Study On The Problem Of Testimony In Epistemology

During the past twenty years of the discussion about epistemology,the problem of“testimony” is becoming one of the most important epistemological issues,the problem not only has a long history in the traditional epistemology,but also shows more abundant theoretical thoughts along with the development of contemporary epistemology,especially social epistemology.Social epistemology insists that knowledge is social and knowledge is the achievement that belongs to the mankind.Also they hold the idea that the methods of acquiring knowledge should be various,both from the individual and from the society.Thus,whether testimony can be regarded as the basic source of knowledge and the justification of testimony have been important problems to be solved by epistemologists.This article focuses on the definition and sources of knowledge.During the discuss of the definition of knowledge,we conclude that we often rely on other’s cognitive abilities or intellectual virtues to acquire knowledge,and other’s cognitive abilities show to me by the way of “testimony”.However,epistemologists often speak of epistemic sources,usually referring to individual’s perception,memory and reasoning.Testimony is another source of knowledge,does it have the equal status as individual’s cognitive abilities? The problem raises the most controversial issue of testimony: the controversy between reductionism and non-reductionism.Finally,we talk about how knowledge is transmitted and the cognitive divergence of testimony in daily life.Study on the problem of testimony reveals the social dimension of knowledge and provides a new perspective for the theoretical research of knowledge,so the study of testimony is helpful to enrich the theory of epistemology.