This paper defends reductionism about testimonial justification of beliefs against two influential arguments. One is the empirical argument to the effect that the reductionist justification of our trust in testimony is either circular since it relies on testimonial evidence or else there is scarce evidence in support of our trust in testimony. The other is the transcendental argument to the eff...

1. My wife tells me that it’s raining, and as a result, I now have a reason to believe that it’s raining. But what kind of reason for belief does her testimony provide me with? According to the evidential view of testimony (EVT), what my wife’s testimony provides me with is evidence: evidence indicating that she believes that it’s raining, which then indicates that it is indeed raining. Until r...

The military courts have developed a rich case law tradition in the area of rape trauma syndrome testimony. These cases are particularly important in the context of a military that is both increasingly female and increasingly sensitive to mixed gender relationships. This article reviews the military court's approach to rape trauma testimony over the past 15 years. The author notes that milita...

Recent research has shown that young children rely on social cues to evaluate testimony. For instance, they prefer to endorse testimony provided by a consensual group than by a single dissenter. Given that dominance is pervasive in children's social environment, it can be hypothesized that children also use dominance relations in their selection of testimony. To test this hypothesis, a dominanc...

Psychologists have long been concerned about the use of eyewitness testimony in the courtroom. Recently, it has been suggested that experimental psychologists should testify as expert witnesses in cases involving eyewitnesses to inform the jury about problems with eyewitness testimony. In this article we examine the arguments offered in favor of the use of expert testimony about eyewitnesses. W...

Psychological research on eyewitness testimony has flourished over the last decade and there are now a number of findings that appear relevant to police and courts. We review some of the major eyewitness research findings regarding such things as the relationship between accuracy and confidence, the identification of perpetrators from lineups, and the influence of misleading information on eyew...

In this paper, I apply Duncan Pritchard’s anti-luck epistemology to the case of knowledge through testimony. I claim (1) that Pritchard’s distinction between veritic and reflective luck provides a nice taxonomy of testimony cases, (2) that the taxonomic categories that emerge can be used to suggest precisely what epistemic statuses are transmissible through testimony, and (3) that the resulting...

Expert testimony is an integral part of legal decision making. It informs judges and juries about a wide variety of topics. The assumption underlying its admission is that the average factfinder may lack enough knowledge about scientific or technical topics to make fully informed decisions in the absence of such testimony. Judges and juries are expected to be able to better understand these top...