On The Problem Of Testimonial Justification In Contemporary Epistemology

The problem of testimonial justification is one of the core issue of the epistemology of testimony,which has led to the division of two major camps:reductionism and anti-reductionism.In general,reductionism advocates that testimony needs positive reasons to be justified,while anti-reductionism believes that we have the right to believe testimony as long as there is no defeater.Specifically,reductionism and anti-reductionism each has various forms.In the history of philosophy,Hume and Reid are respectively the representative of reductionism and anti-reductionism.In Hume’s philosophy,the positive reason for reductionism is presented as foundationalism-style reduction,that is,testimony needs to be reduced to more basic factors such as perception,memory,and inference to be justified.Reid,a contemporary of Hume,believes that the reason why we believe testimony lies in human nature,which gives us the right to believe testimony.The main position in the contemporary epistemology of testimony is to criticize Hume and return to Reid.Berger,a contemporary anti-reductionist,inherits Reid’s basic idea and argues that there is an intrinsic connection between intelligibility,rationality and truth because it is the intelligibility of testimony that gives people the right to believe testimony.Therefore,as long as there is no stronger reason to reject testimony,people have the right to accept testimony that appears to be true and intelligible.Fricker,a contemporary reductionist,criticizes anti-reductionism on the ground that it may lead to epistemic gullibility.Fricker redefines the problem of testimonial justification limiting it to the specific testimonial justification problem in a particular occasion.Fricker also weakens the position of reductionism,changing the "reduction" task of the epistemic subject from foundationalism-style reduction to coherentism-style monitoring and evaluation.In response,Goldberg and Henderson refute Fricker’s criticism by pointing out that"anti-reductionism can allow for a counterfactual sensitivity monitoring," thus defending anti-reductionism.Fricker also responds to Goldberg and Henderson’s rebuttal one by one.Based on the debate between Fricker and G&H,this thesis argues that under the condition of achieving coherence between the level of language and the level of belief without direct opposing defeaters or indirect defeaters that cause questioning(referred to as the "coherence-no-defeater" style of justification in this thesis),accepting a testimony can be considered as obtaining justification.Specifically,although justification and truth are closely related,they are not the same condition.The belief obtained through this coherence-no-defeater style of justification can obtain a positive cognitive state or evaluation,and based on this positive cognitive state or evaluation,a testimony can be considered as justified.