CONSPIRACIES and LYES: SCEPTICISM and the EPISTEMOLOGY of TESTIMONY Paul R. J. Faulkner

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– CONSPIRACIES AND LYES: SCEPTICISM AND THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF TESTIMONY Paul R. J. Faulkner –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Doctoral Thesis, June 1998 The Department of Philosophy University College London ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ABSTRACT In Conspiracies and Lyes I aim to provide an epistemological account of testimony as one of our faculties of knowledge. I compare testimony to perception and memory. Its similarity to both these faculties is recognised. A fundamental difference is stressed: it can be rational to not accept testimony even if testimony is fulfilling its proper epistemic function because it can be rational for a speaker to not express a belief; or, as I say, it can be rational for a speaker to lye. This difference in epistemic function provides the basis for a sceptical argument against testimony. Scepticism is presented as a method rather than a problem: considering how to refute the sceptical argument is taken to be a means of evaluating theories as to how testimonial beliefs are warranted. I consider two strategies for refuting scepticism and, correlatively, two accounts of how testimonial beliefs are warranted. I show these accounts to be neutral across all theories of justification that entertain the project of investigating our faculties of knowledge. A reductionist account explains the warrant supporting our testimonial beliefs in terms of our inductive ground for accepting testimony. An anti-reductionist account explains the warrant supporting our testimonial 2 Abstract –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-– beliefs in terms of our possessing an entitlement to accept testimony. I show how both positions can be intuitively motivated. In presenting reductionism I appeal to probability theory, empirical psychology and invoke David Hume. In presenting anti-reductionism I invoke John McDowell and Tyler Burge. A refutation of scepticism is provided by a hybrid of reductionism and anti-reductionism. The hybrid is conceived as part social externalism and part individual internalism. In developing this account I provide a means of conceptualising the dynamic that exists between individual knowers and communities of knowledge. 3 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– CONTENTS 1. The Epistemology of Testimony: an Introduction 7 1. Testimony as a faculty of knowledge 9 1. Testimony as a way of retaining knowledge 11 2. Testimony as a way of acquiring knowledge 14 3. Similarities and Differences 18 2. The Justification of Testimonial Beliefs 20 1. Anti-reductionism and its motivations 22 2. Reductionism and its motivations 24 3. Testimony and Individualism 26 1. Two Sceptical Arguments 29 4. Conclusion: The Programme 35 2. Scepticism and Our Faculties of Knowledge 38 0.1. A Localised Sceptical Argument 44 1. Epistemology and Methodology 48 1. The Application of this Epistemology and Methodology to Testimony 55 2. The Epistemology of Our Faculties of Knowledge 59 1. The Epistemic Neutrality of Reductionism and Anti- reductionism 61 2. Epistemic Difference and Two Short Responses to Scepticism 69 3. Conclusion 87 3. Establishing the Credibility of Testimony 89 0.1. Credibility and Probability 92 1. Prior Reasons for Believing Testimony Credible 95 4 Contents ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 1. The Problem of Type Identity for Probability Calculation 99 2. The Observational Problem 101 3. The Problem of Type Identity for Direct Inference 107 2. David Hume’s Reductionist Epistemology of Testimony 111 1. Coady’s Hume 112 2. Testimony Judged by the Principles of Human Nature 114 3. Contextual Reasons for Believing Testimony Credible 120 1. Monitoring a Speaker 122 2. Our Testimonial Faculty 126 4. Conclusion 134 4. Reductionism as a Response to Scepticism Of Testimony 136 1. Prior Reasons and Acceptance Rules 140 1. The Simple Rule 141 2. An Adequate Acceptance Rule 148 3. The Uniformity of Types of Testimony 151 2. Contextual Reasons and Human Nature 157 1. The Evidence of Miracles 158 2. The Uniformity of Human Nature 164 3. Can Reductionism Provide a Response to Scepticism of Testimony? 