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Testimony as a Natural Kind

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

Kourken Michaelian
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Abstract

I argue, first, that testimony is likely a natural kind (where natural kinds are accurately described by the homoeostatic property cluster theory) and that if it is indeed a natural kind, it is likely necessarily reliable. I argue, second, that the view of testimony as a natural kind and as necessarily reliable grounds a novel, naturalist global reductionism about testimonial justification and that this new reductionism is immune to a powerful objection to orthodox Humean global reductionism, the objection from the too-narrow induction base.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , June 2008 , pp. 180 - 202
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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