NONINFERENTIALISM AND TESTIMONIAL BELIEF FIXATION

An influential view in the epistemology of testimony is that typical or paradigmatic beliefs formed through testimonial uptake are noninferential. Some epistemologists in particular defend a causal version of this view: that beliefs formed from testimony (BFT) are generated by noninferential process...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Episteme 2013-03, Vol.10 (1), p.73-85
Main Author: Kenyon, Tim
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Beliefs
Cognition & reasoning
Epistemology
Inference
Knowledge
Philosophy
Testimony
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:An influential view in the epistemology of testimony is that typical or paradigmatic beliefs formed through testimonial uptake are noninferential. Some epistemologists in particular defend a causal version of this view: that beliefs formed from testimony (BFT) are generated by noninferential processes. This view is implausible, however. It tends to be elaborated in terms that do not really bear it out – e.g. that BFT is fixed directly, immediately, unconsciously or automatically. Nor is causal noninferentialism regarding BFT plausibly expressed in terms of belief-independent belief formation; the complex cognitive details of BFT fixation do not accord well with such a view. But perhaps the most significant issue is that the relevant causal notion of inference itself is not particularly well-defined, at least with respect to BFT. Causal noninferentialism in this domain is obscure as a result, but this does not in turn clearly vindicate any interesting version of inferentialism.
ISSN:1742-3600
1750-0117
DOI:10.1017/epi.2013.3