CLLAM seminarium: Joey Pollock (Oslo)

Global testimonial pessimism and the division of epistemic labour

Abstract

In the epistemology of testimony, there is a strong presumption in favour of optimism: the evident utility of our testimonial practices is taken to support the idea that individual testimonial exchanges often succeed in communicating knowledge. This optimism is central to an image of knowledge as a communal resource, often produced through a division of epistemic labour that involves collaboration between diverse specialists, yet accessible to the broader community regardless of expertise.

In the literature, the denial of optimism (except within some local domains) is often quickly dismissed as a form of scepticism. In this talk, my aim is to defend the idea that global testimonial pessimism is a reasonable, non-sceptical position to hold. I will argue that we can provide a satisfactory explanation of the general utility of our testimonial practices, while maintaining that the beliefs that we form through testimony are often false, unreliable, and based on serious misinterpretations of a speaker’s testimony. For the pessimist, our epistemic reliance on others is critical, not because it enables us to share knowledge within a community, but precisely because knowledge is so hard to share.

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