What’s the matter with epistemic circularity?
Philosophical Studies 171 (2):177-205 (2014)
Abstract
If the reliability of a source of testimony is open to question, it seems epistemically illegitimate to verify the source’s reliability by appealing to that source’s own testimony. Is this because it is illegitimate to trust a questionable source’s testimony on any matter whatsoever? Or is there a distinctive problem with appealing to the source’s testimony on the matter of that source’s own reliability? After distinguishing between two kinds of epistemically illegitimate circularity—bootstrapping and self-verification—I argue for a qualified version of the claim that there is nothing especially illegitimate about using a questionable source to evaluate its own reliability. Instead, it is illegitimate to appeal to a questionable source’s testimony on any matter whatsoever, with the matter of the source’s own reliability serving only as a special case.Author's Profile
DOI
10.1007/s11098-013-0261-0
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Citations of this work
Is Memory Merely Testimony from One's Former Self?David James Barnett - 2015 - Philosophical Review 124 (3):353-392.
Pyrrhonism Past and Present: Inquiry, Disagreement, Self-Knowledge, and Rationality.Diego E. Machuca - 2022 - Cham: Springer.
Inferential Justification and the Transparency of Belief.David James Barnett - 2016 - Noûs 50 (1):184-212.
The Evil Demon Inside.Nicholas Silins - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (2):325-343.
References found in this work
The Structure of Empirical Knowledge.Laurence BonJour - 1985 - Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press.
Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism.Paul Boghossian - 2006 - Oxford University Press.