Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T06:19:47.420Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

EVIDENCE OF EVIDENCE AND TESTIMONIAL REDUCTIONISM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2012

William D. Rowley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An objection to reductionism in the epistemology of testimony that is often repeated but rarely defended in detail is that there is not enough positive evidence to provide the non-testimonial, positive reasons reductionism requires. Thus, on pain of testimonial skepticism, reductionism must be rejected. Call this argument the ‘Not Enough Evidence Objection’ (or ‘NEEO’). I will defend reductionism about testimonial evidence against the NEEO by arguing that we typically have non-testimonial positive reasons in the form of evidence about our testifier's evidence. With a higher-level evidence principle borrowed from recent work on the epistemology of disagreement, I argue that, granting some plausible assumptions about conversational norms, the NEEO is unsound.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , December 2012 , pp. 377 - 391
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anscombe, Elizabeth. 1979. ‘What is it to Believe Someone?’ In Delaney, C. F. (ed.), Rationality and Religious Belief, pp. 141–51. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Audi, Robert. 2004. ‘The A Priori Authority of Testimony.’ Philosophical Issues, 14: 18–34.Google Scholar
Coady, C. A. J. 1992. Testimony: A Philosophical Study. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Conee, Earl. 2004. ‘First Things First.’ In Feldman, Richard and Conee, Earl, Evidentialism, pp. 11–36. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Conee, Earl. 2010. ‘Rational Disagreement Defended.’ In Feldman, Richard and Warfield, Ted A. (eds), Disagreement, pp. 69–90. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Conee, Earl. and Feldman, Richard. 2008. ‘Evidence.’ In Smith, Quentin (ed.), Epistemology: New Essays, pp. 83–104. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Faulkner, Paul. 1998. ‘David Hume's Reductionist Epistemology of Testimony.’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 79: 302–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, Richard. 2006. ‘Epistemological Puzzles about Disagreement.’ In Hetherington, Stephen (ed.), Epistemology Futures, pp. 216–36. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fricker, Elizabeth. 1995. ‘Telling and Trusting: Reductionism and Anti-Reductionism in the Epistemology of Testimony.’ Mind, ns 104(414): 393–411.Google Scholar
Gelfert, Axel. 2010. ‘Hume on Testimony Revisited.’ In Beebee, Helen and Schrenk, Markus (eds), Hume: Epistemology and Metaphysics, special issue of Logical Analysis and the History of Philosophy, 13: 60–7.Google Scholar
Graham, Peter. 2006. ‘Liberal Fundamentalism and its Rivals.’ In Lackey, Jennifer and Sosa, Ernest (eds), The Epistemology of Testimony, pp. 93–115. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Grice, H. P. 1978. ‘Logic and Conversation.’ In Cole, Peter and Morgan, Jerry L. (eds), Speech Acts: Syntax and Semantics, vol. 3, pp. 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Huemer, Michael. 2001. Skepticism and the Veil of Perception. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Hume, David. 1993. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Steinberg, Eric. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Lackey, Jennifer. 2006. ‘It Takes Two to Tango: Beyond Reductionism and Non-Reductionism in the Epistemology of Testimony.’ In Lackey, Jennifer and Sosa, Ernest (eds), The Epistemology of Testimony, pp. 160–89. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mackie, J. L. 1970. ‘The Possibility of Innate Knowledge.’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, ns 70: 245–57.Google Scholar
Price, H. H. 1967. Belief: The Gifford Lectures delivered at the University of Aberdeen in 1960. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Smithies, Declan. 2012. ‘Moore's Paradox and the Accessibility of Justification.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 85(2): 273–300.Google Scholar
Weiner, Matthew. 2003. ‘Accepting Testimony.’ Philosophical Quarterly, 53(211): 256–64.Google Scholar
Williamson, Timothy. 2000. Knowledge and its Limits. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Fred. 2010. ‘Hume and the Role of Testimony in Knowledge.’ Episteme, 7(1): 8–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar