## 1. Reductionism and Non-Reductionism



Consider this scenario: Your friend testifies to you that your
favorite team won last night's game (= *p*). Because you
know that your friend is a highly reliable sports reporter, and
because you have no reason to doubt what she says on this occasion,
you believe what you are told. In this case, your belief that *p*
is clearly justified.



Now, contrast that scenario with this one: You run into a stranger
whom you have never met and they tell you that your favorite team won
last night's game (= *p*). Even though you don't know
if this person often speaks the truth, you also don't have any
good reason to doubt what they are telling you. Thus, you decide to
believe what you are told. Whether or not your belief that *p* is
justified in this case is a lot less clear.



Thinking about the difference between cases like these helps motivate
the debate about the following question:



> 
> 
> *First Big Question*: Is testimony a basic source of
> justification, or can testimonial justification be reduced to a
> combination of other epistemic sources?
> 
> 
> 



Those who defend answers to this question tend to endorse one of three
main positions: *Reductionism*, *Non-Reductionism*, and
*Hybrid Views*.


### 1.1 Reductionism



Reductionists maintain that in order to acquire testimonial
justification, one must have positive reasons for thinking that the
speaker in question is a reliable testifier. More specifically,
Reductionists endorse



> 
> 
> *Positive Reasons*: A hearer is justified in believing what a
> speaker says if, and only if, they (a) have positive reasons for
> thinking that the speaker's testimony is reliable, where these
> reasons are not themselves ultimately based on testimony, and (b) do
> not have any undefeated
>  defeaters[4]
>  that indicate that the speaker's testimony is false or unlikely
> to be true.
> 
> 
> 



Reductionist views trace at least as far back as David Hume's
(1740, 1748)--see Traiger (1993, 2010), Faulkner (1998), Root
(2001), Fogelin (2005), van Cleve (2006), Gelfert (2010), and Shieber
(2015) for more on Hume's view in particular. More recently,
other Reductionist views have been defended by E. Fricker (1987, 1994,
1995, 2002, 2006a, 2006b), Adler (1994, 2002), Lyons (1997), Lipton
(1998), Shogenji (2006), Sutton (2007), Malmgren (2006), and Kenyon
(2013).



One of the primary motivations for Reductionism stems from concerns
having to do with *gullibility*; that is, many reductionists
maintain that if we could justifiably accept a speaker's
testimony without having positive reasons for thinking that they
typically speak the truth, then we would be justified in accepting
testimony in cases in which doing so would be clearly irresponsible.
So for example, if a hearer does not need positive reasons for
thinking that the speaker's testimony is reliable, then one
could be justified in believing the say-so of a random blogger on an
arbitrary website so long as one did not have any reasons for doubting
the testimony in question.



Now, while all Reductionists endorse Positive Reasons, there is
disagreement over exactly how this thesis should be understood. For
this reason, Reductionists fall into one of two camps: *Global
Reductionists* and *Local Reductionists*.


#### 1.1.1 Global Reductionism



According to Global Reductionism, in order to be justified in
accepting a speaker's testimony, you need to have positive
reasons for believing that testimony is generally reliable, i.e., that
accepting the reports of others is a reliable way of forming true
beliefs. For instance, suppose that your friend tells you that he got
a puppy. Global Reductionists maintain that you are only justified in
accepting this report if you have positive reasons that support
inferences like the following:


1. My friend said that he got a puppy.
2. Relying on testimony is generally a reliable way to form true
beliefs, i.e., most people tend to say true things.
3. Therefore, my friend got a puppy.



It is in this sense that Global Reductionists think that testimonial
justification can be reduced to a combination of perceptual, memorial,
and inferential justification. That is, testimonial justification can
be reduced to a combination of other epistemic sources because it only
involves you (i) perceiving that the speaker made an utterance (ii)
remembering that when people have told you things in the past, they
turned out to be right most of the time and (iii) inferring on this
basis that what you were told on this occasion is likely to be
true.



Historically, Global Reductionism has been saddled with three
objections. First, opponents have argued that any attempt to acquire
non-testimonially based reasons for thinking that testimony is
generally reliable will either be viciously circular or else involve
an insurmountable regress. For instance, in order to know that people
generally speak the truth, I might need to rely on Bill's
testimony to confirm that what Alice said was true. But in order to
know that Bill can be trusted, I might need to rely on Carly to
confirm that he usually says true things. But to ensure that Carly
typically speaks the truth, I will either need to rely on Alice or
Bill to confirm this for me (hence the vicious circle), or else I will
need to rely on on a fourth person like Donald (and hence the regress
will continue). Thus, because there is no good way to acquire the
non-testimonially based reasons in question, Global Reductionism
problematically entails that we are rarely (if ever) justified in
accepting what people tell us. See Coady (1992) for this worry, and
see Wright (2016a, 2019) for an importantly different kind of
circularity worry for all Reductionist views.



Second, and relatedly, opponents have argued that in order to acquire
non-testimonially based reasons for thinking that testimony is
generally reliable, we would need to be exposed to loads and loads of
facts that correspond to the things that we receive testimony about,
i.e., in order to check if testimony about history, medicine, biology,
etc., is generally reliable, we would need to have confirmed many of
these facts for ourselves. However, most (if not all) of us simply
lack the time and resources to confirm such things. Thus, Global
Reductionism seems to problematically entail that we are rarely (if
ever) justified in accepting what other people tell us. See, e.g.,
Coady (1992).



To see the third worry with Global Reductionism, notice that Global
Reductionists treat testimony as if it is a unified, homogeneous
category, i.e., according to Global Reductionists, testimony in
general can be a more or less reliable source of knowledge. The
problem here is that we frequently receive testimony about wildly
different topics, e.g., quantum mechanics, politics, one's own
music preferences, etc. And clearly testimony about some of these
things is highly reliable (e.g., all of your friends are probably very
good at speaking truly about what kinds of music they like), whereas
testimony about other topics is less so (e.g., if your friends are
like mine, then at least a few of them are probably a lot less
reliable at speaking truly about politics). Thus, contra Global
Reductionism, it is a mistake to treat testimony as a unified source
of knowledge; that is, instead of thinking about testimony in general,
we should think about the various categories of testimony in
particular, e.g., categories differentiated by subject matter. For it
is only when we think of testimony as being disaggregated in this way
that it make sense to ask about whether receiving testimony about a
particular category is a reliable source of knowledge. See, e.g., E.
Fricker (1994).


#### 1.1.2 Local Reductionism



According to Local Reductionism, in order to be justified in accepting
a speaker's testimony, the hearer needs to have
non-testimonially based reasons for thinking that the speaker in
question is a reliable testifier on this occasion (as opposed to
having positive reasons for thinking that testimony in general is
reliable). For instance, suppose your friend tells you that he got a
puppy and that you make the following inference:


1. My friend said that he got a puppy
2. My friend usually speaks the truth (especially when they are in
contexts like these and when they are reporting about things in this
domain, e.g., things having to do with getting new pets).
3. Therefore, my friend got a puppy.



Local Reductionists maintain that you are only justified in accepting
what you are told on this occasion if you have non-testimonially based
reasons that support (1) and (2). For instance, perhaps you know that
your friend usually speaks the truth about these sorts of things
because you have known them for a long time. Or perhaps it is because
you know that, generally speaking, anyone who takes the time to talk
to you about their pets is probably telling the truth. Or perhaps it
is because you know that when you ask people about their pets in this
kind of context, it is highly likely that you will get an honest
answer.



Regardless of how these non-testimonially based reasons are acquired,
it is in this sense that Local Reductionists also think that
testimonial justification can be reduced to a combination of
perceptual, memorial, and inferential justification, i.e., testimonial
justification only consists in you perceiving that the speaker made an
utterance and then inferring on this basis that what the speaker said
on this occasion is likely to be true.



Local Reductionists are well positioned to avoid the problems that
plague Global Reductionism. This is because they are not committed to
the claim that testimony is a unified category, i.e., instead of
thinking about the reliability of testimony in general, we only need
to think about the reliability of each piece of testimony that we are
offered on a given occasion. Moreover, Local Reductionists do not
maintain that in order to be justified in accepting a speaker's
say-so, one needs positive reasons for thinking that testimony in
general is a reliable source of knowledge. Thus, even if you lack the
resources to confirm that most people generally speak the truth, you
can still have non-testimonially based reasons for thinking that what
the speaker said is likely to be true on this occasion. For instance,
if your relationship is long enough, you can come to know that your
friend has a great track record of saying true things about getting
new pets, since anytime they say this, you can just go over to their
place and see their new puppy for yourself. And because you
don't need to rely on the testimony of a third party to acquire
these positive reasons, there is no worry of running into the kinds of
vicious circles or insurmountable regresses that Global Reductionists
need to explain away.



Historically, though, there are at least three problems that cause
trouble for Local Reductionists. First, opponents have objected to
Local Reductionism on the grounds that it problematically excludes
young children (e.g., 3-year-olds) from justifiably accepting what
their parents tell them. For if Local Reductionism is true, then in
order to be justified in accepting a parent's testimony, a young
child would need non-testimonially based reasons for thinking that
this parent is a reliable testifier. But youngsters simply lack the
worldly experience to have good reasons for thinking that their
parents' reports are usually true, i.e., they have not been
around long enough to have confirmed enough of these reports for
themselves. Thus, Local Reductionism problematically precludes young
children from being able to learn from the say-so of their parents.
See, e.g., Audi (1997), and see also Harris (2002), Harris and
Corriveau (2011) and Koenig and Harris (2007) for empirical results
about children accepting the testimony of others. (Note: This
objection poses a worry for Global Reductionists as well).



Second, opponents have objected to Local Reductionism on the grounds
that we can be justified in believing a speaker, *S*'s,
testimony that *p* even if we lack the relevant non-testimonially
based reasons to support the inference from "S said that
*p*" to "*p*". (See, e.g., Webb [1994:
263-264], Strawson [1994: 25], Schmitt [1999: 360] and Lackey
[2008: 180]). For instance, suppose you arrive in a new country and
spot someone on the street. And suppose that you approach this person
and ask them for directions. Now, if that person tells you that your
hotel is three blocks down the road, then it seems like you are
justified in accepting their testimony that this is the case. But
Local Reductionism cannot accommodate this result. For insofar as the
*only* thing that justifies your belief is your inference from
"This person said that my hotel is just down the road" to
"My hotel is just down the road", then since you know next
to nothing about this stranger, and since you also know very little
about whether anyone in this area is likely to answer this sort of
question honestly, it is hard to see how your non-testimonially based
reasons for accepting this person's testimony are strong enough
to justify you in believing what you are told on this occasion. (But
see, e.g., Kenyon [2013], who defends Local Reductionism from this
worry by arguing that even if a hearer knows very little about the
speaker in question, they can still appeal to other contextual
information to support their inference).



Third, others have argued that given the current results in social
psychology, there is good reason to reject Local Reductionism on the
grounds that it makes testimonial justification too hard to come by.
The worry here is that the evidence from social psychology suggests
that humans are not very good at determining when a particular
instance of testimony is false or unlikely to be true. Thus, insofar
as Local Reductionists maintain that hearers need to be good at
monitoring for these signs of falsehood and unreliability in order to
have positive reasons for thinking that a particular instance of
testimony is worth accepting, Local Reductionism problematically
entails that we have way less testimonial justification than we
previously thought. See Michaelian (2010, 2013) and Shieber (2012,
2015) for more on this style of objection, and see Sperber (2013) and
Harris et al. (2018) for an empirical arguments to the contrary.
(Note: This objection is not meant to just target Local Reductionism,
but Reductionist views more generally).



Reductionists have offered responses to all of the worries mentioned
above. For instance, see Owen (1987), Sobel (1987), and Alvin Goldman
(1999: Ch. 4) for a Bayesian analysis of how a hearer can acquire
positive reasons for accepting a speaker's testimony. See also
E. Fricker (1995), Lipton (1998, 2007), Schiffer (2003), and Malmgren
(2006) for more on how hearers can acquire these positive reasons via
inference to the best explanation. And for more on debates surrounding
Reductionism in general, see Faulkner (2000), Elgin (2002), Lackey
(2005a, 2006), Goldberg and Henderson (2006), Kenyon (2013) and Graham
(2018). Whether or not these responses succeed remains an open
question.


### 1.2 Non-Reductionism



According to Non-Reductionists, Positive Reasons is false, i.e., we
don't need positive reasons for thinking that a speaker's
testimony is reliable in order to be justified in believing what we
are told. Instead, we have a defeasible but presumptive right to
believe what people tell us. More specifically, Non-Reductionists
endorse



> 
> 
> *Presumptive Right*: A hearer is justified (or
>  warranted[5])
>  in believing what a speaker says if they do not have an undefeated
> defeater that indicates that the speaker's testimony is false or
> unlikely to be true. (Some Non-Reductionists (e.g., Goldberg &
> Henderson 2006) maintain that in addition to simply lacking any
> relevant undefeated defeaters, the hearer must also be
> counterfactually sensitive to, or *on the lookout for*, the
> presence of defeaters in their environment).
> 
> 
> 



Non-Reductionism traces at least as far back as Thomas Reid's
(IE [1983, 94-95])--see Wolterstorff (2001) for more on
Reid's view. More recently, various versions of Non-Reductionism
have been defended by Austin (1946 [1979]), Welbourne (1979, 1981,
1986, 1994), Evans (1982), A. Ross (1986), Hardwig (1985, 1991), Coady
(1992, 1994), Burge (1993, 1997, 2013), Plantinga (1993), Stevenson
(1993), Webb (1993), Dummett (1994), Foley (1994), McDowell (1994),
Strawson (1994), Williamson (1996, 2000), Millgram (1997), Alvin
Goldman (1999), Schmitt (1999), Insole (2000), Owens (2000), Rysiew
(2000), Weiner (2003), Graham (2006a), Sosa (2006), McMyler (2011) and
Baker and Clark (2018). See also Audi (1997, 1998, 2004, 2006), who
defends Non-Reductionism about testimonial knowledge but not about
testimonial justification.



One motivation for Non-Reductionism stems from the desire to avoid the
problems associated with the various forms of Reductionism, e.g., if
hearers are not required to have positive reasons for thinking that
the speaker's testimony is reliable on this occasion,
testimonial knowledge will not be too hard to acquire. Another
motivation (i.e., Reid IE [1983, 94-95]) is rooted in the following
idea: Whatever reason we have for thinking that perception is a basic
source of justification, we have an analogous reason for thinking that
testimony is a basic source of justification too. For instance, we can
rely on a speaker's testimony unless we have a good reason not
to because humans are endowed--perhaps by God or just by
nature--with the disposition to (a) tell the truth (b) believe
what they are told and (c) have some sense of when a speaker is not to
be trusted.



However, because Non-Reductionists reject Positive Reasons, opponents
have objected to the view on the grounds that it permits hearers to be
irrationally gullible. For instance, recall the case in which you read
a bit of testimony from an anonymous blogger on an arbitrary website
(i.e., E. Fricker 2002). Or consider this situation: While on your way
home from work you see a group of aliens from another planet drop a
notebook written in what appears to be English. Upon reading the
notebook, you see that the aliens seem to have testified that hungry
tigers have eaten some of their friends (i.e., Lackey 2008:
168-169). While these cases are different in certain respects,
they are related by the fact that while you do not have any defeaters
that indicate that the testimony in question is false or unlikely to
be true, you also do not have any positive reasons for accepting what
the speaker says. Opponents of Non-Reductionism argue that because it
would be irrational for you to accept either of these reports, these
cases show that Non-Reductionism is false and that in order to be
justified in believing what a speaker says, you really do need
positive reasons for thinking that the speaker's testimony is
likely to be true.


### 1.3 Hybrid Views



Finally, some epistemologists reject both Reductionism and
Non-Reductionism in favor of various hybrid views. The primary
motivation for these hybrid views is to capture what seems promising
about the Reductionist and Non-Reductionist approaches while also
avoiding the objections discussed above.



For instance, instead of endorsing Reductionism and requiring that
*all* hearers must possess strong, non-testimonially based
positive reasons for thinking that the speaker in question is
reliable, one might opt for a qualified hybrid view according to which
(a) adults need to possess these positive reasons but (b) youngsters
in the developmental phase do not, i.e., children are justified in
believing a speaker's testimony so long as they do not have any
reasons to not do so. One upshot of this hybrid view is that unlike
standard versions of Reductionism, it is possible for young children
to be justified in believing what their parents tell them. See, e.g.,
E. Fricker (1995).



