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Take my word for it: a new approach to the problem of sincerity in the epistemology of testimony

The epistemological problem of sincerity in testimony is often approached in the following way: We, as a matter of fact, accept utterances as sincere. We do so in the face of knowledge that people lie and deceive,and yet we still count these beliefs as good beliefs. Therefore there must be some reason or argument that we can cite in order to justify our acceptance of the sincerity of the speaker. In this thesis I will argue, contra this, that there is no reason, per se, that justifies our of a speakers sincerity: this is because recognition of the obligation to accept the sincerity is a necessary condition on the possibility of communication and interpretation. In the first three of the thesis I will argue against three of the main approaches to the problem by focusing on what I believe to be the strongest accounts of each: Elizabeth Fricker's reductionism, Tyler Burge's non-reductionism, and Paul Faulkner's trust account of testimony. In the final chapter I will put forward my positive account. I will argue that it is a constitutive rule of language that a speaker be sincere, and then make the further claim, that it is a constitutive rule of interpretation that the hearer take an utterance as sincere. On my account, successful communication does not just depend on a speaker making sincere utterances,but just as importantly,, on the hearer recognising an obligation to take those utterances as being sincere.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:rhodes/vital:2707
Date January 2010
CreatorsDewhurst, Therese
PublisherRhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, Philosophy
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis, Masters, MA
Formativ, 72 leaves, pdf
RightsDewhurst, Therese

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