Epistemology

The indispensability of testimonial grounds

• Why is testimony important?

• What is the relationship between testimony and children learning

things (esp. language)?

• How are testimony and the other sources of knowledge connected?

Part 1
Conceptual Versus Propositional Learning
 Propositional VS Conceptual Learning
Propositional Testimony
• Learning the content attested to
• Learning that something is so
and so
• E.g. child learning that the sofa
is red
Demonstrative Testimony
• Learning of or about
something (and may extend to
learning how to do something).
• Learning something shown,
but not stated, by the
testimony itself.
• A child learning about redness
Propositional VS Conceptual Learning (Cntd)
 A child learning the color red is not learning that the sofa is red,
but, above all, becoming aware of redness as the color of the sofa.

 In introducing the word ‘red’ to the child, the parent is only

incidentally attesting to the proposition that the sofa is red.

 the child can learn the main lesson without conceptualizing the
sofa as such at all
Propositional VS Conceptual Learning

 Propositional Testimony results in propositional

knowledge (propositional learning)

 Demonstrative Testimony results in

conceptual learning.
Testimony and Credibility
• The attestations have to be at least approximately true

• This implies that when testimony is given we can reasonably assume

that both attester and recipient have at some point encountered a good
number of attestations that were true

• This is how children learn the language in which the communication

occurs
It’s important to note that…
Propositional knowledge is not always acquired when conceptual
knowledge is
 Indeed testimony cannot produce conceptual learning without
propositional learning, but it can produce the latter without the former.

However,
In most cases, propositional knowledge and concepts are acquired or
grasped at the same time.
 Testimony easily produces both together.
Part 2
Testimony as a Primeval Source of
Knowledge and Justification
Testimony-Based Knowledge
 When do children start acquiring testimony-based knowledge?

Are they just mimicking adults?

Are adults projecting?

 For the sake of the argument, let’s say that, at least by the time
children begin to talk, they do know certain things.
 Testimony-Based Knowledge (Cntd)
 How do children acquire testimony-based knowledge?

Two different assumptions:

1. Knowledge requires only having no reason for doubt about the
credibility of the attester  In this case, there are no problems

2. Knowledge requires having some ground for taking the

speaker to be credible
 In this case, the child would need to have a very simple and
basic correlational ground
Testimony-Based Justification
The difference between testimony-based justification and testimony based
knowledge:
• For a child to be justified in believing something, they would have to be
capable not only of having a ground for believing this but,
correspondingly, of failing to have one and yet believing this proposition
anyway, thereby being unjustified.
• I.e. Testimony may be defeated by justified beliefs of some proposition
contrary to the one attested to and it can only be acquired by the
recipients if such beliefs are absent.
• Testimony-based justification should be “innocent unless shown guilty”
Testimony-Based Justification (Cntd)
• If this was not the nature of testimony-based beliefs, it would
be difficult to explain how children learn language the way
they do
• Furthermore, when we start speaking of children as having the
ability to be both justified and unjustified,
we notice they do have a sense of the track record of adults in
giving them information that their experience confirms.
 They learned that if parents say it is cold outside, it is. And
they can also understand that Mommy is right about things
but their baby brother is not.
Testimony-Based Justification (Cntd)
There is another explanation for how children acquire justification for
accepting testimony:

At an early stage they acquire a sense that they themselves only give
information when they have gotten it through perception or sensation
For instance, if they see that it is snowing outside, they will tell others
that it is snowing outside
This correlational sense that children develop provides an analogical
justification for believing that others are providing information they
have obtained when they are giving testimony
Testimony-Based Justification (Cntd)

Another related hypothesis is that children understand others in terms of

what apparently best explains their observed behavior.
 What would explain Mommy’s saying that it is snowing outside as
well as her having seen that it is?
It’s important to note that…
Philosophy does not say exactly when knowledge or justification enters
the scene in human development, whether it’s through testimony or
through the other sources
 These are psychological questions
 Philosophy only suggests that knowledge may arise before
justification

