The Epistemology of Testimony: Fulfilling the Sincerity Condition

The epistemological problem of sincerity in testimony is often approached in the following way: We, as a matter of fact, accept utterances as sincere. We do so in the face of knowledge that people lie and deceive, and yet we still count these beliefs as good beliefs. Therefore there must be some reason or argument that we can cite in order to justify our acceptance of the sincerity of the speaker. In this thesis I will argue, contra this, that there is no reason, per se, that justifies our acceptance of a speaker’s sincerity: this is because recognition of the obligation to accept the sincerity is a necessary condition on the possibility of communication and interpretation. In the first three chapters of the thesis I will argue against three of the main approaches to the problem by focusing on what I believe to be the strongest accounts of each: Elizabeth Fricker’s reductionism, Tyler Burge’s non-reductionism, and Paul Faulkner’s trust account of testimony. In the final chapter I will put forward my positive account. I will argue that it is a constitutive rule of language that a speaker be sincere, and then make the further claim, that it is a constitutive rule of interpretation that the hearer take an utterance as sincere. On my account, successful communication does not just depend on a speaker making sincere utterances, but, just as importantly, on the hearer recognising an obligation to take those utterances as being sincere.

Ratio, 2012

Is there a justified presumption that a speaker is testifying sincerely? Anti-reductionism about testimony claims that there is, absent reasons to the contrary. Yet why believe this, given the actuality and prevalence of lies and deception? I examine one argument that may be appropriated to meet this challenge, David Lewis's claim that truthfulness is a convention. I argue that it fails, and that the supposition that there is a presumption of sincerity remains unsupported. The failure of Lewis's argument is instructive, however, for it shows us a better way of approaching language use than the standard anti-reductionist treatment. As speech is an intentional action, so a presumption of the sincerity or otherwise of others' testimony must be explicable in the terms we normally use to explain action.

2020

Many of our beliefs are say-so-based. That is, many of our beliefs are premised on the fact that someone said something. This is not controversial, not when we consider that for those of us who are not archeologists, what we believe to be historical facts are things we believe because we read something in a book, watched a documentary or paid attention in history-class. The same can be said for our beliefs about the meaning of words, and our understanding of concepts-which is, somewhat, inadequate though mostly sufficient for roughly grasping the essential aspects of the thing-even though we lack the required field-specific competence to truly understand. Not to mention, beliefs about social conventions: those dos and don'ts dictated by social norms (i.e., standards for appropriate behavior). Supposing, then, that it is uncontroversial that for many of our beliefs, we believe what we believe because, at some point, someone said so. What can be controversial, however, is how epistemologists suggest that we account for and defend the aptness of accepting the say-so of others. For instance, do we hold a basic right to accept what we are told in the absence of reasons not to do so, or does the aptness of accepting the say-so of others always hinge on whether or not we hold positive reasons sufficient for reasoning that the speaker is reliable? To put this more vividly, consider whether and why it is apt for Jill and Joe in the following anecdote to accept, on the basis of say-so, that Jenny's wedding has been postponed. JENNY'S WEDDING Jill and Joe had both responded that they were coming to Jenny's wedding. So, when none of them came, Jenny confronted them, each, the next day: JILL: On, no? I am so sorry! Joe told me (Jenny's brother) that you postponed the wedding. I just... since he's your brother and all, I mean. I guess I just expected him to be reliable about this sort of thing. JOE: What do you mean I didn't show up? The wedding was postponed, right? I swear I thought Greg said you postponed. You know Greg, the new clairvoyant guy that I go to. This guy is the real deal, Jenny. You wouldn't believe it, crystal ball and them cards and everything. Greg is as reliable as they come; guess I must have heard him wrong or misunderstood what he said. xvii There is no doubt that JENNY'S WEDDING motivates several interesting questions, though the question that JENNY'S WEDDING is meant to motivate is the research question for this dissertation, namely, How should we account for recipients' warrant to accept a speaker's say-so, such that warranted say-so-based acceptance makes for an apt basis for warranted belief? 1 For instance, given that Jill is warranted to accept Joe's say-so, and given that Joe is warranted to accept Greg's say-so, how should we, then, explain that the warrant to accept the plausibility of what they are told serves as an apt basis for Jill and Joe to believe that what they are told is true. Sure, one could say that since Jill and Joe are both responsible for the actions they may choose to premise on accepting the say-so of others. They are, likewise, responsible for what they ultimately choose to believe on the basis of accepting sayso. And so, regardless of whether we consult Greg the clairvoyant or an actual expert on the matter at hand, choosing to believe is eventually up to us. This, however, presupposes that all beliefs can be traced back to some moment of reflection when an attitude of accepting plausibly-p turns into a belief that-p. 2 To boldly assume this would simply beg the question. Maybe, neither Jill nor Joe is right to accept what they are told. In Jill's case, one could argue that intuition should have alerted her. That, either, she is close enough to Jenny to be aware of Joe's gullible nature or she is not close enough to Jenny to even know that she has a brother named Joe, and should, therefore, not accept whatever "Joe the-alleged-brother-of-the-bride" tells her. As for Joe, one could argue that since he accepts and believes on the basis that Greg is a clairvoyant, this speaks for itself, suggesting a malfunction in Joe's capacity for critical thinking. However, before we allow ourselves to be overly critical of Jill and Joe, we should at least take into consideration that, from the looks of it, Jill's acceptance was based 1 For clarification, the 'warrant to accept' a speaker's say-so should here be read as the 'right to commit to the plausibility of what is said', whereas, 'warranted belief' should be read as the 'right to commit to the truth of what is said'. This is, however, further explained below in Chapter I, §1.2.1. 2 One problem with this is the implication that, for any of our beliefs, we are committed to believing that the belief was, at some point, assessed and evaluated as belief-worthy. This would lead to an endless regress, since it implies that for any belief B, there is an additional belief B´ to ground the initial assessment of B as belief-worthy. 2 One problem with this is the implication that, for any of our beliefs, we are committed to believing that the belief was, at some point, assessed and evaluated as belief-worthy. This would lead to an endless regress, since it implies that for any belief B, there is an additional belief B´ to ground the initial assessment of B as belief-worthy. xviii on sincere say-so, whereas Joe's acceptance was based on insincere say-so. 3 Later in this dissertation we see, 4 by appeal to studies on the accuracy of deception detection, that the average rate at which recipients' accurately assess a speaker for sincerity is only slightly above 50% (Bond and DePaulo 2006: 230). This suggests that our chances of accurately assessing whether speakers are sincere with respect to their sayso are very similar to our chances of guessing whether the toss of a coin ends as heads or tails. This is not to say that because our disposition to assess for de facto speakersincerity is about as good as chance, we should therefore be excused for accepting insincere say-so. Instead, it suggests that we should that we should be responsive to other signs of speaker-reliability than merely perceived speaker-sincerity. For instance, we should take into account whether, as is illustrated in JENNY'S WEDDING , there are reasons to think that the speaker is clueless as to what he is talking about. This is an important factor, since the reason for much of what we accept on the basis of say-so is that we lack the competence ourselves to figure it out. Since we cannot all be experts on everything, our competence as individuals is limited to those a few areas of interest or expertise. 6 Hence, even if we presuppose that the responsibility for accepting what we are told is ultimately on ourselves, we are still, due to our limited capacities as individuals, extremely reliant on the competence of others, which in turn makes us inescapably reliant on their say-so as well. Though we cannot help but to be reliant on the say-so of others, what we can help is how we choose to account for and defend the aptness of accepting the say-so of others in such a way that this makes for an apt basis for warranted belief. In this dissertation I discuss the question of how this should be done and present an argument against a disjunction inherited from the Scottish Enlightenment, viz. that say-so-based warrant is, either, grounded in rational-or non-rational acceptance. 3 Given, of course, that we presuppose that Greg the clairvoyant does not actually believe himself to be a clairvoyant.

