Does anti-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony imply interest relativism about knowledge attributions?

Anti-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony is the thesis that testimonial knowledge is not reducible to knowledge of some other familiar kind, such as inductive knowledge. Interest relativism about knowledge attributions is the thesis that the standards for knowledge attributions are relative to practical contexts. This paper argues that anti-reductionism implies interest relativism. The notion of “implies” here is a fairly strong one: anti-reductionism, together with plausible assumptions, entails interest relativism. A second thesis of the paper is that anti-reductionism in the epistemology of testimony creates significant pressure toward attributor contextualism (a version of interest relativism). Even if anti-reductionism does not strictly entail attributor contextualism, the most powerful motivations for anti-reductionism also motivate attributor contextualism over alternative positions.

Substantiation of the Testimonial Knowledge in the Religious Epistemology: The Approach of J. Greco

Currently, the study of religious knowledge is carried out mainly within the framework of religious epistemology, which does not exclude its consideration from the standpoint of a non-cognitive approach, for example, fideism. However, the greatest interest is in cognitivism, whose proponents explore the problems of religious knowledge using a number of standards of classical epistemology, yet at the same time modify them, creating standards of religious epistemology proper. One of the authors who develop this direction is J. Greco, who continues the tradition of studying evidence ("testimonial evidence") and its role in the formation and functioning of religious consciousness. In an effort to organize witness knowledge, he tries to typologize it, distinguishing, on the one hand, knowledge presented as a set of witness data, and, on the other hand, as knowledge transmitted and assimilated in the processes of communication that take place, for example, within a religious community. J. Greco criticizes the arguments of skeptics who claim that it is impossible that the evidence can serve as a sufficient basis for religious belief. The article emphasizes the simplicity of such an approach, since J. Greco does not distinguish the types of knowledge that are formed as a result of evidence (in particular, reflexive and value-based knowledge, which are formed and assimilated in different ways), which are different in their epistemological characteristics. At the same time, he focuses on a problem that is significant not only for religious, but also for classical epistemology, namely, the influence of the moral authority of a particular form of comprehension of being (science, religion, etc.) and its specific representatives who develop the relevant knowledge on the assimilation of certain epistemic truths by both specialized communities (for example, the scientific community) and society as a whole. The philosophical arguments of J. Greco shows that the theme of religious evidence within the framework of classical epistemology is not reduced to banal statements that they do not meet the criteria generated by scientific knowledge. These reflections touch upon a number of topics relevant to this epistemology. At the same time, these arguments point to the need to develop a religious epistemology based on the specifics of religious knowledge with its own verification criteria and methodology for obtaining it.

Making a difference in virtue epistemology

Virtue Reliabilism holds that knowledge is a cognitive achievement—an epistemic success that is creditable to the cognitive abilities of the knowing subject. Beyond this consensus, there is much disagreement amongst proponents of virtue reliabilism about the conditions under which the credit-relation between an epistemic success and a person’s cognitive abilities holds. This paper aims to establish a new and attractive view of this crucial relation in terms of difference-making. We will argue that the resulting theory, Difference-Making Virtue Epistemology, can deal with cases of epistemic luck and testimonial knowledge while revealing the common core of knowledge and other achievements.

Illuminating the Mind

This book provides readers with an introduction to epistemology within the Buddhist intellectual tradition. It is designed to be accessible to those whose primary background is in the “Western” tradition of philosophy and who have little or no previous exposure to Buddhist philosophical writings. The book examines many of the most important topics in the field of epistemology, topics that are central both to contemporary discussions of epistemology and to the classical Buddhist tradition of epistemology in India and Tibet. Among the topics discussed are Buddhist accounts of the nature of knowledge episodes, the defining conditions of perceptual knowledge and of inferential knowledge, the status of testimonial knowledge, and skeptical criticisms of the entire project of epistemology. The book seeks to put the field of Buddhist epistemology in conversation with contemporary debates in philosophy. It shows that many of the arguments and debates occurring within classical Buddhist epistemological treatises coincide with the arguments and disagreements found in contemporary epistemology. The book shows, for example, how Buddhist epistemologists developed an anti-luck epistemology—one that is linked to a sensitivity requirement for knowledge. Likewise, the book explores the question of how the study of Buddhist epistemology can be of relevance to contemporary debates about the value of contributions from experimental epistemology, and to broader debates concerning the use of philosophical intuitions about knowledge.

Testimony

This chapter provides a discussion of the epistemology of testimony as it plays out in classical Buddhist accounts of knowledge. The chapter begins by describing the contrast between the (non-Buddhist) Nyāya School’s account of testimony and Dharmakīrti’s (Buddhist) account of testimony. The chapter then proceeds to illuminate various other differences between the Nyāya and Buddhist accounts, focusing principally on the distinction between reductive and nonreductive theories of testimonial knowledge and on the distinction between speaker conditions and hearer conditions for testimonial knowledge. The chapter concludes with a section on the transmission theory of testimony and investigates whether the transmission theory would be supported by classical Buddhist epistemologists.

Assertion Functionalism and Context

This chapter shows how to reconcile Classical Invariantism with the Knowledge Norm of Assertion. My basic proposal is that we can combine invariantism with a functionalist account of assertion: according to the account I favour, assertion is governed by a knowledge norm in virtue of its epistemic function of generating testimonial knowledge. Requirements generated by other functions of assertion, though, such as its prudential function, can override the constraints imposed by the epistemic function, and render the knowledge requirement either too strong or too weak for all-things-considered permissible assertion. All-things-considered permissible assertion can vary with practical stakes; epistemically permissible assertion does not.

The symmetry problem for testimonial conservatism

A prima facie plausible and widely held view in epistemology is that the epistemic standards governing the acquisition of testimonial knowledge are stronger than the epistemic standards governing the acquisition of perceptual knowledge. Conservatives about testimony hold that we need prior justification to take speakers to be reliable but recognise that the corresponding claim about perception is practically a non-starter. The problem for conservatives is how to establish theoretically significant differences between testimony and perception that would support asymmetrical epistemic standards. In this paper I defend theoretical symmetry of testimony and perception on the grounds that there are no good reasons for taking these two belief forming methods to have significant theoretical differences. I identify the four central arguments in defence of asymmetry and show that in each case either they fail to establish the difference that they purport to establish or they establish a difference that is not theoretically significant.

The Epistemology of Collective Testimony

In this paper, I explore what gives collective testimony its epistemic credentials, through a critical discussion of three competing accounts of the epistemology of collective testimony. According to the first view, collective testimony inherits its epistemic credentials from the beliefs the testimony expresses—where this can be seen either as the beliefs of all or some of the group’s members, or as the beliefs of group itself. The second view denies any necessary connection to belief, claiming instead that the epistemic credentials of collective testimony derive from the reliability or truth-conduciveness of the statement that expresses the testimony. Finally, the third view claims that the epistemic credentials of collective testimony derive from the fact that it involves undertaking a collective commitment to trustworthiness, which makes the group susceptible to rebuke and blame if its testimony is not trustworthy. I argue that this last account holds the most promise for preserving what is distinctive about testimonial knowledge while still underwriting a robust epistemology of collective testimony.