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Epistemic Authority, Testimony and the Transmission of Knowledge†

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

Arnon Keren
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Abstract

I present an account of what it is to trust a speaker, and argue that the account can explain the common intuitions which structure the debate about the transmission view of testimony. According to the suggested account, to trust a speaker is to grant her epistemic authority on the asserted proposition, and hence to see her opinion as issuing a second order, preemptive reason for believing the proposition. The account explains the intuitive appeal of the basic principle associated with the transmission view of testimony: the principle according to which, a listener can normally obtain testimonial knowledge that p by believing a speaker who testifies that p only if the speaker knows that p. It also explains a common response to counterexamples to this principle: that these counterexamples do not involve normal cases of testimonial knowledge.

Type
Research Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , October 2007 , pp. 368 - 381
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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