Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T21:46:24.758Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Testimony as a Natural Kind

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

Abstract

I argue, first, that testimony is likely a natural kind (where natural kinds are accurately described by the homoeostatic property cluster theory) and that if it is indeed a natural kind, it is likely necessarily reliable. I argue, second, that the view of testimony as a natural kind and as necessarily reliable grounds a novel, naturalist global reductionism about testimonial justification and that this new reductionism is immune to a powerful objection to orthodox Humean global reductionism, the objection from the too-narrow induction base.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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

Abbott, B. 1989. “Nondescriptionality and Natural Kind Terms.” Linguistics and Philosophy 12: 269–91.Google Scholar
Achinstein, P. 1978. “Concepts of Evidence.” Mind 87: 2245.Google Scholar
Axelrod, R. and Hamilton, W. D.. 1981. “The Evolution of Cooperation.” Science 211: 1390–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boyd, R. 1988. “How to be a Moral Realist.” In Sayre-McCord, G. (ed.), Essays on Moral Realism, pp. 181228. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. 1999. “Homeostasis, Species, and Higher Taxa.” In Wilson, R. (ed.), Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays, pp. 141–86. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. 2003a. “Finite Beings, Finite Goods: The Semantics, Metaphysics, and Ethics of Naturalist Consequentialism I.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66: 505–53.Google Scholar
Boyd, R. 2003b. “Finite Beings, Finite Goods: The Semantics, Metaphysics, and Ethics of Naturalist Consequentialism II.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67: 2447.Google Scholar
Bradbury, J. W. and Vehrencamp, S. L.. 2000. “Economic Models of Animal Communication.” Animal Behaviour 59: 259–68.Google Scholar
Coady, C. A. J. 1992. Testimony: A Philosophical Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. 1984. Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. and Krebs, J. R.. 1978. “Animal Signals: Information or Manipulation?” In Krebs, J. R. and Davies, R. N. (eds.), Behavioural Ecology: An Evolutionary Approach, 1st ed., pp. 282309. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific.Google Scholar
Dunbar, R. I. M. 2004. “Gossip in Evolutionary Perspective.” Review of General Psychology 8: 100–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricker, E. 1994. “Against Gullibility.” In Matilal, B. M. and Chakrabarti, A. (eds.), Knowing From Words: Western and Indian Philosophical Analysis of Understanding and Testimony, pp. 125–61. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricker, E. 1995. “Telling and Trusting: Reductionism and Anti-Reductionism in the Epistemology of Testimony.” Mind 104: 393411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricker, E. 2006. “Second-Hand Knowledge.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 73(3): 592618.Google Scholar
Graham, P. J. 1997. “What is Testimony?Philosophical Quarterly 47: 227–32.Google Scholar
Hauser, M. D. 1996. The Evolution of Communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hume, D. 1748/1975. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Nidditch, P. H. and Selby-Bigge, L. A. (eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Johnstone, R. 1997. “The Evolution of Animal Signals.” In Krebs, J. R. and Davies, N. B. (eds.), Behavioural Ecology: An Evolutionary Approach, 4th ed., pp. 155–78. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific.Google Scholar
Kornblith, H. 1993. Inductive Inference and its Natural Ground: An Essay in Naturalistic Epistemology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kornblith, H. 1998. “The Role of Intuition in Philosophical Enquiry.” In DePaul, M. and Ramsey, W. (eds.), Rethinking Intuition, pp. 129–41. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Krebs, J. R. and Dawkins, R.. 1984. “Animal Signals: Mind-Reading and Manipulation.” In Krebs, J. R. and Davies, N. B. (eds.), Behavioural Ecology: An Evolutionary Approach, 2nd ed., pp. 380402. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific.Google Scholar
Kripke, S. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lachman, M., Számadó, S., and Bergstrom, C. T.. 2001. “Cost and Conflict in Animal Signals and Human Language.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 98: 13189–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lackey, J. 2006. “The Nature of Testimony.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87: 177–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Locke, J. 1690/1975. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Mallon, R. 2003. “Social Construction, Social Roles, and Stability.” In Schmitt, F. F. (ed.), Socializing Metaphysics: The Nature of Social Reality, pp. 327–54. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary. 1975. “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’.” Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7: 131–93.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. O. 1969. “Natural Kinds.” In Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, pp. 114–38. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Reid, T. 1764/1970. An Inquiry into the Human Mind. Duggan, T. (ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rubin, M. 2008. “Is Goodness a Homeostatic Property Cluster?” Ethics. Forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitt, F. F. 1994. “Socializing Epistemology: An Introduction through Two Sample Issues.” In Schmitt, F. F. (ed.), Socializing Epistemology: The Social Dimensions of Knowledge, pp. 128. Boston: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Seyfarth, R. M. and Cheney, D. L.. 2003. “Signalers and Receivers in Animal Communication.” Annual Review of Psychology 54: 145–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, W. J. 1977. The Behaviour of Communicating: An Ethological Approach. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Sperber, D. 2001. “An Evolutionary Perspective on Testimony and Argumentation.” Philosophical Topics 29: 401–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D.. 1971. “Belief in the Law of Small Numbers.” Psychological Bulletin 76: 105–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zahavi, A. and Zahavi, A.. 1997. The Handicap Principle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar