Knowledge Tree
Robert Audi
Facts (16)
Sources
Epistemology of Testimony | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu 11 facts
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.
claimRobert Audi (1997) is demanding regarding testimonially-based justification but lenient regarding testimonially-based knowledge because he does not consider justification a requirement for knowledge.
quoteRobert Audi (2006) states: "[T] must in some sense, though not necessarily by conscious choice, select what to attend to, and in doing so can also lie or, in a certain way, mislead … For the basic sources, there is no comparable analogue of such voluntary representation of information."
quoteRobert Audi argues against the possibility of gaining knowledge from the biology teacher in Jennifer Lackey's example, stating: “If … [the students] simply take [the teacher’s] word, they are taking the word of someone who will deceive them when job retention requires it…. It is highly doubtful that this kind of testimonial origin would be an adequate basis of knowledge.”
claimRobert Audi (2006) asserts that testimony is operationally dependent on perception, noting that to receive testimony about the time, one must hear or otherwise perceive the speaker.
perspectiveRobert Audi argues that students cannot gain knowledge from a teacher who does not believe the lesson they are teaching, stating that if students simply take the word of a teacher who would deceive them when job retention requires it, it is highly doubtful that this testimonial origin provides an adequate basis for knowledge.
claimRobert Audi (2002) argues that apart from perceptual justification for believing that a testifier attested to a proposition, one cannot acquire justification for believing that proposition on the basis of that testimony.
quoteRobert Audi states: "[W]e cannot test the reliability of one of these basic sources [that is, for Audi, a source like perception or memory, but not testimony] or even confirm an instance of it without relying on that very source. … With testimony, one can, in principle, check reliability using any of the standard basic sources."
claimRobert Audi (2006) suggests that individuals can often withhold belief, if not at will, then indirectly by adopting a highly cautionary frame of mind.
claimAlvin Plantinga (1993) and Robert Audi (2006) suggest that testimony differs from sources like perception because testimonially-based beliefs can be defeated or trumped by other sources of evidence in ways that perception cannot.
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.
Epistemology - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org 2 facts
Epistemological Problems of Testimony plato.stanford.edu Apr 1, 2021 2 facts
Pluralism About Group Knowledge: A Reply to Jesper Kallestrup ... social-epistemology.com Jan 20, 2023 1 fact
claimRik Peels (2016) provides reasons to reject Robert Audi's argument that stored information is not a genuine dispositional belief if it is not accessed in some relevant situation.