Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T04:44:33.903Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Testimony and A Priori Knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

Abstract

Tyler Burge offers a theory of testimony that allows for the possibility of both testimonial a priori warrant and testimonial a priori knowledge. I uncover a tension in his account of the relationship between the two, and locate its source in the analogy that Burge draws between testimonial warrant and preservative memory. I contend that this analogy should be rejected, and offer a revision of Burge's theory that eliminates the tension. I conclude by assessing the impact of the revised theory on the scope of a priori knowledge.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Burge, Tyler. 1993. “Content Preservation.” Philosophical Review 102: 457–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler. 1997. “Interlocution, Perception, and Memory.” Philosophical Studies 86: 2147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler. 2003. “Memory and Persons.” Philosophical Review 112: 289337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BonJour, Laurence. 1998. In Defense of Pure Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Casullo, Albert. 2003. A Priori Justification. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Casullo, Albert. Forthcoming. “Defeasible A Priori Justification: A Reply to Thurow.” The Philosophical Quarterly.Google Scholar
Casullo, Albert. Unpublished. “What Is Entitlement?”Google Scholar
Christensen, David and Hilary, Kornblith. 1997. “Testimony, Memory and the Limits of the A Priori.” Philosophical Studies 86: 2147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, Jim. 2000. “Burge on Testimony and Memory.” Analysis 60: 124–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, Alvin. 1999. “A Priori Warrant and Naturalistic Epistemology.” Philosophical Perspectives 13: 128.Google Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. 1983. The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lackey, Jennifer and Sosa, Ernest (eds.). 2006. The Epistemology of Testimony. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malmgren, Anna-Sara. 2006. “Is There A Priori Knowledge by Testimony?Philosophical Review 115: 199241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGrath, Matthew. 2007. “Memory and Epistemic Conservatism.” Synthese 157: 124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quine, W. V. 1963. “Two Dogmas of Empiricism.” In his From a Logical Point of View, 2nd ed. revised, pp. 2046. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar