Testimony

The epistemology of testimony has experienced a growth in interest over the last twenty-five years that has been matched by few, if any, other areas of philosophy. Testimony: A Philosophical Introduction provides an epistemology of testimony that surveys this rapidly growing research area while incorporating a discussion of relevant empirical work from social and developmental psychology, as well as from the interdisciplinary study of knowledge-creation in groups. The past decade has seen a number of scholarly monographs on the epistemology of testimony, but there is a dearth of books that survey the current field. This book fills that gap, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of all major competing theories. All chapters conclude with Suggestions for Further Reading and Discussion Questions.

Joseph Shieber is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Lafayette College. He previously taught philosophy at Brown University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Connecticut College. His research is primarily in the areas of epistemology, philosophy of language, and history of philosophy.

1. Introduction. 2. Evidence From Social Psychology. 3. Non-Presumptivism. 4. Presumptivism. 5. Assurance Theory. 6. Anti-Individualism