166 1. The Motivation for Reductionism and the Parallel with Scepticism of Induction 171 5. The Transmissibility of Knowledge 178 1. Telling the Facts and Commoning Knowledge 181 2. McDowell’s Disjunctive Epistemology of Testimony 184 1. The Disjunctive Conception of Knowledge 186 2. The Disjunctive Conception of Testimony 200 3. Scepticism and Our Entitlement to Acceptance 202 4. Scepticism of Testimony 205 3. Scepticism and Acts of Testifying 209 1. Communication and Our Animal Inheritance 211 2. The Argument from Illusion Reconsidered 223 5 Contents ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 6. Understanding Our Entitlements: The Epistemology of Acceptance 225 1. Epistemic Justification: Burge’s View 227 2. The Epistemology of Acceptance 232 1. The Epistemic Role of Perception in Interlocution 233 2. Our Entitlement to Seeming-Understanding 242 3. The Acceptance Principle and its Justification 249 3. Our Reliance upon Rational Sources 256 1. Concerning the Possibility of Incompetent and Artful Rational Sources 257 2. The Acceptance Principle and Scepticism of Testimony 266 7. The Social Character of Testimonial Knowledge 272 0.1. The Epistemic Role of Positive and Defeating Reasons in the Acceptance of Testimony 276 1. The Preservation of Warrant and Epistemic Authority 283 1. Our Dependence on Epistemic Authority 285 2. Testimonial Knowledge and Reasons 289 3. The Knowledgeable Community 295 2. Communal Warrant and Individual Justification 302 1. Epistemic Dependence or Reliance? 304 2. An Individual’s Doxastic Responsibility 308 3. The Individual Knower and the Community of Knowledge 314 1. Conclusion: A Hybrid Epistemology of Testimony 321 References 325 6 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– CHAPTER ONE ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF TESTIMONY: AN INTRODUCTION Testimonial beliefs are central to our lives; through understanding and accepting the utterances of others we form beliefs ranging from the commonplace, our belief in our birth-date or the identity of our parents, to the fanciful, among nineteenth century Norsemen ‘sild’ and ‘herring’ were used as terms for money and fish. Our knowledge of the world and the past, our knowledge of other minds and our own minds are each and all interwoven with testimonial knowledge. My beliefs, for instance, that the highest peak of the Carpathian Mountains is 8788 feet and that the North Atlantic Drift is a major ocean current flowing from the Gulf of Mexico to North West Europe depend upon testimony. I have not scaled these mountains nor seen the entire passage of this ocean current. Many of my beliefs about the past equally depend on testimony. I believe that there have been two world wars in Europe this Century and that the Medici family gave three Popes to the Church, yet these events occurred before my birth. I do not remember their happening. Many of my beliefs about other minds also depend on testimony. If another were to tell me that they are not angry but indignant, I might believe them despite only seeing their displeasure. And my beliefs about my own mental states 7 The Epistemology of Testimony: an Introduction –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-– could also depend on testimony. I might believe, for instance, that my intentions were generous but another could demonstrate to me, maybe by offering an alternative description of my actions, that they were solely self- interested.1 Such examples could, obviously, be endlessly enumerated. This is not to suggest that our epistemic dependence on testimony is limited to further enumeration.2 It is to claim that testimony is a faculty or source of knowledge, where our faculties, or sources, of knowledge are those ways by which knowledge is acquired or retained.3 As such to describe a belief as testimonial is to say something about its epistemic status; it is not simply to describe its causal genesis. Thus in seeking to explain how testimony is a source of knowledge and determine the epistemic status of testimonial beliefs, the epistemology of testimony is part of the larger project in the theory of knowledge of investigating our faculties of knowledge. In this introduction to the epistemology of testimony I aim to outline 1 Burge similarly notes, “Of course, much of our self-knowledge ... depends on observation of our own behaviour and reliance on other’s perceptions of us.” Burge (1988), 649. 2 Fricker (1995), 402, suggests that the acquisition of language could also be considered a special case of our epistemic dependence upon testimony. Coady (1992), 169-73, argues that testimony is implicated in the formation of many perceptual beliefs. The belief, for instance, that this “is an eighteenth-century mahogany architect’s desk”. Strawson similarly claims, “perception without the concepts and attendant information which derive from the spoken or written word is, if not blind, pitifully short-sighted.” Strawson (1994), 26. 3 Thus

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