Description
Book SynopsisSanford Goldberg investigates the role that others play in our attempts to acquire knowledge of the world. Two main forms of this reliance are examined: testimony cases, where a subject aims to acquire knowledge through accepting what another tells her; and cases involving coverage, where a subject aims to acquire knowledge of something by reasoning that if things were not so she would have heard about it by now. Goldberg argues that these cases challenge some cherished assumptions in epistemology. Testimony cases challenge the assumption, prominent in reliabilist epistemology, that the processes through which beliefs are formed never extend beyond the boundaries of the individual believer. And both sorts of case challenge the idea that, insofar knowledge is a cognitive achievement, it is an achievement that belongs to the knowing subject herself. Goldberg uses results of this sort to question the broadly individualistic orthodoxy within reliabilist epistemology, and to explore what a
Trade ReviewAn original and challenging contribution to a debate among process reliabilists...the book is full of clear, ingenious, and persuasive arguments, and I cannot but highly recommend it. * Diego E. Machuca, Phiosophy in Review *
Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. Testimony and Knowledge Individualism ; 2. Orthodox Reliabilism and Testimony's Epistemic Significance ; 3. Process and Environment in Testimonial Belief-Formation ; 4. Epistemic Reliance and the Extendedness Hypothesis ; 5. Objections to the Extendedness Hypothesis ; 6. If that were true I would have heard about it by now ; 7. Reliabilism as Social Epistemology ; Bibliography
