The Epistemic Role of Testimony: Internalist and Externalist Perspectives, Fumerton
Fumerton, R. (2006),The Epistemic Role of Testimony: Internalist and Externalist Perspectives, in Jennifer Lackey & Ernest Sosa, ed.,’The Epistemology of Testimony’, Oxford University Press, , pp. 77-92.
p. 78 – (para 1) Taking an assertion model as granted.
p. 79 – Fumerton’s construal of the most demanding yet plausible version of internalism: ‘…takes S’s foundationally justified beliefs to be those justified by S’s direct acquaintance with a correspondence between a belief/thought and the fact that makes it true.’
‘On the view I call inferential internalism, in order for S to be justified in believing P on the basis of some other proposition justifiably believed E, S must be justified in believing that there is a probabilistic connection between E and P (where entailment can be viewed as the upper limit of making probable.’
p. 79-80 – Astrology example: We usually think that the astrologer has little reason to connect the stars with a person’s fate but what we really mean to say is that there is an unjustifiable unstated premise in the astrologer’s reasoning because what we usually take to be justification for a belief is an argument based upon a small subset of our beliefs and when we unpack the whole array of background beliefs that is where we start to see issues with justification (or, at least, I think that is what Fumerton is saying).
p. 81 – (middle section) Suggests that the distinction between derivative and fundamental reasoning is needlessly confusing; what we get are arguments rather than inferences.
p. 82-4 (point is made on 84): Rejecting the Davidsonian/Coady view on language that we should assume ‘speech acts’ to be true but rather reliable(?).
p. 84 (middle para): Assertion model
p. 86 – Crux of his thesis: ‘Arguments that employ s-called derivative epistemic principles are probably better thought of as enthymematic arguments governed by legitimate epistemic pprinciples that license the inference from premises to conclusion. Strictly speaking derivative epistemic “principles” aren’t epistemic principles at all.’
p. 86-7 – A (possible) epistemic principle governing testimony:
‘T) When R hears a sentence “S” (e.g. the words “There is a dog outside”) in the sort of conditions that characterize a context of genuine assertion, that makes probable for R that S (e.g. that there is a dog outside.)’
(Principle is based on the notion that if I remember having had a headache then that experience makes it prima facie likely that I did have a headache, because if I had a headache I would have the experience of having had the headache. This would remain a credible claim even if, in this case, I am mistaken about the headache.)
(This is a frequentist/reliabilist intrepretation.)
p. 89 – Takes T to be pathetic and introduces an assertion version:
‘T*) When S hears someone say “There is a dog outside” and rationally takes that sentence to be a sincere assertion that there is a dog outside, then that is prima facie reasonable for S to believe that there is a dog outside.’
(We have to take context into account; controversial assertions lose their prima facie claim.)
