INTRODUCTION

In the previous two chapters I have defended three anti-individualistic theses regarding the epistemology of testimony. These were:

AI–K When S's belief that p is formed through testimony, whether S counts as knowing (as opposed to merely truly believing) p depends on facts regarding one (or more) of S's social peers;

AI–W When S's belief that p is formed through testimony, the warrant (= total truth-conducive support) enjoyed by S's belief that p depends on facts regarding one (or more) of S's social peers;

and

AI–J Whether S counts as justified in accepting a piece of testimony – as having the epistemic right or entitlement to accept the piece of testimony – depends on facts regarding one (or more) of S's social peers.

In chapter 5 I claimed that AI–K and AI–W should be uncontroversial, and I gave evidence that they are widely accepted by epistemologists working on testimony (no matter their views about the nature of epistemic justification). And while AI–J is controversial, I gave two distinct arguments in support of it.

My initial case for AI–J was presented in chapter 5. After showing that AI–J is true given anti-reductionist views of the conditions on justified acceptance of testimony, I went on to argue that anti-reductionism is to be preferred to reductionism in that the former but not the latter squares with a particular desideratum on theories of the epistemic dimension of communication.