Testimony and the Infant/Child Objection

Lackey, Jennifer

doi:10.1007/s11098-004-7798-x

Cited by 21 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…3 I take up these questions in Lackey 1999, 2003, 2005, forthcoming A, forthcoming B. 4 Coady 1992, p. 42.…”

Section: Where An Act Of Communication a Expresses The Proposition Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Nature of Testimony

Lackey

2006

Pacific Philos Q

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I discuss several views of the nature of testimony and show how each proposal has importantly different problems. I then offer a diagnosis of the widespread disagreement regarding this topic; specifically, I argue that our concept of testimony has two different aspects to it. Inadequate views of testimony, I claim, result either from collapsing these two aspects into a single account or from a failure to recognize one of them. Finally, I develop an alternative view of testimony that captures both aspects of the nature of testimony and thereby provides the basis for an illuminating theory of testimony's epistemological significance. PACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

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“…3 I take up these questions in Lackey 1999, 2003, 2005, forthcoming A, forthcoming B. 4 Coady 1992, p. 42.…”

Section: Where An Act Of Communication a Expresses The Proposition Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Nature of Testimony

Lackey

2006

Pacific Philos Q

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“…6 Perhaps the most formidable form of this objection is what has been called the "infant/child objection" (Lackey 2005). 6 Perhaps the most formidable form of this objection is what has been called the "infant/child objection" (Lackey 2005).…”

Section: How Testimony Provides Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

The Nature of Scientific Knowledge

McCain

2016

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“…On the other side, reductionists struggle to accept this idea because justified beliefs are dependent on sufficiently good reasons for accepting a report, and children seem to lack the inductive capacities to critically evaluate the communicated information (Lackey 2005). The general picture that emerges from the experimental literature tends to blur the sharpness of this opposition.…”

Section: The 3-year-olds' Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This belief in intuition is shared by Elisabeth Fricker (1995), who believes that each of us has been through a process of development that begins with an attitude of simple trust. Reductionists tend to agree that children earn a special epistemological treatment because even if they do not have yet reasons for accepting or rejecting what is said to them, they could nevertheless acquire knowledge through testimony (Lackey 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

To Trust or not to Trust? Children’s Social Epistemology

Clément

2010

Rev.Phil.Psych.

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Philosophers agree that an important part of our knowledge is acquired via testimony. One of the main objectives of social epistemology is therefore to specify the conditions under which a hearer is justified in accepting a proposition stated by a source. Non-reductionists, who think that testimony could be considered as an a priori source of knowledge, as well as reductionists, who think that another type of justification has to be added to testimony, share a common conception about children development. Nonreductionists believe that infants and children are fundamentally gullible and their gullibility could be seen as an example for justifying testimony, while reductionists believe that this gullibility is merely an exception that should be taken into account. The objective of this paper is to review contemporary literature in developmental psychology providing empirical grounds likely to clarify this philosophical debate. What emerges from current research is a more elaborated vision of children's attitude toward testimony. Even at a very young age, children do not blindly swallow information coming from testimony; doubtful or contradictory information is automatically screened by their cognitive system. Even if they are unable to give positive reasons for the acceptance of a given testimony, young children are not gullible. Such empirical findings tend to call into question the radical opposition between reductionism and non-reductionism.

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Testimony and the Infant/Child Objection

Cited by 21 publications

References 44 publications

The Nature of Testimony

The Nature of Testimony

The Nature of Scientific Knowledge

To Trust or not to Trust? Children’s Social Epistemology

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