Crucial Links Between Knowledge and Communication

This paper focuses on the central role of testimony in the relationship between knowledge and communication. First, we consider testimony as a source of knowledge and justification when communication is involved, as testimony is the only source that involves dynamic communicative interrelations between two or more epistemic subjects. Second, we analyse and discuss the pivotal role testimony occupies in the society of information and knowledge in which we live. Third, we emphasise that there is no reason for either scientists or common epistemic subjects to believe in epistemic individualism. If we do not count others’ testimony as a genuine source of knowledge and justification, science could not progress and we would lack much of our common knowledge. Finally, in order to understand how testimony can provide us with genuine knowledge, we determine some requirements necessary for judging whether a subject is justified in believing someone else’s communication is true. These requirements are particularly significant, as they may help us to evaluate myriad communications and testimonies and facilitate distinctions between reliable and unreliable examples.