Abstract
Greco argues that knowledge by transmission involves joint agency whose norms are governed by the quality of the social relations in the transmission, and these norms differ from the norms generating knowledge in the source. This approach to the transmission of knowledge allows Greco to respond to three common arguments against the rationality of religious belief on testimony: the argument against belief in miracles, the argument from luck, and the argument from peer disagreement. I agree with Greco’s position on the transmission of knowledge or reasonable belief in these cases and argue that the distinction between first person and third person reasons for belief can strengthen his position. The experience upon which a belief is based can be transferred intersubjectively and strengthens the ground for the belief based on experience, including the belief in miracles. Trust is another first person reason for belief, not only a background condition for reasonable transmission, and it also can be transmitted and is an important component in the formation and preservation of traditions. This feature permits a reply to the arguments from luck and from disagreement with people outside the tradition. But this feature also shows why we find these arguments threatening since we are rationally committed to a minimal degree of trust in all other reasonable persons.
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Notes
I thank an anonymous reviewer for noticing that my argument that knowledge generation can be social as well as knowledge transmission undermines a basic assumption of Greco’s project in this book.
My position on the epistemic primacy of self-trust bears a resemblance to some interpretations of Wittgenstein’s idea of hinge propositions in On Certainty. Wittgenstein suggests that there are propositions which we cannot doubt and around which all inquiry turns (341–343). Some writers have interpreted hinges as states of mind or ways of acting rather than propositions (e.g., Moyal-Sharrock, 2016). It would be interesting to pursue the possibility that trust is a hinge state. See Coliva and Moyal-Sharrock (2016) for a collection of papers examining the salient features of hinges.
In Zagzebski (2012, Chap. 6), I give a detailed discussion of the justification of trust in the testimony of others, and how that can satisfy the conditions for epistemic authority.
Neither Greco (2020) nor I discuss the role of feelings in the transmission of knowledge through traditions. It is apparent that unreasonable feelings perpetuate unreasonable beliefs. The most extreme example would be the way feelings operate in groups that spread conspiracy theories. If so, it would be worth investigating the role of reasonable feelings in perpetuating reasonable beliefs.
I investigate that in Zagzebski (2012, Chap. 9, Sect. 3).
In Zagzebski (2012, Chap. 4), I give examples of emotions that can be reasons, and a defense of the role of emotion in the reasonable formation of beliefs.
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Zagzebski, L. Intersubjective reasons and the transmission of religious knowledge. Synthese 200, 484 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03914-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03914-5