Or, one might opt for a hybrid view according to which the hearer and
the speaker both have an important role to play in the hearer's
ability to acquire testimonial justification, i.e., *it takes two
to tango*, so to speak. For instance, perhaps a hearer does need
to possess at least some non-testimonially based reasons for thinking
that the speaker in question is a reliable testifier on this occasion.
But insofar as the hearer's inference from "*S* said
that *p*" to "*P*" is not the only thing
that justifies the hearer's belief, these reasons do not need to
be nearly as strong as standard Reductionists have made them out to
be; that is, so long as the hearer's non-testimonially based
reasons render it not irrational to rely on the speaker's
say-so, then this is good enough. And this is because, in addition to
the hearer having these weaker kinds of positive reasons, the speaker
in question needs to actually be a reliable reporter. The hope here is
that by requiring contributions from both the speaker and the hearer,
all of the worries associated with standard versions of Reductionism
and Non-reductionism can be avoided. For instance, by requiring that
the speaker has these weaker kinds of positive reasons, this hybrid
view can explain how young children can acquire testimonial
justification while also avoiding the worries associated with
gullibility. See, e.g., Lackey (2008). And for defenses of other
hybrid views, see E. Fricker (2006b), Faulkner (2000), Lehrer (2006),
and Pritchard (2006).



Whether any of these hybrid views will ultimately succeed is still
very much an open debate. However, opponents have worried that at
least some of these accounts either run into the same objections that
plagued standard versions of Reductionism and Non-Reductionism, or
that they incur entirely new problems of their own, e.g., Insole
(2000), Weiner (2003) and Lackey (2008).


## 2. Knowledge Transmission and Generation



Consider this scenario: Gretchen knows that the bakery is closed. If
Gretchen tells you that this is the case, and if all goes well, then
it is uncontroversial that you can acquire testimonial knowledge that
the bakery is closed too.



Now, contrast that scenario with this one: Gretchen does not know that
the bakery is closed (perhaps because she simply lacks any
justification for believing this). Nevertheless, she testifies to you
that the bakery is closed anyway. If you come to believe that the
bakery is closed on the basis of Gretchen's testimony, and if
the bakery really is closed, then is it possible for your belief to
amount to knowledge?



Depending on how the details are filled in, things are much more
controversial in this second scenario. The controversy centers on the
following question:



> 
> 
> *Second Big Question*: Can testimony generate knowledge, or can
> it merely transmit it?
> 
> 
> 



Otherwise put, can a hearer acquire testimonial knowledge that
*p* from a speaker who does not know that *p*
themselves?



Before moving on, two clarification points are in order. First, while
much of the debate about the Transmission View has centered on whether
testimony can only transmit *knowledge*, there is also some
debate about whether testimony can transmit *justification*.
(See, e.g., Audi [1997] who maintains that while testimony can
generate justification, it can only transmit knowledge. See also
Wright 2016a for a recent discussion of other views according to which
testimony transmits knowledge but generates justification). Second,
debates about knowledge transmission bear on debates about the
Inheritance View
 (Section 3.1.2)
 and on the Individualism vs. Non-Individualism debate
 (Section 4).


### 2.1 The Transmission View



According to the Transmission View, testimonial knowledge can only be
transmitted from a speaker to a hearer. Here is one (but not the only)
way of formulating this view in terms of necessity and
sufficiency:



> 
> 
> **TV-S**: For every speaker, *A*, and hearer,
> *B*, if
> 
> 
> 1. *A* knows that *p*,
> 2. *B* comes to believe that *p* on the basis of
> *A*'s testimony and
> 3. *B* has no undefeated defeaters for believing that *p*,
> then *B* comes to know that *p* too.
> 
> 
> 
> (See Austin 1946 [1979]; Welbourne 1979, 1981, 1986, 1994; Evans 1982;
> E. Fricker 1987; Coady 1992; McDowell 1994; Adler 1996, 2002; Owens
> 2000, 2006; Burge 1993; Williamson 1996, 2000; and Audi 1997).
> 
> 
> 
> **TV-N**: For every speaker, *A*, and hearer,
> *B*, *B* knows that *p* on the basis of
> *A*'s testimony only if *A* knows that *p*
> too.
> 
> 
> 
> (See Welbourne 1979, 1981, 1986, 1994; Hardwig 1985, 1991; A. Ross
> 1986; Burge 1993, 1997; Plantinga 1993; Williamson 1996, 2000; Audi
> 1997, 1998, 2006; Owens 2000, 2006; Reynolds 2002; Adler 2002;
> Faulkner 2006; Schmitt 2006).
> 
> 
> 



One of the main motivations for the Transmission View comes from an
alleged analogy between testimony and memory: Just as I cannot acquire
memorial knowledge that *p* today if I did not know that *p*
at some earlier point in time, I cannot acquire testimonial knowledge
that *p* from you today if you do not know that *p*
yourself. (But see Barnett 2015 for a recent discussion of the
important differences between memory and testimony, and see Lackey
2005b for why memory can generate knowledge.)



Despite the intuitive and theoretical appeal, the Transmission View
has challenged in a variety of ways.


### 2.2 The Generation View



Opponents have raised two importantly different kinds of arguments
against TV-N. First, suppose that there is a creationist teacher,
Stella, who does not believe, and thus fails to know, that *homo
sapiens* evolved from *homo erectus* (= *p*). That is,
while Stella has read the relevant text books on evolutionary theory,
her creationist commitments prevent her from believing that *p*
is true. Now, suppose that during one of her biology lessons Stella
tells her fourth grade students that *p*, and suppose that her
students come to believe that *p* on the basis of Stella's
testimony.



The argument here is that the fourth graders can come to know that
*p* on the basis of Stella's testimony even though Stella
herself does not believe, and thus does not know, that *p* is
true. Thus, TV-N is false, i.e., testimonial knowledge can be
*generated* from a speaker who lacks the knowledge in question.
(This Creationist Teacher case comes from Lackey (2008). Other school
teacher cases have been discussed in Graham (2006a) and Carter and
Nickel (2014). Goldberg (2005) and Pelling (2013) also give cases in
which a speaker's belief is unsafe and does not amount to
knowledge even though the hearer's belief
 does).[6]



While this first case involved a speaker who did not know that
*p* because they did not believe it, the second type of objection
to TV-N involves a speaker who does not know that *p* because
they are not justified in believing it. For instance, consider Persia,
who is a persistent believer in the following sense: Persia goes to
her eye doctor, Eyal, who tells her that the eye drops she was just
given will make her vision unreliable for the next three hours. While
Eyal is a highly reliable testifier, he is wrong on this occasion,
i.e., for some strange reason, the drops did not have this side-effect
on Persia. However, while Persia has no reason to distrust Eyal, she
ignores him on this occasion, walks out of his office, and sees a
Badger in the parking lot. Because Persia is a persistent believer,
she forms the true belief that there is a badger in the parking lot
despite Eyal's (misleading) testimony about the unreliability of
her visual faculties. Later that day Persia runs into her friend,
Fred, and tells him that there was a badger in the parking lot (=
*p*).



The argument here is that Eyal's testimony constitutes an
undefeated defeater that defeats Persia's justification for
believing that *p*. However, since Fred is completely unaware
that Persia has the defeater, and because he has positive reasons for
thinking that his friend is a reliable testifier, he does come to know
that *p* on the basis of Persia's say-so. Thus, TV-N is
false (This Persistent Believer case comes from Lackey [2008]. It is
worth noting that this case purports to show that testimonial
justification can also be generated, i.e., Fred can acquire
testimonial justification for believing *p* via Persia's
testimony even though Persia was not justified in believing *p*
herself).



In addition to targeting TV-N, opponents of the Transmission View have
also targeted TV-S. Consider for instance, Quinn, who is so infatuated
with his friend, Kevin, that he is compulsively trusting, i.e., Quinn
believes anything that Kevin says, regardless of how outrageous
Kevin's claim may be. One day Kevin testifies to Quinn that he
is moving to Brooklyn (= *p*). Kevin is being truthful, and he
has terrific evidence that *p* is true (he is the one who is
moving, after all). Unsurprisingly, Quinn believes what Kevin says.
However, Quinn would also have believed Kevin even if he had massive
amounts of evidence that Kevin was lying, or joking, or whatever.



Opponents argue that while Kevin knows that *p*, Quinn does not,
i.e., because of his compulsively trusting nature, Quinn's
attitude is insensitive to counterevidence in a way that precludes his
belief from being amounting to knowledge. Thus, TV-S is false. (This
Compulsively Trusting case comes from Lackey 2008. See also Graham
2000b).



Much of the recent work on whether testimony generates or transmits
knowledge concerns carefully distinguishing between different versions
of TV-N and TV-S, and arguing that while some versions may face the
problems mentioned here, others do not. See, e.g., Wright (2016a).


## 3. Testimony and Evidence



Consider this scenario: Your friend testifies to you that the taco
truck is open. Because you know that your friend is almost always
right about this kind of thing, and because you have no reason to
doubt what they are telling you on this occasion, you believe what you
are told.



While it is uncontroversial that your belief is justified in this
case, scenarios like this one have generated lots of debate about the
following question:



> 
> 
> *Third Big Question*: When a hearer is justified in believing
> that *p* on the basis of a speaker's testimony, is the
> hearer's belief justified by evidence? And if the hearer's
> belief is justified by evidence, where does this evidence come
> from?
> 
> 
> 


### 3.1 Evidential Views



Some epistemologists maintain that our testimonially based beliefs are
justified by evidence. However, there is disagreement about where
exactly this evidence comes from. On the one hand, some maintain that
this evidence must be supplied by the hearer. On the other hand, some
maintain that this evidence must be supplied by the speaker. Let us
consider these two views in turn.


#### 3.1.1 Reductionist Views



As we saw in
 Section 1,
 Reductionists maintain that because a hearer must have positive
reasons for accepting a speaker's testimony, testimonial
justification can be reduced to a combination of other epistemic
resources that the hearer possesses, i.e., the hearer's
memorial, perceptual, and inferential capacities. For this reason,
Reductionists can maintain that a hearer's testimonial-based
beliefs are justified by evidence, where this evidence comes from the
hearer's inferences, i.e., inferences from the premise that the
speaker said that *p*, to the conclusion that *p* is
true.



However, as we also saw in
 Section 1,
 Reductionists face a number of difficult challenges. For this reason,
those who are sympathetic with an evidential approach to testimonial
justification have offered an alternative account of how our
testimonially based beliefs are justified.


#### 3.1.2 The Inheritance View

 

Instead of thinking about testimonial justification in terms of the
evidence that a hearer possesses, some have offered an alternative
account in which the hearer's belief is justified by evidence
that is supplied by the speaker. More specifically, consider



> 
> 
> *The Inheritance
>  View*:[7]
>  If a hearer acquires testimonial justification for believing that
> *p* on the basis of a speaker's testimony, then the
> hearer's belief that *p* is justified by whatever evidence
> is justifying the speaker's belief that *p*. (See, e.g.,
> Burge 1993,
>  1997;[8]
>  McDowell 1994; Owens 2000, 2006; Schmitt 2006; Faulkner 2011; and
> Wright 2015, 2016b, 2016c,
>  2019[9]).
> 
> 
> 



(It is worth noting that while this debate about evidence and
justification is importantly different from the debate between
Reductionists and Anti-Reductionists, some of the biggest proponents
of the Inheritance View also endorse Anti-Reductionism, e.g., Burge
1993, 1997.)



To begin to get a handle on the Inheritance View, suppose that you are
justified in believing that the taco truck is busy because your friend
just told you so. And suppose that your friend's belief is
justified by some excellent evidence, i.e., they are standing in front
of the truck and can see the long lineup. According to the Inheritance
view, the evidence that justifies your belief comes from, or is based
on, the very same evidence that justifies your friend's belief,
i.e., your belief is based on your friend's perception of a huge
group of people waiting to order tacos.



Or, consider this example from David Owens (2006: 120): Suppose that
you are justified in believing that some math theorem, T, is true
because you just proved it yourself on the basis of some impeccable
*a priori* reasoning. If you testify to me that T is true such
that I come to acquire testimonial justification for believing that
this is the case, then according to the Inheritance View, my belief is
also based on your impeccable *a priori*
 reasoning.[10]



Now, while many epistemologists are sympathetic to the idea that your
testimonial-based beliefs are justified by evidence, they disagree
that the evidence in question is literally inherited from the speaker.
Here are two reasons why.



The first objection starts with the observation that a hearer can
acquire testimonial justification for believing *p* even though
the speaker's evidence does not justify them in believing
*p*. For instance, suppose that after an eye exam your
optometrist tells you that your eyes will be dilated for a few hours
and that your visual faculties will be unreliable during this time.
Suppose also that as you are walking home it appears to you that there
is a small puppy playing fetch in a field (= *p*). Thus, because
you decide to completely and irrationally ignore what your doctor
said, you decide to believe that *p*. Finally, suppose that
unbeknownst to you, your doctor was a bit off and the effects of the
eye medication have worn off such that your eyes are now functioning
in a highly reliable way.



Here it seems like your total evidence does not justify you in
believing *p*. After all, given what your doctor said, you ought
to think that your vision is still unreliable, i.e., your
doctor's testimony provides you with a defeater that makes it
irrational for you to believe that what you are looking at is a small
puppy (as opposed to, say, a really big kitten or an average sized
raccoon).



But, suppose that you decide to call and tell me that *p* anyway.
Insofar as your visual faculties are actually working great, and
insofar as I have no reason to think that your vision is screwed up,
it does seem like I can acquire testimonial justification for
believing that *p* on the basis of your say-so.



And herein lies the problem. For if the Inheritance View is true, then
I could not acquire testimonial justification on the basis of what you
told me. After all, if your total evidence does not justify you in
believing *p*, and if my belief is literally based on the
evidence that you have, then I could not be justified in believing
*p* either. But since I do seem to acquire testimonial
justification for believing that *p* in this case, the
Inheritance View is false. (This objection comes from Lackey's
[2008] Persistent Believer case. Graham (2006b) gives a similar
objection, and Pelling (2013) offers a case in which a hearer seems to
acquire testimonial justification from a speaker who has no good
reason to believe what they say, but does so anyway on the basis of an
irrational hunch.)



To see the second problem with the Inheritance View, notice that a
hearer can receive testimony from multiple speakers who each have
excellent evidence for believing that *p*, but where their
evidence conflicts in an important sense. For instance, suppose that
two detectives are investigating who stole the curry from
Sonya's restaurant. And suppose that the first detective, Dell,
has excellent evidence that justifies him in believing that that Steph
is the only one who committed the crime. Thus, Dell infers that there
is exactly one culprit. Moreover, suppose that the second detective,
Doris, has excellent evidence that justifies her in believing that
Seth is the only one who committed the crime. Thus, Doris also infers
that there is exactly one culprit.



Now, suppose that while Dell does testify to you that there is exactly
one thief, he does not fill you in on the evidence that he has for
thinking this. And suppose while Doris also tells you that there is
exactly one thief, she does not fill you in on the evidence that she
has for thinking this either. Even so, it seems like you are clearly
justified in believing that there is exactly one culprit on the basis
of what these detectives have told you. However--and herein lies
the problem--if the Inheritance View is true, then it is hard to
see how you could be justified in believing this. After all, you have
inherited Dell's evidence for believing that there is exactly
one culprit (i.e., his evidence for thinking that Steph is guilty),
and you have also inherited Doris' evidence for thinking that
there is exactly one culprit (i.e., her evidence for thinking that
Seth is guilty). But taken together, your combined body of evidence
conflicts in the sense that it does not justify you in thinking that
there is exactly one thief. Thus, the Inheritance View is false. See
Leonard
 (2018).[11]


### 3.2 Non-Evidential Views



Instead of further developing these evidential views, some
epistemologists maintain that our testimonial-based beliefs are not
justified by evidence. More specifically, some argue that testimonial
justification should be understood in terms of non-evidential
assurances, while others contend that it should be understood in terms
of the reliability of the processes that produced the belief in
question. Let us consider both of these positions in turn.


