Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Phd. candidate of philosophy at Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran.
2 professor at philosophy and kalam department, faculty of theology, Islamic teachings and guidance, Imam Sadiq University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Elizabeth Fricker’s writings on testimonial justification include some contrary ideas. In this paper, we propose Fricker’s theory of justification coherently and explain why she speaks of different ideas and which idea is more compatible with her general theory of knowledge. Fricker proposes three conditions for justification of testimonial beliefs for adults by appealing to commonsense world-picture and defining a paradigm case of testimony: justified belief of using speech act of telling, justified belief of the sincere of testifier and the competence of testifier. The speech act of telling itself requires that for example, testifier at least apparently speaks from his knowledge and thinks that hearer is ignorant of the testimony. We argue that various parts of Fricker’s theory face problems. For example, double standard about children and adults in testimonial justification is against unity of conception of knowledge.
چون تعداد کلمات کمتر از 150 کلمه بود این عبارت در اینجا قرار گرفت تا اجازه عبور از این مرحله داده شود.
Highlights
Elizabeth Fricker on Testimonial Justification: A Critical Review
Alireza Dorri Nogoorani1, Reza Akbari2
1 Ph.D. candidate of philosophy at Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran. Email: a.dorri@yahoo.com
2 Professor at philosophy and kalam department, faculty of theology, Islamic teachings and guidance, Imam Sadiq University, Tehran, Iran. Email:r.akbari@isu.ac.ir
Abstract
Elizabeth Fricker’s writings on testimonial justification include some contrary ideas. In this paper, we propose Fricker’s theory of justification coherently and explain why she speaks of different ideas and which idea is more compatible with her general theory of knowledge. Fricker proposes three conditions for justification of testimonial beliefs for adults by appealing to commonsense world-picture and defining a paradigm case of testimony: justified belief of using speech act of telling, justified belief of the sincere of testifier and the competence of testifier. The speech act of telling itself requires that for example, testifier at least apparently speaks from his knowledge and thinks that hearer is ignorant of the testimony. We argue that various parts of Fricker’s theory face problems. For example, double standard about children and adults in testimonial justification is against unity of conception of knowledge.
Keywords: Epistemology of testimony, reductionism, the Paradigm case of testimony, nature of the testimony, Coherentism, Internalism, Infant/Child Objection, Elizabeth Fricker.
Answering the question that under what conditions beliefs formed through testimony can be regarded as knowledge has established one of the most important issues in the epistemology of testimony. For Fricker, the answer is crucially related to the nature of the testimony. Therefore, we examine Fricker's theory into two parts. In the first part, we examine the nature of the testimony, and in the second part, we explore testimonial justification. Our discussion in these two parts leads us to the final part of this article where we argue that Fricker’s epistemology of testimony faces problems in both two parts. It should be noted that there are some seemingly contradictory views in Fricker’s writings which we mention four instances of them in this article:
a. In all her papers except one article, Fricker suggests more or less similar conditions for testimonial justified beliefs. In “Testimony and Epistemic Autonomy” (2006) she adds two other seemingly different conditions: Speaker “is better epistemically placed with respect to” proposition testified (P) than hearer and Hearer “is not aware of significant contrary testimony regarding P”.
b. Another influential example is Fricker's view on the kind of argument that she suggests justifying beliefs through testimony. On the one hand, she speaks of the “entailment” relationship between premises and the conclusion, but on the other hand, she speaks of the “abduction” relationship. According to the prevalent interpretation, these two relationships are not compatible with each other.
c. Another less important example is the difference between the use of “telling” and “assertion”. In some cases, Fricker defines testimony by the speech act of telling and, in some cases, by the speech act of assertion, while she explicitly differentiates between them.
d. Fricker argues in favor of the pure internalist approach to the knowledge, while in some cases, she defends a combination of internalism and externalism.
How can these differences be explained? Has Fricker's view changed? Is there a contradiction in her opinions? Has she been careless in using words? Does the expression of the same previous view in more detail have made it look different? We answer these questions in the first two parts. Our strategy in reading Fricker’s theory through her writings is to introduce her theory in such a way that has the greatest internal consistency.
In the first part of the paper, we scrutinize the nature of testimony in Fricker. She holds that the reality of testimony is “a graduated spectrum of possible cases.” So, she puts forward a paradigm case for testimony rather than a definition with necessary and sufficient conditions. For Fricker, the main difference between extended cases and paradigm cases lies in the differences of the time and place of the listener and the speaker. Fricker believes that focusing on the speech act of telling in the paradigm case is the best way to understand how the speaker transmits knowledge to the hearer through testimony. One of the properties of telling being necessary for the application of testimony is that “Speaker believes that hearer is probably ignorant of the information conveyed by testimony.” (It is one of the differences between telling and assertion.) We show that there are some flaws in Fricker's theory about the nature of testimony. It is not clear to what extent is the deviation from the paradigm case acceptable. If it is just the matter of hearer’s time and place, there are some intuitive instances of testimony not considered as even extended testimony by Fricker. Moreover, some conditions required for the application of testimony like the aforementioned property of telling are not necessary.
In the second part of the paper, we deal with Fricker’s theory of justification. She believes that it is an undeniable fact that knowledge is spread through testimony. Hence, every epistemologist needs to consider this fact as a constraint on establishing his theory of knowledge. In this framework, Fricker proposes an internalist coherentist theory with three conditions for adults: Hearer’s justified belief of using speech act of telling, the hearer’s justified belief of the sincerity and competence of testifier. She holds that testimony is a basic source of knowledge when the hearer is a child (“developmental phase”) unless he recognizes a positive reason against it when he is adult (“mature phase”). Because she believes that “a highly coherent and integrated view of the world” led by a system of beliefs built by simply-trusted testimony in childhood is the best explanation of the “truth-in-the-main” of the system.
But it seems that Fricker's theory does not provide an opportunity for a dualistic approach to the issue of obtaining a justified belief or knowledge through testimony in children and adults. Because, Fricker assumes that there is a general notion of knowledge that applies to all kinds of knowledge, regardless of the difference between the epistemic subjects and the ways of knowledge achieving. In addition, she believes that hearer needs to have empirical ground for believing in sincerity and competence of the speaker, which implies that those testimonial beliefs formed uncritically is not considered knowledge. These two points lead to the conclusion that children who are not able to provide the empirical reasons cannot acquire testimonial knowledge. If we ignore infant objection, Fricker’s coherentist approach suffers from the isolation problem. In addition, as it turns out during the paper, the common sense plays a crucial role in Fricker's theory. We explain how this approach has led her to fail to take some intuitive examples of testimony into account.
References
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