testimony | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu 21 facts
perspectiveGreen argues that epistemic parity between testimony, memory, and perception is a more economical and likely true account of epistemic phenomena than accounts that distinguish sharply between the three sources.
claimGreen (2006) discusses a scenario where a testifier (T) and a hearer (S) conceptualize the object of a belief differently, such as when T tells S that object m is F, without knowing that m is the same as object n, while S knows that m is n.
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.
perspectiveGreen (2006) argues that it is unclear whether testimony is fundamentally different from perception regarding the necessity of higher-order beliefs about the source.
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.
claimGreen (2006) suggests that a testifier acts as an epistemic agent or employee for the recipient, where the testifier takes responsibility for specific areas of epistemic business, while the recipient retains the responsibility to select the testifier properly.
referenceThe Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy categorizes epistemological views on testimony based on conditions for the testifier (T-side) and the recipient (S-side), identifying four categories: Reductionism (demanding on both sides), Anti-Reductionism (demanding on T-side, less demanding on S-side), and other variations involving thinkers such as Audi, Fricker, Lackey, Burge, Plantinga, Ross, Welbourne, Goldberg, Graham, and Green.
claimGreen argues that human agency is already potentially at stake in cases of perception, such as the possibility that someone has substituted a fake object.
claimGreen suggests that transforming perceptually-based beliefs into testimonially-based beliefs involves anthropomorphizing sense faculties by imagining a world where sense faculties are operated by individuals who present messages about the environment, resulting in the same structure of explanation for epistemic status.
referenceGreen (2006:142) discusses the view that a speaker may assert a proposition if they have enough certainty for the audience's needs, even if that certainty is insufficient for the speaker's own needs.
claimGreen argues that transforming testimonially-based beliefs into perceptually-based beliefs requires treating the testifier as a machine, similar to a telescope.
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.
perspectiveGreen (2006) argues that human freedom is not a distinctive feature of testimonially-based beliefs.
claimGreen claims that the fact that an information-obtaining faculty is operated by a person should not change how that source produces justified beliefs and knowledge.
referenceGreen (2007) defends an approach to knowledge or justification that imposes a no-defeater requirement but not a positive-reasons-to-believe-in-reliability condition, using the legal handling of fraud cases as an analogy.
claimGreen argues that the epistemic parity of testimony, memory, and perception follows from the epistemic innocence of transformations that turn instances of testimonially-based beliefs into instances of beliefs based on the other two sources, preserving the structure of the explanation of epistemic status.
claimGreen (2006) proposes that positional warrant—defined as information sufficient to support a belief if a doxastic subject were present—is the key environmental condition for testimonial knowledge.
perspectiveGreen argues that it is not clear that testimony is fundamentally different from perception regarding the necessity of holding higher-order beliefs about the source of the information.
claimGreen (2006) excludes beliefs that cannot be perceptually-based, such as mathematical facts, from his argument regarding the epistemic parity of testimony, memory, and perception.
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.
claimGreen notes that deception is possible when receiving information from a testifier, just as it is possible when receiving information from a telescope, such as if someone places a fake picture on the telescope's lens.
Dualism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Winter 2016 Edition) plato.stanford.edu Aug 19, 2003 1 fact
referenceGreen (2003) provides a development of the argument regarding the physical world producing non-physical mental states.