In this paper, I offer a contribution to the debate on testimony that rests on three elements: the definition of semantic information (Floridi, 2004), the analysis of trust as a second-order property of first-order relations provided in (Taddeo, 2010), and Floridi’s Network Theory of Account (NTA) (Floridi, Forthcoming). I argue that testimony transmits semantic information and it is neither gr...

In a series of three experiments we examined how preschool children assess testimony in relation to the relative desirability of the outcome for themselves and for the individual providing the testimony. The first two experiments reveal evidence for an outcome bias: children are more likely to believe an extraordinary claim when they have little to lose in doing so (Exp.1), and when they stand ...

This research examined how variations in the presentation of forensic science information affect factfinders' judgments in a trial. Participants read a summary of a murder case, the critical testimony being the results of a microscopic hair comparison given by a forensic expert. Across two experiments we manipulated how the expert expressed his results, whether he gave an explicit conclusion co...

What do the courts want from expert testimony, and how do judges assess professed expertise? These questions form the core of this meticulously written and thought-provoking book on the role of expert evidence in courts of law. Rather than presenting a criticism of the abuses of expert testimony (Hagen, 1997), a practical guide to the task of being an expert witness (Brodsky, 2004), or an overv...

The main goal of AI and Robotics is that of creating a humanoid robot that can interact with human beings. Such an android would have to have the ability to acquire knowledge about the world it inhabits. Currently, the gaining of beliefs through testimony is hardly investigated in AI because researchers have uncritically accepted empiricism. Great emphasis is placed on perception as a source of...

Pettit (2006) argues that deferring to majority testimony is not generally rational: it may lead to inconsistent beliefs. He suggests that “another ... approach will do better”: deferring to supermajority testimony. But this approach may also lead to inconsistencies. In this paper, I describe conditions under which deference to supermajority testimony ensures consistency, and conditions under w...

In this paper I try to defend art from those who claim that it is cognitively trivial. I claim that the notion of cognitive value should be expanded so as to include notions that epistemologists and aestheticians alike recognize as cognitively valuable, like understanding and awareness. Next, I claim that art generally, but literature in particular is in its main aspects similar to testimony, w...

This is an author produced version of a paper published in Synthese. This paper has been peer-reviewed but does not include the final publisher proof-corrections or journal pagination. ABSTRACT The assumption that we largely lack reasons for accepting testimony has dominated its epistemology. Given the further assumption that whatever reasons we do have are insufficient to justify our testimoni...

There is something peculiar about aesthetic testimony. It seems more di cult to gain knowledge of aesthetic properties based solely upon aesthetic testimony than it is in the case of other types of property. In this paper, I argue that we can provide an adequate explanation at the level of the semantics of aesthetic language without defending any substantive thesis in epistemology or about aest...

In honor of Isaac Ray's 200th birthday, the author examines his early career for an example of critical thinking about expert testimony. Ray, a scientist from the outset, expressed interest in phrenology, a contemporary science of the mind. This paper explores a criminal case from Maine in which phrenological testimony was proffered and which Ray critiqued. The author then examines Ray's standa...