Telling and Trusting: Reductionism andAnti- Reductionism in the Epistemology of Testimony

Tony Coady's book Testimony is about how we gain knowledge from other people, through learning from their spoken and written reports and other tellings. Several major philosophers, including John Locke, David Hume, Thomas Reid, and Bertrand Russell, have written more briefly on "testimony" in this broad sense (Coady's historical chapters provide us with helpful critical accounts of their views), but this is the first booklength study devoted to the subject. The appearance of such a study is welcome, indeed long overdue: as Coady tells us, with much justice, "testimony is a prominent and underexplored epistemological landscape". The first forays into that terrain made in Testimony yield many important insights. Coady has been pondering the role of testimony in our lives for many years, and this study shows deep and considered thought. It is rich in detailed insights on many matters, and it flows from a firm and firmly held conception of the centrality of testimony, as a source within our structure of empirical knowledge, which has grown on Coady over the years.