Abstract
Within this paper, we argue that Audi’s transmission principle for testimony-based knowledge is untenable, while proposing an alternative route for him to take. We will first set out the core tenets of Audi’s general epistemology (Sect. 3.2) before we examine his account of testimony more specifically (Sect. 3.3). Then, we proceed by showing that Audi’s transmission principle for testimony-based knowledge falls prey to a number of prominent counterexamples discussed in the recent literature (Sect. 3.4). In reaction to this, we will put forward the thesis that in cases of testimonial knowledge propositional justification, in contrast to knowledge, is being transmitted. Finally, we conclude that Audi loses sight of this option due to his overly strict classification of knowledge in externalist and justification in internalist terms (Sect. 3.5).
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Notes
- 1.
The following represents a typical structure of cases of deviant causation: (i) There is an epistemic ground which usually exhibits justificational force. (ii) But due to bad luck, in this special instance the belief originated in a way that directly undermines the justificational status of the believer.
- 2.
Elsewhere, Audi also refers to a sustaining requirement: “on the sustaining requirement, when, by virtue of believing q, S justifiably believes p, then given his belief that q, it is at least not merely good fortune (and certainly not simply accidental) that S believes p“ (Audi 1986, 226).
- 3.
Reasons, of course, are also appropriate grounds for justification. But to keep it simple, we will restrict ourselves to cases of direct justification here.
- 4.
Note that a general analysis need not be understood as a reductive analysis of what it is for a belief to be justified or to be knowledge. Rather, it can be conceived as a non-reductive, but nevertheless explanatory account of the very property in question.
- 5.
By talking about justifying grounds or justifier instead of mental states we try to make way for a neutral stance concerning the ongoing internalist-externalist controversy in epistemology.
- 6.
“[A] belief is objectively justified if it does meet certain standards that have a truth-indicative status. A belief is subjectively justified if it appears, from the agent’s perspective at the time of belief, to meet those standards” (Goldman 2002, 66).
- 7.
It seems fair to mention that Audi uses these terms in a somewhat different matter (cf. Audi 1986, 59f.). Interestingly, this manner of use coincides with what we have called objective doxastic justification and subjective propositional justification.
- 8.
According to Audi (2010, 273), a moderate internalist view of justification holds that justification is at least partly grounded in elements which are cognitively accessible to the epistemic subject S (directly or dispositionally on reflection). A moderate externalist view, in turn, holds that justification is at least partly grounded in elements external to S’s mind (reliable processes, for example).
- 9.
To exemplify this, Audi sometimes refers to the case of an idiot savant. Imagine an agent who reliably comes up with the solution of complicated math problems. Due to their complexity, these calculations normally would need to be carried out consciously. However, the agent comes up with true solutions fully automatically, that is without any cognitively accessible calculation. Thus, from Audi’s point of view, these agents have knowledge without justification, if they reliably form true beliefs and lack access to their justifying grounds (cf. Audi 2010, 271f.).
- 10.
„We take the internal face of justification to be dominant but allow its complexion to change with sufficiently strong and pervasive indications of external success or failure” (Audi 1993, 27).
- 11.
This is not the only difference between knowledge and justification. Trivially, Audi claims that (ii) in contrast to justification, knowledge implies truth. Furthermore, (iii) knowledge is normative in upshot, while justification is normative in content (cf. Audi 2013b, 132). This means that even though knowledge is intrinsically good, its being intrinsically good is not part of its conceptual content. Having knowledge is valuable for us, but to understand what knowledge is, we do not need to refer to value predicates. Such a concept of knowledge is thus naturalizable and can be completely defined in descriptive terms. The concept of justification, on the other hand, does not allow for naturalization because it is normative in content, i.e. can only be defined by means of value predicates. To be justified, a belief that p has to be based in the right kind of way on the right kind of ground. Showing that one is justified “entails showing that one is in an epistemically acceptable state, which one cannot be in without meeting normative standards” (Audi 1988, 22). Therefore, no belief can be justified without an underlying normative framework. Interestingly, even though Audi states that knowledge can be defined in descriptive terms, his own definition of knowledge does involve value predicates: the true belief that p should be based in the right kind of way on the right kind of ground. And (iv) finally knowledge and justification differ because justification “does not require as strong grounding [in terms of reliability, for example] as does knowledge” (Audi 2013b, 137).
- 12.
When we sarcastically say that p, we normally mean non-p by it and we do not intend that the listener comes to believe that p by our utterance. Also, if we exclaim in delight “Ah, how lovely the weather is today!”, this is merely an expression of our delight not an assertion, we do not mean to give testimony that the weather is great (cf. Audi 2010, 151).
- 13.
The phonetic aspect of the testimonial act is insignificant for what Audi has in mind. The way something is said will typically tip us off, if an agent speaks sarcastically, theatrically or expressively, however, the second condition already ensures that this is not the case. Attesting that p is not merely some kind of uttering, but saying that p is the case.
