Abstract
The objective of this paper is to apply the general idea of contextualism, as a theory of knowledge attribution, to the very specific case of testimony and trust characterized as being the procedure of the attribution of knowledge (and sincerity) to the informant. In the first part, I argue in favor of evidentialism, a viewpoint that takes epistemically responsible trust as a matter of evidence. In the second part, I consider the question of how strong an evidential basis has to be for epistemically responsible trust. I have briefly registered two main tendencies in contemporary debates regarding trust and testimony: (i) the non-unitary character of our trust; (ii) and the requirement for a refinement of evidential standards. In short, I argue in favor of the stance that any ‘undiscriminatory generalization’ (both Redian or anti-reductivist and Humean or reductivist) concerning epistemically responsible trust is a kind of inappropriate theoretical idealization, and that a certain theoretical reconciliation has to be offered. Finally, in the third part, I propose trust-contextualism as the viewpoint that optimally harmonizes both our intuitive and theoretical requirements about epistemically responsible trust.
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Notes
Audi (1998).
Pritchard (2004).
My understanding of trust here has to be distinguished from everyday usage of trust as an emotional engagement, a spontaneous judgment or certain general pessimistic or optimistic attitudes (see for instance, Jones 1996). Such an approach leaves little opportunity to epistemological estimation. We have no difficulty in admitting that in unremarkable circumstances our trust is just an reactive attitude and that we accept testimonies while recognizing that we acquired them causally with little search for evidence. However, when we accept something “emotionally” we know that, and such a testimonial belief (in God, friends’ honesty or like) has a different epistemic status in comparison to testimony accepted on evidence (which is only candidates for justified testimonial belief and knowledge). See, for instance, R. Audi (1998), J. Adler (2002).
Those notions like epistemic responsibility, justification, epistemic reasons or evidence are not quite non-problematic, but the debate between evidentialism and their critics concerning trust will not turn on any fine grained differences over these notions. They referee on a most ordinary understanding of these notions.
Clifford (1879).
The evidentialist about trust does not deny that non-evidential, affective, emotional etc. considerations can affect or even cause our trusting, but their influence does not make acceptance epistemically responsible. (See in Adler 2002.)
See in Conee and Feldman (2004).
Davidson (1982).
Naturally, the rejection of purism requires a much more sophisticated discussion. For instance, we need to distinguish purism regarding the justification of testimonial belief (J–P) from purism regarding justified acceptance of other people testimony (A–P):
J–P: In spite of all the evidence a listener can possess, the testimonial belief will not be justified.
A–P: In spite of all evidence a listener can possess, the acceptance of testimony will not be epistemically responsible.
It could be possible that even when a listener possesses objectively excellent evidence in favour of an informant’s testimony, her belief based on this testimony would not be justified. Namely, there is a further necessary condition for the justification of testimonial belief—one that requires a speaker’s testimony to be reliably produced or truth-tracking. The central problem, titled by justification-purism, is that this condition cannot be fulfilled even if there is most comprehensive evidence on the part of the listener. A listener’s evidence can make an acceptance epistemically responsible, and yet the testimonial belief in question will be not justified. The justificatory work of testimonial beliefs thereby includes two conditions: speaker-condition and listener-condition, whereas trusting or epistemically responsible acceptance includes only one: listener-condition. (About distinction between listener conditiom and speaker condition for justification, see Lackey 2006). Since epistemically responsible acceptance is entirely a matter of evidence that is principally attainable by the listener, the reason for J-P cannot be the reason for which it could be claimed A–P.Further, there are two reasons for which A–P can now ground her position about the insufficiency of an evidential basis for epistemically responsible acceptance: (a) the poverty of evidence—a listener never possesses enough evidence to accept testimony in an epistemically responsible way; (b) circularity problem—due the fact that evidence for accepting one’s testimony is itself based on testimony, it cannot be an appropriate evidential basis for epistemically responsible acceptance. It is beyond our present task to open up a discussion about purism. However, I would like to dismiss acceptance-purism, according to which trust is always equally epistemically irresponsible, or even blind no matter how much evidence we could have or gather. A less permissive normative standard than purism can still provide a significant positive status for accepted testimonies. Since we are essentially epistemically dependent on other people’s testimony, it is epistemically responsible to accept a testimony based on appropriate evidence, at least for the purposes of determining how to think and act, when it would be premature to believe it.
Webb (2004).
Reid (2002).
Reid (2002).
Coady (1992).
Coady (1992).
Coady (1992).
Graham (2000).
Fricker (1995).
Fricker (1995). It has to be stressed that Fricker suggests disaggregation not only regarding everyday and non-everyday situations but also concerning the maturity of listeners. Namely, she proposes different criteria of justified testimonial beliefs for children and adults. I hold that several objections can be put to this second kind of disagreggation. See in, Prijic-Samarzija (2002). However, I shall leave this interesting issue for another discussion.
Fricker (1994).
Fricker (1995).
In contrast to Fricker, it seems to me that the person theory she assumes is not an appropriate framework for the assessment of informant’s trustworthiness. The features of situation or conversational context, and not character traits assumed by commonsense folk morality or personality theories, determine whether a testifier’s report should be accepted or not. However, a discussion about such an issue is far beyond our present task.
