Philosophy of Testimony: A Reflection

I bet you have read the “Three Ways of Knowing”.  We acquire knowledge through our experience, reason, and testimony.

But, here is the crux.

No question about acquiring knowledge through experience and reason. I question about the knowledge through testimony. What warrant us to believe in such a testimony of others?

Testimony is the spoken or written statement, which bears knowledge.

We go to school. We read books in the library. We know what happens to our country from the newspaper. We heard the news. Name them.

Testimony is the mostly way of acquiring knowledge. But, have you ever questioned why you believe?

Let’s take an example. Why the people in the time of Galileo Galilei believed not on what Galileo claimed but on the Church that the Earth is the center of the universe? The people in that era acquired knowledge out from the testimony of the Church, even if it’s wrong. Is there a gullibility factor with this third way of knowing, testimony?

What warranted them to believe in the testimony of the Church?

Trust.
Trust is the epistemological reason why they believed in the Church and disregarded Galileo Galilei’s heliocentric claim.  Trust is the warrant why from the time we learned the simple ABC to the theoretical know-how of physics and mathematics, we believed in the testimony of our teachers.

Why do we trust?
We trust because the person is trustworthy. The people in the time of Galileo trusted more the testimony of the Church because of their great faith to the Church as the instrument of God. You trust the testimony of your teacher because he/she is adept at it. He/she studied and mastered it.

Is trust bound to gullibility?
Yes, of course. It always is. So, the action we need to do is to verify the testimony.

When your teacher tells you that light travels in 299, 792 kilometers per second speed, don’t stop there. Read through until you have justified the testimony.