#### 3.2.1 The Assurance View



According to proponents of the Assurance View (also called the
Interpersonal View), the problem with all of the theories discussed
above is that they do not appreciate the epistemological significance
of the interpersonal relationship that obtains between a speaker and
their audience in a testimonial exchange. More specifically,
consider



> 
> 
> *The Assurance View*: Because of the interpersonal relationship
> that obtains in a testimonial exchange, if a hearer acquires
> testimonial justification for believing that *p* on the basis of
> a speaker's say-so, then the hearer's belief is justified,
> at least in
>  part,[12]
>  by the speaker's assurance, where this assurance is
> *non-evidential* in nature. (A. Ross 1986; Hinchman 2005, 2014;
> Moran 2005, 2018; Faulkner 2007, 2011; Zagzebski 2012; and McMyler
> 2011).
> 
> 
> 



In order to get a handle on this view, there are two things that need
unpacking here. First, how should we understand the nature of the
interpersonal relationship that is said to obtain in a testimonial
exchange? And second, why is testimonial justification non-evidential
in nature? Let us consider these questions in turn.



First, proponents of the Assurance View maintain that the speech act
of *telling* is key to understanding the relationship that a
speaker has with their audience. This is because when a speaker
*tells* their audience that *p* is true, she is doing much
more than merely uttering *p*. Rather, she is inviting her
audience to trust her that *p* is true; that is, she is assuring,
or guaranteeing her audience that *p* is the case. More
specifically, in order for a hearer to acquire testimonial
justification, the speaker must tell them that *p* is true, where
telling is understood along the following lines:



> 
> 
> Telling: *S* tells *A* that *p* iff
> 
> 
> 1. *A* recognizes that *S*, in asserting that *p*,
> intends:
> 2. that *A* gain access to an epistemic reason to believe that
> *p*,
> 3. that *A* recognize *S*'s (ii)-intention, and
> 4. that *A* gain access to the epistemic reason to believe that
> *p* as a direct result of *A*'s recognition of
> *S*'s (ii)-intention (Hinchman 2005: 567).
> 
> 
> 



The idea is that when your friend testifies to you that the ice cream
shop is open (= *p*), they are not merely uttering something;
rather, they are *telling* you that *p*. And by telling
you that *p*, they are thereby *assuring* you that this
really is the
 case.[13]



Thus, when your friend tells you that *p*, i.e., when conditions
(i)-(iv) are satisfied, they have established an important,
interpersonal relationship with you, and you alone. This is because
you are the only one that has been assured by your friend that
*p* is true.



It is in this sense, then, that proponents of the Assurance View
maintain that there is an important interpersonal relationship that
obtains between a speaker and their audience.



This brings us to the second key question about the Assurance View:
Even if testimony should be understood in terms of the speech act of
telling, why does this mean that testimonial justification cannot be
understood in terms of evidence?



The idea here is that when your friend tells you that *p*, they
are assuring you that *p* is true, and that this assurance is
what is justifying your belief. Moreover--and this is the
key--these assurances are non-evidential in nature.



Here is one way that proponents of the Assurance View have argued for
this claim: a piece of evidence, e, counts in favor of a proposition,
*p*, regardless of what anyone intends (e.g., my fingerprint at
the ice cream shop is evidence that I was there regardless of whether
I wanted to leave the print behind); but a speaker's assurance
that *p* only counts in favor of *p* because they intended
it to, i.e., a speaker cannot unintentionally assure you of anything;
thus, the assurances that justify your testimonial-based beliefs are
non-evidential in
 nature.[14]



It is for this reason, then, that proponents of the Assurance View
maintain that testimonial justification cannot be understood in terms
of evidence.



However, the Assurance View is not without problems of its own. One
objection is that it is unclear how these non-evidential assurances
can actually justify one's belief. For instance, suppose that
once again your friend *tells* you that the ice cream shop is
open (= *p*). But suppose that unbeknownst to both of you, Evelyn
is eavesdropping on the conversation. Thus, while your friend does not
issue Evelyn an assurance (namely because they do not intend for her
to believe what they say and thus fail to satisfy conditions
(i)-(iv) in *Telling*), Evelyn clearly hears what your
friend says. Finally, suppose that you and Evelyn are equally reliable
consumers of testimony, that both of have the same background
information about your friend, and that neither of you have any reason
to doubt what your friend says on this occasion.



The key question here is this: Insofar as you and Evelyn both believe
that *p* because of what your friend said, epistemically
speaking, is there any sense in which your belief is better off than
Evelyn's?



Given the details of the case, it is hard to see what the important
difference could be. Thus--and herein lies the problem--even
though you were issued an assurance and Evelyn was not, the assurance
in question seems epistemically superfluous, i.e., it makes no
difference to the epistemic status of one's belief. Thus,
proponents of the Assurance View must explain how assurances can
justify one's beliefs, given that they seem epistemically inert.
(This case comes from Lackey 2008. Owens 2006 and Schmitt 2010 raise
similar worries).



A second problem is that in order to make the case that testimonial
justification is non-evidential in nature, proponents of the Assurance
View have over-cognized what is involved in a testimonial
exchange.



To see why, notice that *Telling* requires that the speaker and
the hearer both have the cognitive capacity to recognize that other
people have *higher-order mental states*, i.e., both parties
must be cognitively capable of recognizing that people have mental
states about other people's mental states. For instance, in
order for you to satisfy all of the conditions in *Telling*,
you must *believe* (that your friend *intends* [that you
*believe* (that your friend is *intending* [that you
acquire an epistemic reason for belief because you recognizes that you
friend is intending to offer one)]). But decades of literature in
developmental psychology suggest that for neuro-typical children, the
ability to recognize that people have higher order mental states is
not acquired until around five or six years old. Moreover, this
literature also suggests that for people with autism, the ability to
do this is not acquired until much later in life, if it is acquired at
all. Thus, insofar as young children and people with autism can
acquire testimonial justification from their parents, say, then the
Assurance View should be rejected on the grounds that it
problematically excludes these people from acquiring something of
epistemic importance. See Leonard (2016).


#### 3.2.2 Testimonial Reliabilism



Testimonial Reliabilists also deny that our testimonial-based beliefs
are justified by evidence. But instead of claiming that they are
justified by non-evidential assurances, the idea is that:



> 
> 
> *Testimonial
>  Reliabilism*:[15]
>  A hearer's testimonial justification consists in the
> reliability of the processes involved in the production of the
> hearer's testimonially-based belief. (See, e.g., Graham 2000a,
> 2000b,
>  2006a;[16]
>  Goldberg 2010a; and Sosa 2010).
> 
> 
> 



To get a better handle on this view, suppose that your friend tells
you that the concert starts in an hour and that you thereby acquire
testimonial justification for believing that this is the case. In very
broad strokes, Testimonial Reliabilists can explain the nature of your
justification as follows: When it comes to concerts, your friend
testifies truly almost all of the time; moreover, you are great at
differentiating cases in which your friend is speaking honestly and
when she is trying to deceive you; thus, you have testimonial
justification in this case because the processes involved in the
production and consumption of the testimony in question are highly
reliable.



It is worth noting that there are at least two important processes
involved in a testimonial exchange. First, there are the processes
involved in the production of the speaker's testimony, i.e., the
processes that are relevant to the likelihood that the testifier
speaks the truth. Second, there are the processes involved in the
hearer's consumption of the testimony, i.e., the processes
involved in the hearer being able to monitor for signs that what the
speaker says is false or unlikely to be true. For this reason,
Testimonial Reliabilism can be developed in a number of importantly
different ways. For instance, one could opt for a view according to
which a hearer's testimonial justification for believing that
*p* is only a matter of the reliability of the processes involved
in the production of the speaker's say-so. Or, one could opt for
a view according to which testimonial justification only amounts to
the reliability of the processes involved in the hearer's
consumption of the speaker's testimony. Or, one could also opt
for a view according to which all of the relevant processes matter.
See Graham (2000a, 2000b, 2006a), Goldberg (2010a), and Sosa (2010)
for recent defenses of Testimonial Reliabilism, and see
 Section 4
 for additional versions of this view as well.



Testimonial Reliabilism is motivated by the considerations that
support Reliabilist theories of justification more generally, as well
as its ability to avoid the problems that plague the views discussed
above. Nevertheless, opponents have argued that Testimonial
Reliabilism faces at least two problems of its own.