Fricker (1994).
I have appealed here primarily to the work of the following contextualists: Cohen (1986, 1988, 1998, 1999), DeRose (1992, 1999), Lewis (1996), Goldman (1976), etc. However, the idea on which I rely, contextualism, is shared with subject sensitive invariantism. Hawthorne 2003. Both contextualism and subject sensitive invariantism (SSI) typically hold that mundane changes in what is conversationally relevant can raise or lower epistemic standards. It seems to me that SSI’s thesis is sound, in that the epistemic standards, the subject/informant must meet in order for the hearer to attribute her knowledge, are sensitive to non-epistemic features of a subject/informant’s circumstances. In spite of differences between contextualism and SSI (for instance, SSI treats ‘know’ as a non-indexical, invariant in reference across contexts), it is difficult for our purposes to separate contextualism from SSI: because in the case of testimony, the situation of the speaker (on which contextualism insists) is the same as that of the subject (on which SSI is focused).
Naturally, monitoring from the first-person perspective is also possible, but then a perceiver has two roles: she is at the same time a cognizer and an ascriber.
At the same time, I would like to leave the question open of whether the second level of evaluation/ascription of knowledge—where the testimonial belief is analogously evaluate as it is evaluated perceptual belief or memorial—is contextual or invariant.
Additional evidence can be both in the form of new empirical evidence and new evidence derived (deduced) from that already accepted by complex reasoning.
It has been detected that evidentialism in itself, appealing to the evidence requirement alone, cannot answer the question of what level of evidence is needed to justify belief (see Owens 2000). Translated into our terms, it could be said that evidentialism has to be abandoned because the thesis that relevant level of evidence is contextually determined is actually too general to be applied. In contrast, it seems to me evidentialism embraced in trust-contextulism gives a pretty clear guideline: the level of evidence we need is determined by the requirement to eliminate contextually relevant error-possibility concerning the knowledge and sincerity of I’s reporting of p.
It is worth noticing here that the requirement for evidential support for any case of testimony can classify my position simply as a type of reductivism. Moreover, in the light of the anti-reductivist’s thesis that we have an epistemic right to trust without evidence, the proposed position could be seen to be a clear case of an opposite stance. However, trust-contextualism assumes evidentialism, which is beyond the classical reductivism and anti-reductivism debate. Reductivism naturally implies evidentialism. However, as we have seen above, the anti-reductivists themselves explicitly claim a limited epistemic right to trust without evidence. They firmly hold that we may not accept anything we hear without additional reasons or evidence. For instance, R. Audi, interprets Reid’s position as genuine evidentialism. According to his reading, Reid held that our background beliefs «play a mainly filtering role: they prevent our believing testimony that does not ‘pass’, for instance because it seems insincere; but, if no such difficulty strikes us, we ‘just believe’ (non-inferentially) what is attested. These filtering beliefs are a trap door that shuts only if triggered; its normal position is open, but it stays in readiness to block whar should not enter.» (see Audi 1997; Faulkner 2002).
So, the ‘qualified’ interpretations of an epistemic right to trust actually embrace some level of evidentially based trusting, which entails some form of evidentialism. The crucial question would be what is really meant by a stance that we have an epistemic right to trust without evidence or what is the substantive difference concerning evidence between anti-reductivists and reductivists. Such a debate is, however, beyond our present interest.
M. Williams named this as the ‘simple conversational contextualism’ position, developed by Cohen and DeRose, following suggestions of Lewis (in spite of the fact that Cohen’s contextualism linking knowledge with justification, while Lewis and DeRose’s contextualisms do not suppose as essential a connection between the two). Williams (2001).
Distinguishing ordinary or everyday situations from non-ordinary ones plays a crucial role in contextualism doctrine. Namely, the aim of contextualism is primarily to insulate everyday knowledge from sceptical undermining. In ordinary contexts the error-possibilities we attend to are kept in bounds by various practical interests, but when reflecting philosophically, we take a step back from such everyday concerns. In the context of philosophical reflection, we need to rule out any (and all) possibilities of error, no matter how remote or implausible. Philosophical reflection, therefore, creates a context where epistemic standards rise to the maximal level, where they turn out to be unsatisfied. However, since epistemic standards are subject to contextual variation, although doing philosophy raises the standards so as to make sceptical conclusions true, this does not invalidate everyday knowledge-attributions, which are true at every-day standards.
See Williams (2001).
I am grateful to Alistair Norcross, Mylan Engel Jr., Duncan Pritchard, Louise Anthony, Georges Pappas, Nenad Miscevic, Elvio Baccarini, Nenad Smokrovic, Boran Bercic and to the anonymous reviewer for extremely helpful comments and suggestions on the earlier versions of this paper. My thanks also to other participants of the conference Contextualism at Bled 2004, and Epistemology at the Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik (2005).
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Prijic-Samarzija, S. Trust and Contextualism. Acta Anal 22, 125–138 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-007-0004-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-007-0004-y