A Research Of Theory Of Testimonial Justification:from The Individual Justification To The Collective Justification

The topic of this paper is about the testimonial justification theory in contemporary epistemology,‘testimonial justification'is one of the important contents of the testimony of epistemology.With the development of modern experimental science and the British empiricism in the 17?18 century,the status of testimony as source of knowledge in the epistemology offered the affirmation,testimony went back to the research field of epistemology.But yet the epistemology didn't completely get rid of the position of individualism,weak individualism prevailed,epistemologists usually focus on the study of individual bliefs and individual knowledge.By the end of 20^th,the development of epistemology showed a trend of socialization and the social epistemology rised,a lar ge number of academics found the social factors of knowledge had an important position in the epistemology,therefore the study of testimony become a hot topic.‘Testimonial justification'as the main issue of the research of testimony,mainly inspects whether as cognitive agent the individual's belief paid on others'testimony is justified or not and how to justify.Around this issue,There rises two tranditional schemes of testimonial justification in the field of western epistemology,namely,empirical reductionism and foundationism,represented by Hume and Reid.The former emphasizes that the individuals'justification of the belief in others'testimony should be reduced to the justification of the individuals'own perception of experience.But the laster opposes this viewpoint,they hold that the justification of the belief in others'testimony is derived from the transcendental underlying belief.With the continuous development of the theory of allegation and the socialization of modern human cognitive style,at the end of 20^th,the tranditional schemes of‘testimonial justification'in Hume and Reid got improvements and developments in the field of modern western epistemology,such as Fricker?Godman?Burger?Foley and so on.Reductionism and anti-reductionism,two baxic path of justification in western epistemology,came into being step by step.However,these justifucations at this time are all based primarily on theindividual's justification.The problem of the individual as a collective member in the collective is seldom studies in depth.Therefore,they inevitably fell into different degrees of the dilemma of justification in reality.With the emergence and development of modern collective intentionality and collective belief theory,the emphasis on the individual as a part of the collective and the formation process and the method of the justification of the collective belief,to a large extent,promoted the modern justification from individual justification to collective justification.In this paper,centered on‘testimonial justification',firstly in the preface part it briefly combs the rise and development of the study of testimonial justification in the history of epistemology,introduces the basic situation of the study of testimony and testimonial justification in the field of epistemology at home and abroad,as well as the existing innovation points and insufficience in this paper.Then in the main body of paper,it summarizes and discusses the two existing traditional projects of testimonial justification and their improvements and developments in the modern western epistemology,points out the reality of the predicament of this kind of individual justifications.Thus,this paper points out the possibility of‘collective belief'and‘collective justification'instead of the individual justification of testimony to resort to collective justification.Finally there reviews the problem of the belief of individual to others'testimony through the analysis of the Finnish philosophier Tuomela's theory of collective knowledge,aiming at providing the enlightenments for the recontruction of the reasonable project of testimonial justification in the modern era of the internet medium.