Andrew Peet | Umeå University (original) (raw)
Papers by Andrew Peet
Routledge Handbook of Social and Political Philosophy of Language (Khoo and Sterken eds.)), 2021
Synthese, 2019
This paper introduces and argues for the hypothesis that judgments of testimonial worth (that is,... more This paper introduces and argues for the hypothesis that judgments of testimonial worth (that is, judgments of the quality of character an agent displays when testifying)are central to our practice of normatively appraising speech. It is argued that judgments of testimonial worth are central both to the judgement that an agent has lied, and to the acceptance of testimony. The hypothesis that, in lying, an agent necessarily displays poor testimonial worth, is shown to resolve a new puzzle about lying, and the recalcitrant problem raised by the existence of bald faced lies, and selfless assertions (which seem to place conflicting pressures on a theory of lying). It is then shown that the notion of testimonial worth allows us to capture the distinction between taking a speaker at their word, and treating them as a mere indicator of the truth in a way other theories (such as those which emphasize interpersonal reasons of trust) fail to do.
A satisfactory theory of linguistic communication must explain how it is that, through the interp... more A satisfactory theory of linguistic communication must explain how it is that, through the interpersonal exchange of auditory, visual, and tactile stimuli, the communicative preconditions for the acquisition of testimonial knowledge regularly come to be satisfied. Without an account of knowledge-yielding communication this success condition for linguistic theorizing is left opaque, and we are left with an incomplete understanding of testimony, and communication more generally, as a source of knowledge. This paper argues that knowledge-yielding communication should be modelled on knowledge itself. It is argued that knowledge-yielding communication occurs iff interlocutors coordinate on truth values in a non-lucky and non-deviant way. This account is able to do significant explanatory work: it sheds light on the nature of referential communication, and it allows us to capture, in an informative way, the sense in which interlocutors must entertain similar propositions in order to communicate successfully.
There is an emerging skepticism about the existence of testimonial knowledge-how (Hawley (2010)2,... more There is an emerging skepticism about the existence of testimonial knowledge-how (Hawley (2010)2,
Poston (2016), Carter and Pritchard (2015a)). This is unsurprising since a number of influential
approaches to knowledge-how struggle to accommodate testimonial knowledge how. Nonetheless, this
scepticism is misguided. This paper establishes that there are cases of easy testimonial knowledge-how.
It is structured as follows: First, a case is presented in which an agent acquires knowledge-how simply
by accepting a speaker’s testimony. Second, it is argued that this knowledge-how is genuinely
testimonial. Next, Poston’s (2016) arguments against easy testimonial knowledge-how are considered
and rejected. The implications of the argument differ for intellectualists and anti-intellectualists about
knowledge-how. The intellectualist must reject widespread assumptions about the communicative
preconditions for the acquisition of testimonial knowledge. The Anti-intellectualist must find a way of
accommodating the dependence of knowledge-how on speaker reliability. It is not clear how this can
be done.
In this paper we argue that knowledge is characteristically safe true belief. We argue that an ad... more In this paper we argue that knowledge is characteristically safe true belief. We argue that an adequate approach to epistemic luck must not be indexed to methods of belief formation, but rather to explanations for belief. This shift is problematic for several prominent approaches to the theory of knowledge, including virtue reliabilism and proper functionalism (as normally conceived). The view that knowledge is characteristically safe true belief is better able to accommodate the shift in question.
Transmission views of testimony hold that the epistemic state of a speaker can, in some robust se... more Transmission views of testimony hold that the epistemic state of a speaker can, in some robust sense, be transmitted to their audience. That is, the speaker's knowledge or justification can become the audience's knowledge or justification via testimony. We argue that transmission views are incompatible with the hypothesis that one's epistemic state, together with one's practical circumstances (one's interests, stakes, ability to acquire new evidence etc.), determines what actions are rationally permissible for an agent. We argue that there are cases where, if the speaker's epistemic state were (in any robust sense) transmitted to the audience, then the audience would be warranted in acting in particular ways. Yet, the audience in these cases is not warranted in acting in the relevant ways, as their strength of justification does not come close to the speaker's. So transmission views of testimony are false.
