Sunday, April 30, 2017

Quote of the Day

Testimony is the source of an enormously large proportion of our most important beliefs; it is testimony and learning from others that makes possible intellectual achievement and culture; testimony is the very foundation of civilization. The Enlightenment looked down its rationalistic nose at testimony and tradition, comparing them invidiously with science; but, without learning by testimony, clearly, science would be impossible. Newton stood on the shoulders of giants; indeed, every scientist must stand on the testimonial shoulders of others. Nearly all of what we know of the history of humanity or the structure of the universe we know by virtue of testimony; but it is also by virtue of testimony that I know such homelier items as what my name is and that I live in Indiana. You visit Armidale: you believe that it is indeed Armidale you are in, and that Armidale is in New South Wales. I have never visited Armidale and indeed have never ventured beyond the borders of Königsberg; but you rely upon testimony for your knowledge of those items as much as I do. You are also dependent upon testimony for your knowledge that New South Wales is in Australia (a fact you perhaps learned from a map or encyclopedia) and that there is such a nation as Australia.

Sigmund Freud, that Enlightenment figure born out of due time, offers an account of religious belief that, oddly enough, includes testimony as a special case: "Religious ideas are teachings and assertions about facts and conditions of external (or internal) reality which tell one something one has not discovered for oneself and which lay claim to one's belief." (Obviously testimony involves "teachings and assertions about facts and conditions of external [or internal] reality which tell one something one has not discovered for oneself and which lay claim to one's belief.") He immediately goes on to contradict this account of 'religious ideas' by claiming that what distinguishes religious ideas from testimony is that what you learn by way of testimony you can always check or verify for yourself, thus finding out whether what you were told is true.

But surely this is Enlightenment optimism run amuck. Can I really discover, in a way independent of testimony, that in the fifth century B.C. there was a war between the Athenians and Spartans? Can I discover in this way that Plato was a philosopher? Or that the woman I take to be my mother really was? Or that I was given the name I think I was? Or that there is such a country as Australia? Indeed, the mayor of Armidale himself depends upon testimony for his knowledge that it is Armidale of which he is the mayor; and though a lifelong resident of Australia, he too depends upon testimony for his knowledge that Australia is the continent of which Armidale is a tiny part. You say: perhaps he just to himself: "Armidale is a part of _______," where the blank is to be filled by his own name of the land he sees around him, land on which Armidale is obviously to be found. But if _______ is his name for Australia and is bestowed or introduced by way of the description 'the land around here' or 'the land I now see', the proposition he expresses by 'Armidale is a part of _______' is not the one we expressed by 'Armidale is in Australia."To express the same or an equivalent proposition, his sentence would have to contain a name of Australia; and it is not easy to acquire a name of Australia on one's own. He might try to name Australia by picking it out with a definite description: 'the continent of which where I stand is a part' or 'the country to which this land belongs'; but of course it is only by testimony that he knows there is such a continent or country, or indeed any continents or countries at all.

We are therefore dependent upon testimony for most of what we know. Further, it is likely that most of our beliefs are such that the very possibility of our forming them is dependent upon testimony. For if there were no such thing as testimony, as a source of belief, then, in all likelihood, there would be nothing but the most rudimentary sorts of language. I don't mean to endorse Wittgenstein's enigmatic suggestions to the effect that it is impossible (in something like the broadly logical sense) that any person have a private language; that is as may be. (And the way it may be, I think, is at best inconclusive.) But it seems likely, as a matter of contingent fact, that language and testimony are mutually dependent phenomena in such a way that apart from testimony, there would be no language. And without the resources conferred by language we should have been unable to form any but a small proportion of the beliefs we do in fact hold.

Alvin Plantinga
Warrant and Proper Function

Jim's comments: Sometimes my students are skeptical of whether you could know something simply on the basis of testimony. I think this is understandable: it seems that the person who believes something on the testimony of someone else has not come into direct contact with the truth of the claim, but only, at best, indirect contact. The intuition is that she doesn't believe the claim because it is true, but only because the other person is trustworthy or something. I think this is mistaken, and in the future I may have them read this passage by Plantinga.

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