Category Archives: Epistemology of testimony
I guess it should be one, according to Nyāya and the other schools who put the burden on the speaker, but I tried to discuss the topic from the point of view of Western epistemology. Let me know if you think it works.
In my weekly article on “Western” philosophy, I discuss about the requisites for testimony. Reductionists (i.e., scholars who think that Linguistic Communication can be reduced to other instruments of knowledge, the usual candidates being memory and inference) tend to have higher requirements for Testimony, but so do also some Non-Reductionists. Do we agree in ending up with that little “sound” testimonial knowledge?
How to justify Testimony? Indian and Western views
Concerning the Epistemology of Testimony, one can first distinguish between reductionists (claiming that Testimony is just a subset of Inference) and anti-reductionists (claiming that Testimony is a distinct instrument of knowledge). In India and in the West, we have reductionists (David Hume, Elisabeth Fricker, Buddhist Pramāṇavāda, Vaiśeṣika) and anti-reductionists (Thomas Reid, Jennifer Lackey, Arindam Chakrabarti, Nyāya, Mīmāṃsā).
Interestingly, however, in the West reductionists insist on the need for testimony to be grounded on something else (e.g., on the reliability of the speaker), whereas anti-reductionists claim that we have a “presumptive right” to accept testimony, so that it “is a source of justification in its own right” (Gelfert 2010).
Coffee Break Conference 4: Panel on the Philosophy of Testimony
From Tuesday the 3rd of September to Sunday the 8th I will be in Turin, for the Forth Coffee Break Conference. You can find the program here: orario_CBC_13.
(Additional information can be found on the CBC’s website.)
More in detail, I will be hosting a panel on the Philosophy of Testimony (aka śabdapramāṇa). Beside trying to answer to testimony/śabda-related problems and questions, we will also focus on the possibility to discuss about it in a way which should not take into account the opposition between Western vs. Indian philosophy. This is hopefully the first attempt of doing “just philosophy” (with no further geographical boundary added). Ideas for the next “just philosophical” panels are always welcome.
(You can find my short .ppt presentation introducing the panel here: Intro.)
Should we investigate about the epistemology of testimony in order to improve other people’s testimonial habits? If so, we should avoid too strict criteria, or people will withdraw precious testimonies for fear of not being justified in testifying about them. If, by contrast, the epistemology of testimony merely describes common testimonial norms, then, why does it have so high expectations? You can read my thoughts from the point of view of (Western) epistemology here.