Tim Kenyon

Many of the examples or situations emphasized in recent epistemology of testimony are cases of talking to strangers. These cases are thought to isolate key epistemological features of testimony, and to factor out unnecessary complicating details. I argue that this is a mistake. In the sense that would be required for this thought to be a good one, human communication involves virtually no actual cases of receiving testimony from strangers. The complicating details that are factored out by the typical approach just are the key epistemological features of testimony.

Tim Kenyon, University of Waterloo