First, insofar as there are at least two processes involved in a
testimonial exchange, Testimonial Reliabilists are faced with the
substantial challenge of specifying which of these processes are
relevant to the hearer's testimonial justification, i.e.,
Testimonial Reliabilists must give an account of which processes are
relevant here, and they must do so in a way that captures every
instance in which a hearer intuitively acquires testimonial
justification from a speaker. (See Wright 2019, who argues that this
is not merely an instance of the generality problem that poses a worry
for Reliabilist views of justification more generally).



Second, consider cases that involve *one* hearer and *two
sources* of information. For instance, suppose that Rebecca, who
is in fact a reliable testifier, tells you that traffic on I405 is
bad. And suppose also that Umar, who is in fact an unreliable
testifier, tells you that traffic on I90 is all clear. Finally,
suppose that you do not have any reason to prefer one source of
information over the other, i.e., for all you know, Rebecca and Umar
are equally reliable testifiers.



Now, consider the versions of Testimonial Reliabilism according to
which the processes that are relevant to acquisition of testimonial
justification are those that are involved in the speaker's
production of the testimony in question, as well as the hearer's
ability to discern when the speaker is being sincere. It seems that
these Testimonial Reliabilists are committed to giving an
*asymmetric* verdict in this case; that is, because the
processes involved in the production of your belief based on
Rebecca's testimony are reliable, and because the processes
involved in the production of your belief based on Umar's
testimony are not, this version of Testimonial Reliabilism is
committed to the claim that while you do have testimonial
justification for believing that the traffic on 1405 is bad, you do
not have testimonial justification for believing that I90 is all
clear.



However, opponents have argued that this verdict is highly
counterintuitive. After all, how could you possibly be justified in
believing Rebecca's testimony but not Umar's, given that
you have no reason to think that the former is in any way better than
the latter? Thus, this version of Testimonial Reliabilism should be
rejected. See Barnett (2015).


### 3.3 Hybrid Views



We have seen that the evidential and non-evidential views discussed
above offer very different takes on how our testimonial-based beliefs
are justified. We have also seen that while these views have their
advantages, they face some serious problems as well. Consequently,
some epistemologists have argued that testimonial justification cannot
be explained in a unified way. Instead, the strategy has been to offer
hybrid views that combine various components of the accounts discussed
above.



For instance, some have tried to combine Reductionist and Reliabilist
insights such that testimonial justification consists partly in the
hearer's evidence for accepting the speaker's testimony,
and partly in terms of the speaker's and hearer's
reliability at producing and consuming testimony respectively, e.g.,
Lackey (2008). Others have tried to combine insights from
Reductionism, Reliabilism and the Inheritance View such that a
hearer's belief can be justified by their own evidence for
accepting what the speaker says, or by the reliability of the
speaker's testimony, or by inheriting the evidence that is
possessed by the speaker, e.g., Wright (2019). (For other hybrid
views, see Gerken 2013 and Faulkner 2000).



Much of the recent work on testimonial justification concerns whether
these hybrid views ultimately succeed, or whether they run into
problems of their own.


## 4. Individualism and Anti-Individualism



Consider



> 
> 
> *Fourth Big Question*: Should testimonial justification be
> understood individualistically, or anti- individualistically?
> 
> 
> 



Some epistemologists endorse



> 
> 
> *Individualism*: A complete account of testimonial
> justification can be given by appealing to features that only have to
> do with the hearer.
> 
> 
> 



Other epistemologists endorse



> 
> 
> *Anti-Individualism*: A complete account of testimonial
> justification cannot be given by only appealing to features that have
> to do with the hearer.
> 
> 
> 



For instance, according to some Anti-Individualists, acquiring
testimonial justification involves features having to do with both the
hearer and the speaker. And according to other Anti-Individualists,
acquiring testimonial justification involves features having to do
with both the hearer and the other speakers in the hearer's
local environment. For various defenses of Anti-Individualism, see,
e.g., Graham (2000b), Lackey (2008), Goldberg (2010a), Kallestrup and
Pritchard (2012), Gerken (2013), Pritchard (2015), and Palermos
(forthcoming).



(Note: In formulating these two views, I am being deliberately
open-ended about how the "features" in question should be
understood. As we will see below, this is because the debate between
Individualists and Anti-Individualists cuts across the other debates
about testimonial justification that we have explored above.
Consequently, different members of each camp will want to give
importantly different takes on what these features amount to.)


### 4.1 Individualism



Suppose that Amanda tells Scott that the roller rink is open (=
*p*) and that Scott thereby acquires testimonial justification
for believing that *p*.



To get a grip on one version of Individualism, recall the Reductionist
views discussed in
 Section 1.1.
 According to Reductionists, testimonial justification consists in an
inference that the hearer makes, i.e., the hearer's inference
from the claim that (a) the speaker said that *p* to the
conclusion that (b) *p* is true. Thus, Reductionists are
Individualists in the following sense: they maintain that whether or
not a hearer acquires testimonial justification for believing *p*
depends entirely on features having to do with the hearer, where these
features include, e.g., the hearer's perception of the speaker
uttering *p*, the hearer remembering that testimony is generally
reliable, and the hearer inferring on these grounds that what the
speaker said on this occasion is likely to be true.



To see a second version of Individualism, recall the our discussion of
Testimonial Reliabilism in
 Section 3.2.2.
 According to some (but certainly not all) Testimonial Reliabilists,
testimonial justification should be understood Individualistically
because it consists only in the reliability of the cognitive processes
that are internal to the hearer, i.e., the cognitive processes that
take place exclusively in the mind of the hearer herself. See Alvin
Goldman (1979, 1986) and Alston (1994, 1995).



While we have seen a variety of problems for both of these views
above, it is worth considering one challenge to this individualistic
version of Testimonial Reliabilism in particular. Doing so will not
only help shed light on why some Testimonial Reliabilists opt for an
anti-individualistic view, it will also help illustrate how the debate
about Individualism and Anti-Individualism cuts across the other
debates we have considered above.



To begin, consider these two cases from Goldberg (2010a):



> 
> 
> **Good**: Wilma has known Fred for a long time; she knows
> that he is a highly reliable speaker. So when Fred tells her that
> Barney has been at the stonecutters' conference all day, Wilma
> believes him. (Fred appeared to her as sincere and competent as he
> normally does, and she found nothing remiss with the testimony.) In
> point of fact, Fred spoke from knowledge.
> 
> 
> 
> **Bad**: Wilma has known Fred for a long time; she knows
> that he is a highly reliable speaker. So when Fred tells her that
> Barney has been at the stonecutters' conference all day, Wilma
> believes him. (Fred appeared to her as sincere and competent as he
> normally does, and she found nothing remiss with the testimony.)
> However, in this case, Fred did not speak from knowledge. Instead, he
> was just making up a story about Barney, having had ulterior motives
> in getting Wilma to believe this story. (Fred has never done this
> before; it is out of his normally reliable character to do such a
> thing.) Even so, Fred's speech contribution struck Wilma here,
> as in the good scenario, as sincere and competent; and she was not
> epistemically remiss in reaching this verdict... As luck would
> have it, though, Barney was in fact at the conference all day (though
> Fred, of course, did not know this).
> 
> 
> 



Contrasting these two cases motivates the following line of thought:
It seems like Wilma knows that Barney was at the stonecutters'
conference (= *p*) in **Good** but not in
**Bad**. It also seems like the cognitive processes that
are internal to Wilma are the same across both cases. Thus, insofar as
justification is what turns an unGettiered, true belief into
knowledge, and insofar as Wilma's unGettiered, true belief that
*p* amounts to knowledge in **Good** but not in
**Bad**, the cognitive processes involved in the
acquisition of testimonial justification cannot just be the ones that
are internal to Wilma. Thus, Testimonial Reliabilists should not
endorse Individualism. See Goldberg (2010a) for this argument.