The etiology of a perceptual belief can seemingly affect its epistemic status. There are cases in... more The etiology of a perceptual belief can seemingly affect its epistemic status. There are cases in which perceptual beliefs seem to be unjustified because the perceptual experiences on which they are based are caused, in part, by wishful thinking, or irrational prior beliefs. It has been argued that this is problematic for many internalist views in the epistemology of perception, especially those which postulate immediate perceptual justification. Such views are unable to account for the impact of an experience’s etiology on its justificational status (see Markie (2005, 2006, 2013), McGrath (2013), Siegel (2012, 2013), and Vahid (2014)). Our understanding of what we have been told can also be affected by, for example, wishful thinking or irrational background beliefs. I argue that testimonial beliefs based on such states of understanding can thus be rendered unjustified. This is problematic not only for internalist immediate justification views of testimony, but also for some externalist views, such as the form of proper functionalism endorsed by Burge (1993), and Graham (2010). The testimonial version of the argument from etiology, unlike the perceptual variant, does not rest on the controversial hypothesis that perception is cognitively penetrable. Furthermore, there is a stronger case for the claim that testimonial justification can be undermined by etiological effects since, I argue, testimonial beliefs can be based on the background mental states which affect our understanding of what is said, and our states of understanding are rationally assessable
Brian Loar [1976] observed that communicative success with singular terms requires more than corr... more Brian Loar [1976] observed that communicative success with singular terms requires more than correct referent assignment. For communicative success to be achieved the audience must assign the right referent in the right way. Loar, and others since, took this to motivate Fregean accounts of the semantics of singular terms. Ray Buchanan [2014] has recently responded, maintaining that although Loar is correct to claim that
communicative success with singular terms requires more than correct referent assignment, this is compatible with direct reference approaches, as long as one also endorses independently motivated Gricean view of communicative intentions. This paper argues that Buchanan's Gricean view cannot account for the full range of Loar cases. In doing so it aims to explicate the structure of Loar's cases and thus clarify the conditions a theory must meet in order to adequately meet Loar's challenge.
There has been much recent discussion of the harmful role prejudicial stereotypes play in our com... more There has been much recent discussion of the harmful role prejudicial stereotypes play in our communicative exchanges. For example, Miranda Fricker (2007) explores a type of injustice (testimonial injustice) which arises when the credibility judgements we make about speakers are informed by prejudicial stereotypes. One might, according to Fricker, wrong someone by assigning them a low credibility due to their race or gender. This discussion has produced many important insights. However, it has so far focused on the role stereotypes play in our epistemic assessments of communicative actions, rather than our interpretations of such actions (interpretations which underlay our epistemic assessments)1. Yet, the same prejudicial stereotypes that infect credibility judgements can also infect our interpretation. For example, imagine a black man wrongly suspected of rape in depression era Alabama. Suppose that he is overheard saying 'she seemed vulnerable' whilst describing his motivations for being at his accuser's home. Given the context and the prejudices of the time (with black men being seen as predatory toward white women), he would likely be misinterpreted as stating that he saw her as an easy target. Call this 'Interpretative Injustice'. This paper explores the sources of interpretative injustice, and considers some of the harms to which it gives rise. There are several harms caused by interpretative injustice. Firstly, it silences. It prevents certain groups from being able to efficiently communicate knowledge to other (perhaps more powerful) groups. Secondly, it results in speakers being held epistemically responsible for propositions they never intended to communicate. And thirdly, it contributes to the illusion that prejudicial low credibility judgements are epistemically justified. I close by arguing that if Miranda Fricker's strategy for treating testimonial injustice is implemented in absence of a treatment of interpretative injustice then we risk epistemically harming hearers with little benefit to speakers. Thus testimonial injustice and interpretative injustice are best treated in tandem.
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
This paper discusses the following question: what epistemic relation must audiences bear to the c... more This paper discusses the following question: what epistemic relation must audiences bear to the contents of assertions in order to gain testimonial knowledge? There is a brief discussion of why this issue is of importance, followed by two counterexamples to the most intuitive answer: that in order for an audience to gain testimonial knowledge that p they must know that the speaker has asserted p. It is then suggested that the argument generalises and can be made to work on different sets of assumptions about the conditions for knowledge, and the conditions under which a proposition is asserted.
Philosophical Studies.
In the epistemology of testimony it is often assumed that audiences are able to reliably recover ... more In the epistemology of testimony it is often assumed that audiences are able to reliably recover asserted contents. In the philosophy of language this claim is contentious. This paper outlines one problem concerning the recovery of asserted contents (the 'recovery problem'), and argues that it prevents audiences from gaining testimonial knowledge in a range of cases (even when the speaker is both sincere and a reliable belief former). The recovery problem, in essence, is simply that due to the collective epistemic limitations of the speaker and audience speakers will, in certain cases, be insensitive to the ways in which they may be misinterpreted. As a result audiences' beliefs will often fail the safety and sensitivity conditions on knowledge. Once the problem has been outlined and distinguished from several related problems in the
philosophy of language and the epistemology of testimony, a series of responses are considered. The first response holds that audiences possess defeaters in recovery problem cases, and thus wouldn't form beliefs. The second response holds that the beliefs audiences form are very coarse grained, meaning they are not very vulnerable to failures of safety and sensitivity. The final response holds that the objects of speaker meaning are not propositional. All three responses are found to be
unsatisfactory.
