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Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (1):77–101 (2006)
While much of our knowledge relies on testimony or the words of others, until recently few philosophers had much to say about the nature of testimony or how we learn from another's words, but testimony has now become a popular topic. Jennifer Lackey's Learning from Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge is a useful and intelligent guide, a well informed and appreciative but critical and provocative commentary on a large and growing body of literature.According to Lackey, most of the literature assumes that testimony can spread but not create knowledge, much as memory can be a reminder of old but not a source of new truth. Lackey maintains that the assumption is mistaken and offers an account of testimony, according to which, testimony can give rise to new knowledge as well as transmit old truths from one person to another.In her introduction, Lackey characterizes what she calls the belief view of testimony and suggests that this view dominates today's literature. On the belief view, testimony is a vehicle for expressing belief, and when I tell you that p, I express my belief that p with the intention …
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References found in this work BETA
John Hawthorne (2004). Knowledge and Lotteries. Oxford University Press.
Alvin I. Goldman (1986). Epistemology and Cognition. Harvard University Press.
Robert Nozick (1981). Philosophical Explanations. Harvard University Press.
Gareth Evans (1982). Varieties of Reference. Oxford University Press.
Timothy Williamson (2000). Knowledge and its Limits. Oxford University Press.
Citations of this work BETA
Jennifer Lackey (2007). Norms of Assertion. Noûs 41 (4):594–626.
Jonathan M. Weinberg (2007). How to Challenge Intuitions Empirically Without Risking Skepticism. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 31 (1):318–343.
Elizabeth Fricker (2006). Second-Hand Knowledge. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (3):592–618.
Joseph Shieber (2013). Toward a Truly Social Epistemology: Babbage, the Division of Mental Labor, and the Possibility of Socially Distributed Warrant. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 86 (2):266-294.
Arnon Keren (2007). Epistemic Authority, Testimony and the Transmission of Knowledge†. Episteme 4 (3):368-381.
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Paul Faulkner (2011). Epistemology of Testimony. In Östman & Verschueren (eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics. John Benjamins
Jennifer Lackey (2006). The Nature of Testimony. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87 (2):177–197.
Joel Buenting (2005). Re-Thinking the Duplication of Speaker/Hearer Belief in the Epistemology of Testimony. Episteme: Journal of Social Epistemology 2 (2):43-48.
Jennifer Lackey (2010). Testimony: Acquiring Knowledge From Others. In Alvin I. Goldman & Dennis Whitcomb (eds.), Social Epistemology: Essential Readings. Oxford University Press
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Jennifer Lackey (2008/2010). Learning From Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge. Oxford University Press.
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