This chapter examines laws governing witnesses at trial and their testimony as well as other rules related to legal procedure. It also looks at how these topics figure in a number of psalms and in prophetic literature, since the relationship of individuals and even entire nations to Yahweh is often depicted in legal terms.

David Hume’s famous argument against believing miracle reports exemplifies several key issues relating to the emergence of modern naturalism. Hume uncritically assumes the universal and unproblematic nature of core conceptions such as ‘supernatural’ and ‘laws of nature’. Hume’s argument also presents him with a dilemma. He relies upon the weight of testimony to establish his case against believing miracle reports, but must also contend with the weight of testimony, across different times and cultures, to the existence of the supernatural. Hume resolves this by an appeal to historical progress accompanied by a dubious racial theory. These enable him to discount testimonies emanating from the past and from other cultures. ‘Hume’s dilemma’ has not gone away and, if anything, is even more acute since the traditions and beliefs of non-Western cultures are now more difficult to dismiss on the basis of dubious historical accounts of Western exceptionalism. This dilemma amounts to a tension between the ethics of belief and the demands of epistemic justice.

The Conclusion returns to the book’s central questions and arguments. It considers the implications of the book’s findings for the conduct of oral hearings within RSD, and the impossibility of a just assessment of refugee applicants’ oral testimony against the current credibility criteria. While the aim of the book was not to advance precise reforms to RSD, in reflecting on what suggestions for reform arise, the Conclusion argues that if oral hearing must be a narrative occasion, it should be a more predictable one. Where applicants’ evidence is expected to fit within cognisable narrative forms, the hearing should provide the opportunity to meet these standards. However, such a reform would do nothing to address the narrative mandate traced and critiqued throughout the book. Finally, the Conclusion explores and holds open the possibility for certain texts and genres to present radical ways of imagining refugee narratives outside the strictures of refugee law, RSD and the extreme demands (and limits) currently placed on the testimony of refugee applicants.

Narrative exposure therapy (NET) is a procedure that is used to treat traumatic stress or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is evidence-based and is recommended as a treatment by NICE. Out of all the narrative approaches, NET has the best evidence for effectiveness. The manualised procedure has a number of stages, psychoeducation, the lifeline and then narrative exposure to the traumatic elements of memory. Finally, a narrative testimony is produced that has the potential to be used as evidence. NET has been widely used with refugees, other victims of war, sexual abuse and similar traumatic problems. The focus of the treatment is telling the stories of the traumatic and stressful events in a person's life, focusing on the emotions and feelings experienced when recalling these difficult situations.

This chapter focuses on Charles Reznikoff’s 1934 version of his long poem Testimony, which consists almost entirely of collaged-together excerpts from nineteenth-century trial transcripts. The chapter proposes that Testimony utilizes these materials to suggest a link between past and present violence and social fragmentation, rejecting narratives of progress associated with the modern American nation and tacitly embracing the “debunking” imperative animating the work of interwar historians such as Caroline Ware. Reznikoff’s text is organized around the spectacle of the body in pain as a galvanizing scene within the modern public sphere, where public affect and social belonging were generated through collective acts of witnessing (and often perpetrating) violence and disaster. The chapter concludes by suggesting that the final subsection of Testimony, titled “Depression,” draws its subject matter from the aftermath of the “Depression” of 1873, as the text proposes this earlier period as a parallel to the crisis of the 1930s. In recalling this earlier period, the chapter claims further, Testimony proposes a negative vision of economic and technological modernity by revealing its human collateral, as well as the cyclical nature of modern social and economic crisis.

Two themes have dominated philosophical discussions concerning the rationality of believing a report of a miracle. The first relies on the idea that miracles are by definition massively improbable. The second theme involves the thought that testimony is, in general, not a very reliable source of information. The result of combining these two themes is that it is very difficult – some suggest impossible – to rationally believe that a miracle has occurred on the basis of testimony: on its own, testimony is too weak to outweigh the improbability of a miracle. Both themes are addressed in Hume’s famous essay on miracles. This chapter examines each theme and critically discusses interpretations of and replies to Hume’s argument.

This chapter argues that Jewish philosophers throughout the ages have tended toward an epistemology that might be described as “communitarian.” To that end, it explores three key notions at the heart of Jewish epistemology: knowledge by testimony, corporate knowledge, and epistemic rootedness. These notions are mined from the Hebrew Bible in conversation with Rabbinic commentaries and two great medieval philosophers, Rabbi Yehuda Halevy and Maimonides. In contemporary times, a number of philosophers have described themselves as communitarian epistemologists. This chapter argues that they might more aptly be described as communist epistemologists, and that Jewish thought is a better guide to how a communitarian epistemology might look.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). This is not exactly what a broadly Descartes-inspired epistemologist likes to hear. But trust and testimony clearly play an important role in religious life, according to many traditions. And, separately, there has been a contemporary revival of philosophical interest in trust and testimony – their nature and value for our lives broadly. The present chapter reviews contemporary conversations about trust and testimony in ethics and epistemology to consider their applications to religious epistemology. It is suggested that antireductionism about testimony and noncognitivism about trust are each “friendlier” than their counterpart views, to the appropriateness of religious belief. Finally, the chapter raises the question whether robust trust in God requires a disposition to feel betrayed by God in certain circumstances, and ventures a positive, though qualified, answer.

This chapter picks up on the puzzle raised in the previous chapter and attempts in detail to vindicate the unity of the dialogue as a Platonic vehicle for critical engagment by the reader. Focussing on the Charmides section, it lays out and discusses a series of key themes and contrasts which, it is argued, both prepare the reader for Socrates’ discussion with Critias to come and are illuminated on subsequent reading by that discussion. It argues that the way these themes and contrasts are presented is designed to induce readers into occupying a stance of enquiry that orients us towards critical engagement with the Critias section. The chapter ends with an analysis of how the final section of the dialogue, in which Charmides reappears, plays a role in sustaining this critical stance on the reader’s part.

Chapter 3 shows how we can intend language as a social tool. The first part focuses on language and interaction; the second part on how we outsource our knowledge benefiting from others’ knowledge. First, I show that the traditional separations between phonetics, phonology, syntax, and semantics and between production and comprehension do not hold. Rather, language is profoundly interactive. Then I overview innovative approaches that investigate real-time linguistic interactions, illustrating new methods, such as hyperscanning. In the second part , I contend that language is also a social tool because it allows us to strengthen our knowledge by relying on others. I introduce the notion of "community of knowledge," show that we outsource part of our knowledge, and illustrate how children develop the ability to defer toward experts in acquiring and mastering linguistic meaning. Finally, I discuss the possible theoretical consequences of outsourcing knowledge.

Chapter 8 shows that the idea that words are social tools particularly suits abstract concepts. I first review studies on conceptual acquisition in infants and children, highlighting the crucial role social and linguistic experiences play, particularly for abstract concepts. I then review studies showing that contexts referring to social situations are more effective for processing abstract than concrete concepts. The importance of social and linguistic experiences makes it necessary to adopt new methods for studying abstract concepts. These methods, which consider language a form of participatory sense-making, focus on online dialogic interactions. The final section outlines the proposal that abstract concepts have an essential social function, enhancing social cohesion. One of the possible reasons why they are so common might be linked to our need to share and co-construct our world with others. This need is particularly evident with words, like abstract ones, the meaning of which is less anchored to perceptual stimuli and more debatable and flexible.