Our knowledge of the world comes from various sources. But it is sometimes said that testimony, unlike other sources, transmits knowledge from one person to another.
In this book, Stephen Wright investigates what the transmission of knowledge involves and the role that it should play in our theorising about testimony as a source of knowledge. He argues that the transmission of knowledge should be understood in terms of the more fundamental concept of the transmission of epistemic grounds, and that the claim that testimony transmits knowledge is not only defensible in its own right, but indispensable to an adequate theory of testimony. This makes testimony unlike other epistemic sources.
Preface 1. What is Transmission? 2. Availability 3. Acquisition 4. Internalist Approaches 5. Reliabilist Approaches 6. A Transmission Theory of Testimony 7. Objections to Transmission. Index
Biography
Stephen Wright is Lecturer in Philosophy at University College, Oxford, UK. With Sanford Goldberg, he is editor of Memory and Testimony: New Philosophical Essays (forthcoming).
"The book is bound to reshape the debate about the transmission of knowledge through testimony. It deserves the attention of anyone interested in the epistemology of testimony, and, indeed, as is suggested by the above discussion, of anyone interested in epistemology more generally." - Arnon Keren, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
"This is an excellent, and thought-provoking, book on the epistemology of testimony, one that deserves to be read by all who work in this field." - Duncan Pritchard, University of California, Irvine, USA; University of Edinburgh, UK
"Stephen Wright's book offers a thorough defence of the view that testimony functions to transmit knowledge and justification. In doing so it casts new light on familiar debates, and should be regarded as essential reading for anyone working in the epistemology of testimony." - Paul Faulkner, University of Sheffield, UK
"Wright's excellent book presents a detailed defense of the idea that testimony transmits epistemic grounds from speaker to audience, and uses this idea to assess various other familiar accounts of testimony. It addresses all of the major issues in the epistemology of testimony and will be required reading for anyone interested in the topic." - Sanford Goldberg, Northwestern University, USA