Episteme.
In order to assign content to a wide range of context sensitive utterances audiences must rely he... more In order to assign content to a wide range of context sensitive utterances audiences must rely heavily on their knowledge of the conversational context. Because of this reliance on context there are many ways the recovery of content can go wrong. As a result, speakers are able to make assertions and yet deny responsibility for the proposition asserted, claiming that the audience made a mistake in resolving the context sensitivity. That is, speakers are able to maintain plausible deniability about what is said. Call this the 'deniability problem'. The aim of this paper is to explain why the deniability problem is problematic, and start to identify the range of utterances to which it applies.
Routledge Handbook of Social and Political Philosophy of Language (Khoo and Sterken eds.)), 2021
Synthese, 2019
This paper introduces and argues for the hypothesis that judgments of testimonial worth (that is,... more This paper introduces and argues for the hypothesis that judgments of testimonial worth (that is, judgments of the quality of character an agent displays when testifying)are central to our practice of normatively appraising speech. It is argued that judgments of testimonial worth are central both to the judgement that an agent has lied, and to the acceptance of testimony. The hypothesis that, in lying, an agent necessarily displays poor testimonial worth, is shown to resolve a new puzzle about lying, and the recalcitrant problem raised by the existence of bald faced lies, and selfless assertions (which seem to place conflicting pressures on a theory of lying). It is then shown that the notion of testimonial worth allows us to capture the distinction between taking a speaker at their word, and treating them as a mere indicator of the truth in a way other theories (such as those which emphasize interpersonal reasons of trust) fail to do.
A satisfactory theory of linguistic communication must explain how it is that, through the interp... more A satisfactory theory of linguistic communication must explain how it is that, through the interpersonal exchange of auditory, visual, and tactile stimuli, the communicative preconditions for the acquisition of testimonial knowledge regularly come to be satisfied. Without an account of knowledge-yielding communication this success condition for linguistic theorizing is left opaque, and we are left with an incomplete understanding of testimony, and communication more generally, as a source of knowledge. This paper argues that knowledge-yielding communication should be modelled on knowledge itself. It is argued that knowledge-yielding communication occurs iff interlocutors coordinate on truth values in a non-lucky and non-deviant way. This account is able to do significant explanatory work: it sheds light on the nature of referential communication, and it allows us to capture, in an informative way, the sense in which interlocutors must entertain similar propositions in order to communicate successfully.
There is an emerging skepticism about the existence of testimonial knowledge-how (Hawley (2010)2,... more There is an emerging skepticism about the existence of testimonial knowledge-how (Hawley (2010)2,
Poston (2016), Carter and Pritchard (2015a)). This is unsurprising since a number of influential
approaches to knowledge-how struggle to accommodate testimonial knowledge how. Nonetheless, this
scepticism is misguided. This paper establishes that there are cases of easy testimonial knowledge-how.
It is structured as follows: First, a case is presented in which an agent acquires knowledge-how simply
by accepting a speaker’s testimony. Second, it is argued that this knowledge-how is genuinely
testimonial. Next, Poston’s (2016) arguments against easy testimonial knowledge-how are considered
and rejected. The implications of the argument differ for intellectualists and anti-intellectualists about
knowledge-how. The intellectualist must reject widespread assumptions about the communicative
preconditions for the acquisition of testimonial knowledge. The Anti-intellectualist must find a way of
accommodating the dependence of knowledge-how on speaker reliability. It is not clear how this can
be done.
In this paper we argue that knowledge is characteristically safe true belief. We argue that an ad... more In this paper we argue that knowledge is characteristically safe true belief. We argue that an adequate approach to epistemic luck must not be indexed to methods of belief formation, but rather to explanations for belief. This shift is problematic for several prominent approaches to the theory of knowledge, including virtue reliabilism and proper functionalism (as normally conceived). The view that knowledge is characteristically safe true belief is better able to accommodate the shift in question.
Transmission views of testimony hold that the epistemic state of a speaker can, in some robust se... more Transmission views of testimony hold that the epistemic state of a speaker can, in some robust sense, be transmitted to their audience. That is, the speaker's knowledge or justification can become the audience's knowledge or justification via testimony. We argue that transmission views are incompatible with the hypothesis that one's epistemic state, together with one's practical circumstances (one's interests, stakes, ability to acquire new evidence etc.), determines what actions are rationally permissible for an agent. We argue that there are cases where, if the speaker's epistemic state were (in any robust sense) transmitted to the audience, then the audience would be warranted in acting in particular ways. Yet, the audience in these cases is not warranted in acting in the relevant ways, as their strength of justification does not come close to the speaker's. So transmission views of testimony are false.
