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ANONYMOUS ASSERTIONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2013

Sanford C. Goldberg
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Abstract

This paper addresses how the anonymity of an assertion affects the epistemological dimension of its production by speakers, and its reception by hearers. After arguing that anonymity does have implications in both respects, I go on to argue that at least some of these implications derive from a warranted diminishment in speakers' and hearers' expectations of one another when there are few mechanisms for enforcing the responsibilities attendant to speech. As a result, I argue, anonymous assertions do not carry the same ‘promise’ of the speaker's relevant epistemic authoritativeness that ordinary assertions do. If this is correct, the phenomenon of anonymity provides us with a lesson regarding ordinary assertions: their aptness for engendering belief in others, and so for communicating knowledge, depends in general on the very publicness of the act of assertion itself.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 10 , Special Issue 2: Privacy, Secrecy, and Epistemology , June 2013 , pp. 135 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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