Social Epistemology
In this lecture, we leave religious epistemology and turn to social epistemology; particularly, problems that we find in the epistemology of testimony. When we hear the testimony of others, several things are happening. First, we may have to depend on the knowledge we have beforehand to help us to understand and judge whether the testimony that we are hearing is valid and can be believed. This may come from the fact that we are familiar with the person giving testimony and know them to be someone whom we can trust. If the source is unknown, then the hearer has to make an effort to put the testimony they hear within a context that they can make sense of in order to see if it’s useful, and if so, how/ when it can be used.
As well, there are many factors that may have an impact on the spectrum of social epistemology. Take for example the type of testimonies we are exposed to on a daily basis. For instance, in the case of a witness telling the police officer what they saw, the officer draws on many different resources to make sense of the testimony they are receiving. Not only do they follow up on leads and tips but by asking a variety of questions to check, recheck, and triple check the witness’s answers, they can verify if the witness is clear, reliable, and believable. The police officer also makes judgments and conclusions by drawing upon their past experiences when questioning a witness. Thus, they are able to decide if the testimony they are hearing is of value or not. Then there are other types of testimonies that require less checking and suspension of belief. For example, if you are visiting a new city and ask someone on the street where the nearest train station is, you are more inclined to believe the answer of a stranger without feeling the need to do a background check. The professor gives another example of a child asking his mother if there is any milk left in the fridge. The mother answers no, and the child feels no need to open the fridge and check whether or not his mother was telling the truth. These three cases raise the question of why these epistemic burdens are so different for the hearer?
Professor Greco offers an explanation. First, we have to look at where we obtain knowledge. He talks about various epistemic communities where we obtain knowledge, whether it be from our family, our schools, our workplace, etc. Within these communities, two things are happening; we are generating or gathering knowledge that we need and we are also distributing information throughout our epistemic community via various tasks. As these two tasks are different and serve different functions, over time, we as a society have developed norms and standards to serve and protect these tasks. In the case of gathering information, we need to have a kind of security in place that ensures quality control which weeds out misinformation. This is essential so that any knowledge being passed into and throughout the community has already been checked and deemed safe or correct. Therefore, the standards or rules are less restrictive in the distribution phase since the information has already undergone rigorous checks.
The professor believes that testimonies fall under knowledge being gathered or knowledge being distributed. Testimonies which are just passing information around the community are subject to standards but nowhere near the level of scrutiny of knowledge that is being gathered. The hearer in this case acts as a gatekeeper of sorts for the entire community and must serve his community by listening to the testimony and using all the resources they have available to make sure that the information they are receiving is of the highest quality.