- 14.
There are cases of knowledge by way of testimony in which (i) the testimony that p is not the sole basis of the recipient’s knowledge that p, (ii) it is not the content of the testimony but something else about the testimony (e.g. the tone of it) that generates the knowledge in the recipient or (iii) the recipient comes to belief that q by testimony that p which implies or ensures that q without literally attesting that q. In the first type of cases, the hearer does not acquire the knowledge that p non-inferentially, but only in combination with further premises. If someone tells me that p, which seems unlikely to me, I might disbelieve her. However, if she is introduced to me as an expert on this matter, this will justify my believing that her judgment is credible. This belief about her credibility will serve as a premise for me to trust her and I thus come to believe p despite my initial doubt. My knowledge that p is acquired inferentially, whereas testimony-based knowledge is acquired non-inferentially. An example for the second type of cases is one in which the perceiving of the phonetic aspect of the testimony coincidently reveals the same information as the content of the testimony does. If I ask someone in the darkness “Are you awake?”, the reply “I’m awake” gives me the same information as the very fact that the person is answering after all. She could have been ironic and said “No, I’m sleeping” and I still would have gotten to know that she is awake. In fact, the perceiving of the phonetic aspect of the testimony that p generates knowledge that p by way of testimony. This does not amount to testimony-based knowledge, for to achieve this, the testifier needs to attest p, whereas attesting p implies affirming p. But these cases are the exception, rather than the rule. The third kind of cases is more common: If my flatmate says that there is no milk in the fridge now, but there will be milk for my coffee next morning, she is assuring me that she will go and buy milk in time. She does not literally say this, but it is ensured that there will be milk for my coffee tomorrow. The same holds, if she tells me that, if she goes to the store, she will buy new milk in addition to the fact that she will go to the store. She does not say it, but it is pragmatically implied. In both scenarios I come to know that there will be milk not solely on the basis of her testimony, but inferentially, i.e. by way of testimony.
- 15.
Recall that by situational justification Audi means what we introduced as propositional justification.
- 16.
Audi differentiates between inferentially dependent justification and non-inferentially depended justification. He defines inferentially dependent justification as justification for p that rests on at least one other premise q, while non-inferential justification does not depend on premises (Audi 2013b, 523).
- 17.
Audi even claims that it “seems possible, moreover, that you can give me testimony-based knowledge that p without my being justified in believing p” (Audi 2013b, 521). He builds a case where the testifier is reliable and the recipient is under the influence of the testifier in the way that she will believe what the testifier says, even when she has grounds for doubt. Her grounds for doubt might be too insignificant to outweigh the influence of the testifier, but sufficient to prevent her from acquiring doxastic justification.
- 18.
Audi’s transmission principle, which we introduced earlier, is thought to be a variation of this general principle of testimonial knowledge transmission.
- 19.
Claiming that the students only gain knowledge by interference appears ad hoc: It is highly implausible to assume that Stella’s students always reflect on their teacher’s institutional role before concluding to accept her testimony (especially if we presuppose that they do not know her religious attitude and so do not have any reason to doubt). Intuitively, the students gain knowledge non-inferentially in the three cases we presented above.
- 20.
In a Searlean talk, assertives have the illocutionary point of committing the speaker to the truth of the proposition thereby expressed and a sincerity condition consisting in the speaker’s believing this propositional content (cf. Searle 1979, 12f.).
- 21.
Recall that there are two possible readings of the case: On the first reading Mr. Jones is considered to be the initial testifier, no one higher up the testimonial chain knows the proposition he attests. On the second reading it is assumed that the proposition he states to his students is overdetermined by other evidences brought forward by archeologists, who believe the proposition and thus have knowledge about it. Mr. Jones knows about these evidences and he can be described as a mere conduit between the recipients and the archeologists.
- 22.
There is an ongoing debate to whether it is plausible to attribute “states like belief and knowledge to groups, and whether the attribution of such states is reducible to attributions of such states to members of the groups in question” (Shieber 2015, 194).
- 23.
Bear in mind that we are only referring to the reading of the Schoolteacher case in which overdetermination by other evidence is already excluded.
- 24.
By the way, many epistemologists “taking part in the debate on epistemic transmission and transmission failure [in case of inferential knowledge] speak of transmission of warrant, rather than justification, [but] they all seem to use the term ‘warrant’ to refer to some kind of epistemic justification. [They (…)] broadly identify the epistemic property capable of being transmitted with propositional justification” (Moretti and Tommaso 2013).
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Keßels, I., Lambert, D., Quast, C. (2018). The Place of Justification in the Fabric of Testimonial Knowledge. In: Müller-Salo, J. (eds) Robert Audi: Critical Engagements. Münster Lectures in Philosophy, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00482-8_3
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