Knowledge on Trust
By Paul Faulkner

Extract

We know much on the basis of being told. How do our reasons for accepting what we’re told sustain knowledge? There are three main options. (i) Being told p provides access to one’s interlocutor’s reasons; where they know p access to their reasons enables us to know too. (ii) We have independent reasons to accept that they know p. (iii) Coming to know p is sustained by faith rather than reasons. Option (i) is mysterious: how can being told p provide access to another’s reasons for accepting p? Option (ii) seems to make one’s interlocutor redundant: wouldn’t reasons to accept that they know p have to include prior reasons to accept p? Option (iii) confuses the epistemic with the practical: how can faith sustain knowledge? Paul Faulkner’s book presents an intriguing attempt to avoid the perplexities attending (i)–(iii) by developing a position that combines their virtues. Trusting an interlocutor for the truth can provide reasons to accept what they say. Accepting what they say enables one’s belief to derive support from their reasons.