In “Knowledge and the Internal” John McDowell presents a deep and interesting argument. I think everything he says is true and important. Still, there are a number of points that bear expanding on in order to be properly understood. So I want to say something about his point of departure: the idea of standings in the space of reasons. And I want to fill in further the picture at which he finally arrives, by saying how I think we ought to (...) understand knowledge as a standing in the space of reasons, once we have freed ourselves from a prevalent deformed conception of that space. McDowell’s strategy is to show that that conception of the space of reasons is inadequate—that it deserves to be called a ‘deformation’—by showing that it leaves no room for anything recognizable as knowledge. I’ll try to reconstruct that argument by showing what it looks like in the context of a crucial dimension of the space of reasons that McDowell never mentions: its essentially social articulation. The effect of this supplementation, I think, is not to turn a bad argument into a good one, but to turn what is already a good argument into one that further illuminates the phenomena with which it deals. (shrink)

Testimony is indispensable in the sciences. To deny the propriety of relying on it engenders an untenable scepticism. But this leaves open the issue of what exactly confers a scientist’s epistemic right to rely upon the word of her colleagues. Some authors have suggested a recipient of testimony enjoys an epistemic entitlement to trust the word of another as such, not requiring evidence of her trustworthiness, so long as there is not evidence of her untrustworthiness. I argue that, whether or (...) not such an on-no-evidence entitlement to believe what one is told exists, it shrinks to irrelevance in the explanation of the basis on which scientists take each other’s word in the scientific community. This is so, since a normally knowledgeable adult hearer is typically awash with relevant evidence, direct and circumstantial, for and against, concerning a teller’s trustworthiness, and this swamps any alleged entitlement to believe in the absence of such evidence. There need not be personal knowledge of the teller, since social role and topic provide evidence regarding trustworthiness. I also discuss the individuation of ‘testimony’ as an epistemic kind. I suggest that we should not attempt to define a category with sharp boundaries, but instead characterise a paradigm case—one person telling another something in face-to-face personal communication—and then notice other cases which both resemble and diverge from this in epistemically relevant features—lectures, media broadcasts, personal letters, personal diaries, etc.Author Keywords: Testimony; Justification; Knowledge; Individualism; Communication. (shrink)

Editorial preface to the fourth edition and modified translation -- The text of the Philosophische Untersuchungen -- Philosophische untersuchungen = Philosophical investigations -- Philosophie der psychologie, ein fragment = Philosophy of psychology, a fragment.

Written over the last 18 months of his life and inspired by his interest in G. E. Moore's defence of common sense, this much discussed volume collects Wittgenstein's reflections on knowledge and certainty, on what it is to know a proposition for sure.

In “Knowledge and the Internal” John McDowell presents a deep and interesting argument. I think everything he says is true and important. Still, there are a number of points that bear expanding on in order to be properly understood. So I want to say something about his point of departure: the idea of standings in the space of reasons. And I want to fill in further the picture at which he finally arrives, by saying how I think we ought to (...) understand knowledge as a standing in the space of reasons, once we have freed ourselves from a prevalent deformed conception of that space. McDowell’s strategy is to show that that conception of the space of reasons is inadequate—that it deserves to be called a ‘deformation’—by showing that it leaves no room for anything recognizable as knowledge. I’ll try to reconstruct that argument by showing what it looks like in the context of a crucial dimension of the space of reasons that McDowell never mentions: its essentially social articulation. The effect of this supplementation, I think, is not to turn a bad argument into a good one, but to turn what is already a good argument into one that further illuminates the phenomena with which it deals. (shrink)

This is a welcome reprint of a book that continues to grow in importance.

abstract Trusting agents characteristically anticipate beneficial outcomes, under conditions of uncertainty, in their engagement with others. However, debates about trust incorporate different interpretations of risk, uncertainty, calculation, affect, morality and motivation in explaining when trust is appropriate and how it operates. This article argues that discussions about trust have produced a concept without coherent boundaries and with little operational value. Two paradigms are identified, which distinguish the characteristics of trust and confidence. It is argued that a reliance on confidence in (...) human affairs makes trust redundant and that this has undesirable moral consequences. Discussion is illustrated by the UK Government's ‘modernisation’ policy in health and social care, which privileges confidence in systems over trust in moral agents. (shrink)

Most traditional epistemologists see trust and knowledge as deeply antithetical: we cannot know by trusting in the opinions of others; knowledge must be based on evidence, not mere trust. I argue that this is badly mistaken. Modern knowers cannot be independent and self-reliant. In most disciplines, those who do not trust cannot know. Trust is thus often more epistemically basic than empirical evidence or logical argument, for the evidence and the argument are available only through trust. Finally, since the reliability (...) of testimonial evidence depends on the trustworthiness of the testifier, this implies that knowledge often rests on a foundation of ethics. The rationality of many of our beliefs depends not only on our own character, but on the character of others. (shrink)

This paper suggests a new way of analysing testimony. The starting point of the analysis is ‘epistemological communitarianism’. This is the view that communities, rather than individuals, are the primary bearers of knowledge. The new perspective is developed through a discussion of four issues: the scope of testimony; the role of inferences in the reception and evaluation of testimony; the possibility of a global justification of testimony; and the question of whether testimony is a generative source of knowledge or a (...) mere means of transmission of already existing knowledge. The last-mentioned issue is given special prominence. It is argued that testimony is a generative source of knowledge.Author Keywords: Testimony; Communitarianism; Epistemology; Trust; Sociology of knowledge. (shrink)

Although there is widespread agreement that our epistemic dependence on other people's knowledge is a key ingredient of our cognitive life, the role of trust in this dependence is much more open to debate. Is trust in epistemic authority—or “epistemic trust” for short—an epistemological notion in any sense, or is it simply a bridge-concept that connects our epistemological concerns to moral issues? Should we depict it in terms of the more familiar sociological notion of trust as a basis for cooperation?