### 4.2 Anti-Individualism



Contrasting the **Good** and **Bad** cases
has motivated some Testimonial Reliabilists to endorse one version of
Anti-Individualism. The core idea here is that insofar as testimonial
justification should be understood in terms of the cognitive processes
implicated in the production of the hearer's belief that
*p*, the relevant processes must include both (a) the processes
involved in the production of the speaker's testimony and (b)
the processes involved in the hearer's consumption of what the
speaker said. For instance, the cognitive processes internal to Wilma
were the highly reliable in both **Good** and
**Bad**, e.g., in both cases she was equally good at
monitoring for signs that Barney was being insincere. However, the
processes internal to Barney that were implicated in his utterance
that *p* were reliable in **Good** (i.e., Barney
spoke from knowledge) but unreliable in **Bad** (i.e.,
Barney uttered that *p* in an attempt to be deceptive). Thus, by
giving an account of testimonial justification that requires both the
speaker and hearer to be reliable producers and consumers of testimony
respectively, Testimonial Reliabilists who endorse this
Anti-Individualistic approach can explain why Wilma's belief
seems better off in **Good** than it is in
**Bad**. (Goldberg [2010a] defends Anti-Individualism on
these grounds, and Graham (2000b) and Lackey (2008) also defend
Anti-Individualistic views by requiring that in order for a hearer to
acquire testimonial justification, not only does the hearer need to be
a reliable consumer of testimony, the speaker needs to be a reliable
testifier as well. Finally, Kallestrup and Pritchard (2012), Gerken
(2013), Pritchard (2015), and Palermos (forthcoming) have recently
defended versions of Anti-Individualism according to which the
testifiers in the hearer's local environment need to be reliable
in order for the hearer to acquire testimonial knowledge from the
particular speaker in question).



To see a second and importantly different version of
Anti-Individualism, recall the Inheritance View from
 Section 3.1.2.
 On this view, when a hearer acquires testimonial justification for
believing *p*, this is because they literally inherit the
justification that the speaker has for believing *p*. Thus,
proponents of the Inheritance View are Anti-Individualists in the
following sense: they maintain that whether or not a hearer acquires
testimonial justification for believing *p* crucially depends on
features having to do with the speaker, i.e., whether the speaker has
any justification for the hearer to inherit.



Whether or not either of these Anti-Individualistic approaches will
ultimately succeed is a topic of current debate.



Before moving on, it is worth noting that while we have been focusing
on testimonial *justification*, similar debates between
Individualists and Anti-Individualists can be had about testimonial
*knowledge*. While many epistemologists endorse Individualism
(Anti-Individualism) about both justification and knowledge, one need
not do so. For instance, Audi (1997) endorses Reductionism about
justification and the Transmission View about knowledge. On this
picture, then, Individualism is true with respect to justification
because whether or not a hearer acquires testimonial justification
depends solely on the inferences that they make. However,
Anti-Individualism is true with respect to knowledge because in order
for a hearer to acquire testimonial knowledge that *p*, the
speaker must also know that *p*. Keeping these distinctions in
mind further illustrates how the debate between Individualists and
Anti-Individualists cuts across so many of the other debates we have
seen above.


## 5. Authoritative Testimony



Here is a conversation that we might have:



> 
> * You: This plant is Pacific Poison Oak. Don't touch it!
> * Me: How do you know that?
> * You: Suneet told me. He lives in this area a knows a little bit
> about plants.
> 
> 
> 



And here is another:



> 
> * You: This plant is Pacific Poison Oak. Don't touch it!
> * Me: How do you know that?
> * You: Margae told me. She has a PhD in plant biology and studies
> this plant in particular.
> 
> 
> 



In both cases you have acquired testimonial knowledge. But in the
second case it seems like your belief is better off, epistemically
speaking. This is because in the first case your belief is based on
the testimony of a layman who is somewhat knowledgeable about the
topic at hand, whereas in the second case your belief is based on the
testimony of an *epistemic authority* (or, someone who is both
your epistemic superior and an expert about the domain in question).
(See Zagzebski 2012; Jager 2016; Croce 2018; and Constantin &
Grundmann 2020 for more on how the notion of an epistemic authority
should be understood.)



But how exactly should the difference between epistemic authorities
and everyone else be accounted for?



Broadly speaking, those working on the epistemology of authoritative
testimony endorse one of two accounts: *Preemptive Accounts*
and *Non-Preemptive Accounts*. Those who endorse a Preemptive
Account of authoritative testimony accept



> 
> 
> *Preemption*: The fact that an authority... [testifies]
> that *p* is a reason for me to believe that *p* which
> replaces my other reasons relevant to *p* and is not simply added
> to them. (Zagzebski 2012: 107)
> 
> 
> 



The key idea here is that when you get testimony from an authority
that *p*, the authority's testimony is now the only reason
that you have for believing *p*, i.e., any other reasons you may
have had are now preempted in the sense that they no longer count for
or against *p*. Proponents of the Preemptive Account, then,
explain the difference between authoritative and non-authoritative
testimony as follows: Authoritative testimony can provide you with a
preemptive reason for belief, whereas non-authoritative testimony
cannot. For defenses of various versions of the Preemptive Account,
see Zagzebski (2012, 2014, 2016), Keren (2007, 2014a, 2014b), Croce
(2018) and Constantin and Grundmann (2020). See Anderson (2014),
Dougherty (2014), Jager (2016), Dormandy (2018), and Lackey
(2018a) for some worries with this view.



Those who endorse a Non-Preemptive Account of authoritative testimony
argue that Preemption has wildly unintuitive consequences, e.g., if
Preemption is true, then you can be justified in believing your pastor
(who is otherwise reliable) when he tells you that women are
inherently inferior to men (see, e.g., Lackey 2018a). Instead of
thinking about authoritative testimony as providing preemptive reasons
for belief, proponents of the Non-Preemptive Account take an
authority's testimony that *p* to provide a very strong
reason to believe that *p*, where this reason is to be added to,
or combined with, all of the other reasons that you have related to
the proposition in question. See Dormandy (2018) and Lackey (2018a)
for defenses of Non-Preemptive Accounts.



For related debates about testimony and expertise, see Hardwig's
(1985) seminal paper on expert testimony in general, Alvin
Goldman's (2001) paper on determining which experts to trust
when there is disagreement amongst them, and Goldberg's (2009)
paper that links issues in epistemology and philosophy of language by
discussing how expert testimony bears on the semantics of technical
terms. See also Kitcher (1993), Walton (1997), Brewer (1998) and
Golanski (2001) for a discussion of expert testimony in the scientific
setting, and for discussion of expert testimony in a legal setting,
see Wells and Olson (2003).


## 6. Group Testimony



While much attention has been paid to issues surrounding
*individual testimony*, i.e., cases in which one speaker tells
someone that *p* is true, recently epistemologists have started
exploring a number of related questions regarding *group
testimony,* i.e., cases in which a group testifies to someone that
*p* is true. Here is one case that motivates this line of
research.



> 
> 
> **Population Commission**: Consider the UN Population
> Commission that was established by the Economic and Social Council of
> the United Nations in 1946. The Commission was designed to assist the
> council by arranging studies and advising the council on population
> issues, trends, developments, policies, and so on. It is also charged
> with monitoring the implementation of policies designed by the United
> Nations to regulate population and to provide recommendations to the
> council and United Nations as a whole. The commission is composed of
> 47 members with a representative from almost every country in the
> United Nations. In 2002, the Commission released a report entitled
> Charting the Progress of Populations that provides information on 12
> socio-economic indicators, including total population, maternal
> mortality, infant mortality, and so on. (Tollefsen 2007:
> 300-301)
> 
> 
> 



There are three things to notice here. First, consider a particular
claim in the Charting the Progress of Populations report. For
instance, let *p* be the claim that



> 
> 
> While the population in North America has risen, the population in
> Central America has stayed the same, and the population in South
> America has declined.
> 
> 
> 



At the time the report was released, no single member of the UN
Population committee believed *p*. That is, none of the committee
members were aware that *p* was true until the report was
released and they read it for themselves.



Second, and relatedly, before the report was released, none of the
committee members had any evidence, or justification, for believing
*p*. That is, while some members might have justifiably believed
that the population in North America was on the rise, and while others
might have justifiably believed that the population in South America
was on the decline, and while others still might have justifiably
believed that the population in Central America had stayed the same,
given the way in which the labor was divided amongst the researchers,
i.e., given that none of them had communicated their findings with one
another, nobody had justification for thinking that *p* itself
was true until after the report came out.



