Abstract

Testimony spreads information. It is also commonly agreed that it can transfer knowledge. Whether it can work as an epistemic source of understanding is a matter of dispute. However, testimony certainly plays a pivotal role in the proliferation of understanding in the epistemic community. But how exactly do we learn, and how do we make advancements in understanding on the basis of one another’s words? And what can we do to maximize the probability that the process of acquiring understanding from one another succeeds? These are very important questions in our current epistemological landscape, especially in light of the attention that has been paid to understanding as an epistemic achievement of purely epistemic value. Somewhat surprisingly, the recent literature in social epistemology does not offer much on the topic. The overarching aim of this paper is to provide a tentative model of understanding that goes in-depth enough to safely address the question of how understanding and testimony are related to one another. The hope is to contribute, in some measure, to the effort to understand understanding, and to explain two facts about our epistemic practices: (1) the fact that knowledge and understanding relate differently to testimony, and (2) the fact that some pieces of testimonial information are better than others for the sake of providing one with understanding and of yielding advancements in one’s epistemic standing.

Highlights

  • The standard view in the recent literature in social epistemology has it that while knowledge can, given the right conditions, be transmitted via the testimony of others, understanding is very difficult, or even impossible, to pass on

  • If most of the work that needs to be done in order to obtain understanding is performed by the hearer herself, it does not really make sense to say that the understanding she gains is “testimonial”—in the sense of being appropriately based or dependent upon testimony

  • Different accounts of testimony require different amounts of effort from the hearer’s side, and some accounts are more demanding than others even in cases in which knowledge or true belief is at stake

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Summary

Introduction

The standard view in the recent literature in social epistemology has it that while knowledge can, given the right conditions, be transmitted via the testimony of others, understanding is very difficult, or even impossible, to pass on. At least takes the possibility seriously, that grasping is to be spelled out in terms of abilities, skills or knowing-how He manages to argue very convincingly that understanding can be properly transmitted—at least in those cases in which understanding is “easy” relative to the potential understander, and her background knowledge is such that the “grasping” requirement is automatically satisfied when she elaborates the informational unit received by the testifier. That we gain understanding or make advancements in understanding on the basis of one another’s words, tellings and assertions is obviously not something in need to be argued for; it is a fact It is a common, wide-spread phenomenon that we observe and experience within our epistemic practices all the time. In the last part of the paper, I show how this model of understanding could be strengthened to overcome the potential criticism of being excessively subjective

Understanding: A Tentative Model
The Web of Cognitive Attitudes
Understanding as Fitting into
Grasping?
Learning from Others
Testimony and Fitting
Telling Good from Bad Testimony
Limits of the Model
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