However,
What is nice about the theory presented by philosophy is that it is
harmonious with our most familiar data about human development
The Importance of Testimony
• Testimony is not a basic source of justification or knowledge but that
does not imply that it is less important in normal human life than the
other basic sources.
• Everything known by humans depends in a way on testimony
 We need testimony to learn language
• It’s almost impossible to give up all the knowledge and beliefs we
have acquired on the basis of testimony
We would be thrust back to a primitive stage of learning
Part 3
Non-testimonial Support for Testimony-based
Beliefs
Testimony and Other Sources of Knowledge
Hume’s view of testimony is that it is capable of grounding knowledge
only on the basis of a kind of legitimation by other sources

 So to what extent can testimonial knowledge and justification be

backed up by other sources?
 Is it so that for each proposition one justifiedly believes on the basis
of testimony, one has a justification from other sources?

 focal justification question for testimony-based beliefs

Relationship between Testimony and
Memory
These other sources could include propositions one justifiedly believes
on the basis of memory
And one’s beliefs of these propositions might have been originally
based on testimony

Still, what was testimonially learned and is memorially preserved may

justify believing a proposition someone attests to
So we do have some degree of independently grounded justification for
everything we believe on the basis of testimony
Relationship between Testimony and
Memory (Cntd)
There are cases where we have to use testimony to justify memory-
based beliefs
(1) I believe one person’s testimony, (2) remember the proposition
attested to, (3) and use it in checking on another person’s testimony

We would be using testimony to check on the credibility of testimony

 Circularity
Relationship between Testimony and
Memory (Cntd)
However, there are two points the author makes to refute that
argument:

(1): There are two different attestations that are made by two different
attesters
(2): Since memory is a basic source of justification, it may yield
justification that supports testimony but is not testimony-based

Even if a memorially justified belief is originally justified on the

basis of other testimony, it may later be justified without dependence on
that initial justification
Relationship between Testimony and
Memory (Cntd)

To illustrate the points he made so far, the author gives the example of
hearing on the radio that there was an earthquake in Indonesia
Global Justification Question
The author now raises the Global Justification Question:
“Could one create an overall justification of the entire set of the
propositions one believes, or originally believed, on the basis of
testimony?”

There are two approaches we could take:

• Either a reference to all the propositions we believe combined
together  Which would be impossible
• Or a reference to the set of one’s testimony-based beliefs
. considered in the abstract
Global Justification Question (Cntd)
Even the second approach doesn’t seem achievable:
The author believes it’s impossible to completely avoid using testimony
when trying to judge or assess a testimony-based belief
Even if we want to evaluate the track record of an attester, we will need
to depend on what we believe on the basis of testimony.

E.g. news source serves as a check on another

 Testimony from one source is tentatively assumed and checked
against testimony from another.
Global Justification Question (Cntd)
It seems that we cannot answer the global justification question because
there is no general procedure that we can use to justify the whole set of
our testimony-based beliefs

But we don’t actually need to find an answer because, according to the

author, justified testimony-based beliefs are individually justifiable for
the believer in terms of the basic sources of belief

So not all testimony-based beliefs are justifiable, but that does not
negate the fact that some are
The difference between Testimony and Other
Basic Sources of Knowledge
The reliability of testimony in general can be checked through the basic
sources like perception, but the same cannot be said about the other
sources of knowledge: perception, memory, self-consciousness and
reason
We can only check the reliability of the other sources by appealing to
them a second or a third time
This shows that testimony is, in a way, not equal to the other sources of
knowledge, but it does not mean it’s any less important in the life of
humans
In the conclusion,
• Testimony-based beliefs may constitute basic knowledge or basic
belief, because (1) they are not grounded in premises and (2) they
play a pivotal role in the life of the believer.
• These beliefs not only constitute some of our basic knowledge but are
also psychologically and existentially basic.

• However, they are not epistemically basic

They are epistemically dependent on one’s having grounds for
knowledge or justification,
and they are psychologically dependent on one’s having some
ground in another, nontestimonial experiential mode, like perception
• They are basic only in the sense that they are not inferentially
dependent on knowledge or justified belief of prior premises.

 Testimony-based beliefs are, then, source-dependent though not

. premise-dependent and testimony depends both epistemically and
. psychologically on other sources.

• However, all of this doesn’t negate the fact that testimony is

essential and plays a very important role in the normal
development of our justification and knowledge
Thank you for listening!