Third, and finally, the UN Commission did seem to testify that
*p*, i.e., their report did contain the group's testimony
about the population changes in the Americas.



(Of course, this is not the only case that motivates the need for an
epistemology of group testimony. *Wikipedia*, for instance,
presents a number of interesting questions about what it would take
for a group to testify, and when and why we should accept what a group
says. See, e.g., Tollefsen 2009; Wray 2009; and Fallis 2008. Cases
involving testimony from scientific groups also raise similar issues.
See, e.g., Hardwig 1985 and Faulkner 2018).



Cases like this give rise to at least five important questions. First,
consider



> 
> 
> *How should we understand the relationship between a group's
> testimony that *p* and the testimony of the group's
> individual members?*
> 
> 
> 



On the one hand, *Summativists* maintain that a group's
testimony that *p* should be understood in terms of the testimony
of some (or most, or all) of its members. On the other hand,
*Non-Summativists* maintain that it is possible for a group to
testify that *p* even if none of its members do. (See Tollefsen
(2007) and Lackey (2014) for a defense of different Non-Summative
positions).



Relatedly, *Deflationists* maintain to a group's
testimony that *p* can be reduced to some individual's
testimony that *p* (regardless of whether those individuals are
members of the group, or just mere spokesmen), whereas
*Inflationists* maintain that a group itself can be a
testifier. (See Tollefsen (2007) for a defense of the latter, and see
Lackey's (2014) for a deflationary account of the epistemology
of group testimony and her (2018a) for an inflationary account of the
nature of group assertion).



Second, consider



> 
> 
> *Under what conditions is a hearer justified in believing a
> group's testimony that *p*?*
> 
> 
> 



The debate surrounding this question is analogous to the
Reductionist/Anti-reductionist debate about individual testimony in
 Section 1.
 See Tollefsen (2007) for a defense of a reductionist view.



Third, consider



> 
> 
> *If you are justified in believing that *p* on the basis of a
> group's testimony, is your belief justified by
> evidence?*
> 
> 
> 



The debate surrounding this question is analogous to the debates about
individual testimony discussed in
 Section 3.
 For instance, suppose that you are justified in believing that
*p* on the basis of a group's testimony that *p*.
Miranda Fricker (2012) defends an Assurance View according to which
your belief is justified by the group's assurance that *p*
(but see Faulkner (2018) for a criticism of this view). Lackey (2014)
defends a reliabilist account according to which your belief is
justified by the reliability (or truth conduciveness) of the
group's statement that *p* (but see Faulkner (2018) for a
criticism of this view too). Finally, Faulkner (2018) defends a
qualified Inheritance View according to which your belief that
*p* can be justified by the justification that the group has (or
at least *has access to*).



Fourth, consider,



> 
> 
> *Can group testimony generate knowledge, or can it merely transmit
> it?*
> 
> 
> 



The debate surrounding this question is analogous to the debates about
individual testimony in
 Section 2.
 On the one hand, Faulkner (2018) defends a qualified Transmission
View according to which you can only acquire testimonial knowledge and
justification from a group's testimony that *p* if that
group has, *or at least has access to*, a body of justification
that supports *p*. On the other hand, Lackey (2014) defends a
view that is compatible with a group's testimony generating
knowledge and justification.



Fifth, and finally, consider,



> 
> 
> *What, if anything, does a group's testimony that *p*
> entail about that group's knowledge (and thus belief) that
> *p*?*
> 
> 
> 



More specifically, suppose that a group testifies that *p* and
that you come to know that *p* on this basis. Does the fact that
you acquired testimonial knowledge in this case entail that groups
themselves can be knowers (and thus believers)?



On the one hand, John Hardwig (1985) argues for a positive answer
here. That is, Hardwig argues that if we acknowledge that groups can
testify, we should also acknowledge that groups themselves can be
knowers, and thus believers too (see also Lackey (2016) for an
argument to the effect that groups can possess justified beliefs). On
the other hand, Faulkner (2018) argues against this line of thought
and suggests that even if groups can testify, this does not entail
that they possess any mental states.



Of course, there is much more work that can, and should, be done about
the epistemological significance of receiving testimony from
groups.


## 7. The Nature of Testimony Itself



Until now we have been operating with an intuitive but inexact notion
of what counts as testimony, i.e., for the most part, we have just
been looking at cases in which speakers say stuff. But how exactly
should the speech act of testimony be understood? That is, how should
testimony be individuated from the other things that one can do with
their words?



One answer is that testimony should simply be identified with
assertion, i.e., one testifies that *p* if, and only if, one
asserts that *p*. (E. Fricker 1987 and Sosa (1994) offer passing
remarks in defense of this position). But while it is widely accepted
that one must assert that *p* in order to testify that *p*,
there is much debate about whether asserting that *p* is
sufficient for testifying that *p*. (See Goldberg 2010b, though,
who argues that asserting that *p* is not even necessary for
testifying that *p*, and see the entry on Assertion for more
about how this speech act should be understood).



For instance, in addition to asserting that *p*, one influential
account maintains that in order to testify that *p*, the
following conditions must also be met:



> 
> 
> Testimony: *S* testifies by making some statement that *p*
> if and only if:
> 
> 
> 
> (T1)
> *S*'s stating that *p* is evidence that *p*
> and is offered as evidence that *p*.
> (T2)
> *S* has the relevant competence, authority, or credentials to
> state truly that *p*.
> (T3)
> *S*'s statement that *p* is relevant to some
> disputed or unresolved question (which may or may not be whether
> *p*) and is directed to those who are in need of evidence on the
> matter. (Coady 1992: 42).
> 
> 



However, opponents have objected to each of T1-T3. Here is just
one example. Some have rejected T1 on the grounds that one can testify
that *p* even though the testimony itself does not provide the
hearer with any evidence that *p* is true, e.g., if I tell you
that humans spontaneously combust all the time, and insofar as you
know that I am wildly unreliable about this issue, it seems like I
have testified to you even though my testimony provides no evidence
whatsoever for the proposition in question. (See E. Fricker (1995) and
Lackey (2008). See Lackey (2008: Ch. 1) for a discussion of other
problems with this view).



In light of worries like these, many authors have offered alternative
takes on how testimony should be characterized. For instance, E.
Fricker (1995: 396-7) argues that testimony should just be
understood in a very general sense, with "no restrictions either
on the subject matter, or on the speaker's epistemic relation to
it." (See also Audi (1997) and Sosa (1991) for views in this
ballpark). And, as we saw in
 Section 3.2.1,
 proponents of the Assurance View understand testimony in terms of
*Telling*.



Graham (1997: 227) offers a different account of testimony based on
conveying information, i.e., a speaker, *S*, testifies that
*p* if, and only if, (i) *S*'s stating that *p*
is offered as evidence that *p* (ii) *S* intends that his
audience believe that he has the relevant competence, authority, or
credentials to state truly that *p* and (iii) *S*'s
statement that *p* is believed by *S* to be relevant to some
question that he believes is disputed or unresolved (which may or may
not be whether *p*) and is directed at those whom he believes to
be in need of evidence on the matter. (J. Ross 1975 and Elgin (2002)
also offer accounts that crucially hinge on the speaker's
statement purporting to convey information).



And Lackey (2008: 30-32) offers a disjunctive account of
testimony according to which we need to distinguish between
*speaker testimony* and *hearer testimony* as
follows.



> 
> 
> *Speaker Testimony*: *S* s-testifies that *p* by
> performing an act of communication *a* if and only if, in
> performing *a*, *S* reasonably intends to convey the
> information that *p* (in part) in virtue of *a*'s
> communicable content.
> 
> 
> 
> *Hearer Testimony*: *S* h-testifies that *p* by
> making an act of communication *a* if and only if *H*,
> *S*'s hearer, reasonably takes *a* as conveying the
> information that *p* (in part) in virtue of *a*'s
> communicable content.
> 
> 
> 



One upshot of this disjunctive account is that it captures the sense
in which testimony is often an intentional act performed by the
speaker, as well as the sense in which testimony is a source of
knowledge and justified belief regardless of what the speaker intended
to say.



Regardless of how testimony itself should be understood, all of these
authors agree that it is possible to learn from the testimony of
others. As we have seen, though, explaining how it is that we can
learn from what other people tell us has proven to be a difficult
task.