Knowledge on Trust

by Paul Faulkner

We know a lot about the world and our place in it. We have come to this knowledge in a variety of ways. And one central way that we, both as individuals and as a society, have come to know what we do is through communication with others. Much of what we know, we know on the basis of testimony. In Knowledge on Trust, Paul Faulkner presents an epistemological theory of testimony, or a theory that explains how it is that we acquire knowledge and warranted belief from testimony. The key questions addressed in this book are: what makes it reasonable to accept a piece of testimony? And what warrants belief formed on this testimonial basis? Faulkner argues that existing theories of testimony largely fail because they do not recognise how issues of practical rationality motivate the first question, and this is what makes testimony distinctive as a source of knowledge. At the heart of the theory this book presents is the idea that trust is central to answering these two questions. An attitude of trust can make it reasonable to depend on another's testimony, but what warrants testimonial belief is not trust but the body of evidence the testimony originates from. Testimonial knowledge and testimonially warranted belief are formed on trust. Faulkner goes on to argue that our having a way of life wherein testimony can provide such a source of knowledge and warrant is dependent upon a society in which a certain kind of trust is possible.

Genres: Philosophy

Unknown Binding

First published June 11, 2011

Reviews

[saml · Rating 3 out of 5]

like a serious epistemology version of the dick moron view, with some great reductionism-antireductionism wrangling first. found faulkner's view hard to get a handle on at first, but in fact it's very close to lackey's "dualism", except that he distinguishes what can be known on the basis of testimony and testimonial knowledge, a distinction grounded in assurance stuff. and like i think the only way to really make that distinction leads one up the garden path of truly social social epistemology, which would understand epistemic normative statuses in terms of some other normativity. and that's mega scary. so i'm very unsure about the conclusions, and of faulkner's big trust fix. still super stimulating!! discovered this was based on work supervised by mike g motha effin martin, whose personality cult i am in, and who no doubt contributed to this book's estimable thoroughness

[C Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and informative. Possibly a disconnect between the title and the contents. I approached the book for its content on the theory of trust, and while what is there is pure gold, a lot of the book focuses on person to person information transfer (testimony) which, while a linked issue, is not what I picked the book up for.