THEORIA. An International Journal for Theory, History …, 2008

ABSTRACT: I propose to consider the interpersonal character of testimony as a kind of social bond created by the mutual intention of sharing knowledge. The paper explores the social mechanism that supports this mutual intention starting from an initial situation of modelling the other's ...

2008

ABSTRACT: I propose to consider the interpersonal character of testimony as a kind of social bond created by the mutual intention of sharing knowledge. The paper explores the social mechanism that supports this mutual intention starting from an initial situation of modelling the other’s epistemic perspective. Accepting testi-mony as a joint action creates epistemic duties and responsibilities and the eventual success can be consid-ered as a genuine achievement at the social level of epistemology. Trust is presented here as the symptom that both parties are involved in such a social bond.

Paragraph, 2007

In much recent cultural theory there has been a noticeable turn to testimonial discourse, perhaps especially in the context of finding ways of bearing witness to human suffering, tragedy and trauma. While this shift toward allowing others to speak 'in the first person' provides an important and powerful methodological tool, appealing to first-person testimony is also a hazardous enterprise. (It is, after all, especially difficult to raise questions about the authenticity of visibly pained testimonies.) Drawing on a number of disparate philosophers and writers, in this article I explore some of the central epistemological and ethical problems surrounding testimony. More specifically, I argue that the distinction between truth and sincerity is of fundamental importance here, and as such any unreflective methodological reliance on testimonial discourse is at best misconceived, at worst irresponsible.

Episteme, 2007

I present an account of what it is to trust a speaker, and argue that the account can explain the common intuitions which structure the debate about the transmission view of testimony. According to the suggested account, to trust a speaker is to grant her epistemic authority on the asserted proposition, and hence to see her opinion as issuing a second order, preemptive reason for believing the proposition. The account explains the intuitive appeal of the basic principle associated with the transmission view of testimony: the principle according to which, a listener can normally obtain testimonial knowledge that p by believing a speaker who testifies that p only if the speaker knows that p. It also explains a common response to counterexamples to this principle: that these counterexamples do not involve normal cases of testimonial knowledge.

The assumption that we largely lack reasons for accepting testimony has dominated its epistemology. Given the further assumption that whatever reasons we do have are insufficient to justify our testimonial beliefs, many conclude that any account of testimonial knowledge must allow credulity to be justified. In this paper I argue that both of these assumptions are false. Our responses to testimony are guided by our background beliefs as to the testimony as a type, the testimonial situation, the testifier's character and the truth of the proposition testified to. These beliefs provide reasons for our responses. Thus, we usually do have reasons, in the sense of propositions believed, for accepting testimony and these reasons can provide evidence for the testimonial beliefs we form.

Philosophical Issues, 2004

2008

What does it make social epistemology “social”? What does it make social epistemology “epistemological”? What is testimony? In this paper, I propose to consider to what extent these questions are related, and how the answer to the third one could shed some light on the nature of social epistemology. As it is well known, much of our knowledge is obtained from others simply by attending to their actions and words. Certainly, the most part of this knowledge, I will claim, is acquired from instrumental grounds and not by testimony. For example, when I meet a tourist asking for the Prado Museum, I obtain the knowledge that she has some competence in Spanish without mediating a testimonial act. Nevertheless, part of the knowledge acquired from others issubstantively testimonial, as for example when, while foraging wild mushrooms, I inquire: “Is this a dangerous one?”, and receive the answer: “No, this is an Amanita Cesarea, you can eat it safely”. This is a case of non-instrumental testim...