O problema da transmissão na epistemologia do testemunho de Jennifer Lackey

Abstract

Testimony has been neglected for a long time during the epistemological study. Although this specific discipline makes use of classical authors such as David Hume, John Locke and Thomas Reid, ist apparition in the contemporary scenario just happened, in fact, after the release of Testimony – a philosophical study by C. A. J. Coady in the year of 1992. The developments that followed from that were exhaustive in the sense of solving the issues set forward in the context of the relationship between two epistemic agents – considered alone before. This shows that the discipline, now called Epistemology of Testimony, can be better understood as a branch of the field forged by Alvin Goldman called Social Epistemology. That is, the subject addressed here it is surrounded by epistemic issues – analytical – as for issues that touch the social field. More specifically, the work that follows has as its main goal present the point of view of the philosopher Jennifer Lackey, that has its upshot a thesis about the epistemology of testimony presented in the book Learning from Words – Testimony as a Source of Knowledge, from 2008. As for specific goals are brought up the debates around the Nature of Testimony and Transmission vs. Generation thesis of knowledge, perceived in the social-epistemic context. Both themes are crucial for a better understanding not just of Lackeys work but also for a more critical view of the discipline in a general way. The great contribution that the author brings in its work by means of exhaustive examples, are here presented and debated largely for a more critical understanding of them.