A Defense of Reductionism about Testimonial Justification of Beliefs, Shogenji
Shogenji, T. (2006), ‘A Defense of Reductionism about Testimonial Justification of Beliefs’, Nous 40:2, 331-346.
p. 332 – ‘My goal in this paper is to show that the belief in the credibility (prima facie credibility—I will not repeat this qualification) of testimony can be justified by standard rules of inference based on perceptual and memorial evidence.’
p. 333 – Wants to talk about Justifiedness rather than Justiability.
One argument against Reductionism: Stranger asking for directions in a city.
p. 334 – Global Reductionist reply: Past experiences… (with Coady’s reply to that)
p. 335 – Davidson.
p. 336 – Stranger in a city example points towards global reductionism rather than local reductionism.
p. 339 – Is he replying first to the Transcendental Argument because his reply could be weakened by his reply to the Empirical Argument?
p. 340 – Developmental view.
‘However, the analysis above reveals that perceptual and memorial evidence for the credibility of testimony is causally relevant after all to our holding testimony-based beliefs. This is because we hold testimony-based beliefs only if we can interpret the utterances, and we can interpret the utterances only if perceptual and memorial evidence is available for the interpretation, while it is the very same perceptual and memorial evidence that establishes the credibility of testimony. Thus, perceptual and memorial evidence for the credibility of testimony is part of the causal basis of our holding testimony-based beliefs.’
p. 342 – Showing inferences from some given testimony as being good can confirm testimony.
p. 343 – Development of the Empirical Argument (inferential view).
p. 344 – ‘Once we regard the assumption of the general credibility of testimony as the hypothesis to test, and not part of the background support, the epistemic subject can make use of the testimonial evidence to confirm the general credibility of testimony without circularity.’
