Testimony, trust, and authority / Benjamin McMyler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McMyler, Benjamin.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Testimony (Theory of knowledge).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (187 p.)

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, c2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Much of what we know is acquired by taking things on the word of other people whom we trust and treat as authorities concerning what to believe. But what exactly is it to take someone's word for something? What is it to treat another as an authority concerning what to believe, and what is it to then trust this person for the truth? Benjamin McMyler argues that philosophers have failed to appreciate the nature and significance of our epistemic dependence on the word of others.

Contents:

""Cover""; ""Contents""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""Introduction""; ""1 Testimony as a Philosophical Problem""; ""1.1 Testimony, Knowledge, and Understanding""; ""1.2 From Human Faith to Inductive Evidence""; ""1.3 On Miracles: Hume Versus Port Royal""; ""1.4 Inference, Perception, and Sociality: Hume Versus Reid""; ""2 Knowing at Second Hand""; ""2.1 What Is Testimonial Knowledge?""; ""2.2 Secondhandness and the Epistemic Right of Deferral""; ""2.3 The Epistemological Problem of Testimony Revisited""; ""2.4 An Argument from Secondhandness""; ""2.5 Skepticism About Knowing at Second Hand""

""3 Three Models of Epistemic Dependence""""3.1 The Evidential Model""; ""3.2 The Inheritance Model""; ""3.3 The Second-Personal Model""; ""3.4 Moran on Assurance""; ""3.5 Intermediate Cases and the Return of Epistemic Autonomy""; ""4 Trusting a Person""; ""4.1 The Grammar of Trust""; ""4.2 Second-Personal Attitudes""; ""4.3 Trust as Second-Personal""; ""4.4 Trust as Cognitive""; ""5 Authority, Autonomy, and Second-Personal Reasons""; ""5.1 Second and Third-Personal Reasons""; ""5.2 Second-Personal Reasons for Belief""; ""5.3 Belief, Evidence, and Evidentialism""

""5.4 Theoretical Versus Practical Reasons""""5.5 Conclusion: Authority, Sociality, and Cognition""; ""References""; ""Index""; ""A""; ""B""; ""C""; ""D""; ""E""; ""F""; ""G""; ""H""; ""I""; ""K""; ""L""; ""M""; ""N""; ""O""; ""P""; ""R""; ""S""; ""T""; ""U""; ""W""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-283-42314-6

9786613423146

0-19-979436-7

OCLC:

774392909