Episteme 13 (2):208-218 (2016)
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Abstract |
John Hardwig has championed the thesis (NE) that evidence that an expert EXP has evidence for a proposition P, constituted by EXP’s testimony that P, is not evidence for P itself, where evidence for P is generally characterized as anything that counts towards establishing the truth of P. In this paper, I first show that (NE) yields tensions within Hardwig’s overall view of epistemic reliance on experts and makes it imply unpalatable consequences. Then, I use Shogenji-Roche’s theorem of transitivity of incremental confirmation to show that (NE) is false if a natural Bayesian formalization of the above notion of evidence is implemented. I concede that Hardwig could resist my Bayesian objection if he re-interpreted (NE) as a more precise thesis that only applies to community-focused evidence. I argue, however, that this precisification, while diminishing the philosophical relevance of (NE), wouldn’t settle the tensions internal to Hardwig’s views.
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Keywords | expert testimony testimonial evidence transitivity of confirmation |
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Reprint years | 2016 |
DOI | 10.1017/epi.2015.42 |
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References found in this work BETA
Epistemological Puzzles About Disagreement.Richard Feldman - 2006 - In Stephen Hetherington (ed.), Epistemology Futures. Oxford University Press. pp. 216-236.
Evidentialism, Higher-Order Evidence, and Disagreement.Richard Feldman - 2009 - Episteme 6 (3):294-312.
View all 17 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Evidence of Evidence as Higher Order Evidence.Anna-Maria A. Eder & Peter Brössel - 2019 - In Mattias Skipper & Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen (eds.), Higher-Order Evidence: New Essays. Oxford University Press. pp. 62-83.
Is Evidence of Evidence Evidence? Screening-Off Vs. No-Defeaters.Roche William - 2018 - Episteme 15 (4):451-462.
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