The etiology of a perceptual belief can seemingly affect its epistemic status. There are cases in... more The etiology of a perceptual belief can seemingly affect its epistemic status. There are cases in which perceptual beliefs seem to be unjustified because the perceptual experiences on which they are based are caused, in part, by wishful thinking, or irrational prior beliefs. It has been argued that this is problematic for many internalist views in the epistemology of perception, especially those which postulate immediate perceptual justification. Such views are unable to account for the impact of an experience’s etiology on its justificational status (see Markie (2005, 2006, 2013), McGrath (2013), Siegel (2012, 2013), and Vahid (2014)). Our understanding of what we have been told can also be affected by, for example, wishful thinking or irrational background beliefs. I argue that testimonial beliefs based on such states of understanding can thus be rendered unjustified. This is problematic not only for internalist immediate justification views of testimony, but also for some externalist views, such as the form of proper functionalism endorsed by Burge (1993), and Graham (2010). The testimonial version of the argument from etiology, unlike the perceptual variant, does not rest on the controversial hypothesis that perception is cognitively penetrable. Furthermore, there is a stronger case for the claim that testimonial justification can be undermined by etiological effects since, I argue, testimonial beliefs can be based on the background mental states which affect our understanding of what is said, and our states of understanding are rationally assessable
Brian Loar [1976] observed that communicative success with singular terms requires more than corr... more Brian Loar [1976] observed that communicative success with singular terms requires more than correct referent assignment. For communicative success to be achieved the audience must assign the right referent in the right way. Loar, and others since, took this to motivate Fregean accounts of the semantics of singular terms. Ray Buchanan [2014] has recently responded, maintaining that although Loar is correct to claim that
communicative success with singular terms requires more than correct referent assignment, this is compatible with direct reference approaches, as long as one also endorses independently motivated Gricean view of communicative intentions. This paper argues that Buchanan's Gricean view cannot account for the full range of Loar cases. In doing so it aims to explicate the structure of Loar's cases and thus clarify the conditions a theory must meet in order to adequately meet Loar's challenge.
There has been much recent discussion of the harmful role prejudicial stereotypes play in our com... more There has been much recent discussion of the harmful role prejudicial stereotypes play in our communicative exchanges. For example, Miranda Fricker (2007) explores a type of injustice (testimonial injustice) which arises when the credibility judgements we make about speakers are informed by prejudicial stereotypes. One might, according to Fricker, wrong someone by assigning them a low credibility due to their race or gender. This discussion has produced many important insights. However, it has so far focused on the role stereotypes play in our epistemic assessments of communicative actions, rather than our interpretations of such actions (interpretations which underlay our epistemic assessments)1. Yet, the same prejudicial stereotypes that infect credibility judgements can also infect our interpretation. For example, imagine a black man wrongly suspected of rape in depression era Alabama. Suppose that he is overheard saying 'she seemed vulnerable' whilst describing his motivations for being at his accuser's home. Given the context and the prejudices of the time (with black men being seen as predatory toward white women), he would likely be misinterpreted as stating that he saw her as an easy target. Call this 'Interpretative Injustice'. This paper explores the sources of interpretative injustice, and considers some of the harms to which it gives rise. There are several harms caused by interpretative injustice. Firstly, it silences. It prevents certain groups from being able to efficiently communicate knowledge to other (perhaps more powerful) groups. Secondly, it results in speakers being held epistemically responsible for propositions they never intended to communicate. And thirdly, it contributes to the illusion that prejudicial low credibility judgements are epistemically justified. I close by arguing that if Miranda Fricker's strategy for treating testimonial injustice is implemented in absence of a treatment of interpretative injustice then we risk epistemically harming hearers with little benefit to speakers. Thus testimonial injustice and interpretative injustice are best treated in tandem.
Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
This paper discusses the following question: what epistemic relation must audiences bear to the c... more This paper discusses the following question: what epistemic relation must audiences bear to the contents of assertions in order to gain testimonial knowledge? There is a brief discussion of why this issue is of importance, followed by two counterexamples to the most intuitive answer: that in order for an audience to gain testimonial knowledge that p they must know that the speaker has asserted p. It is then suggested that the argument generalises and can be made to work on different sets of assumptions about the conditions for knowledge, and the conditions under which a proposition is asserted.
Philosophical Studies.
In the epistemology of testimony it is often assumed that audiences are able to reliably recover ... more In the epistemology of testimony it is often assumed that audiences are able to reliably recover asserted contents. In the philosophy of language this claim is contentious. This paper outlines one problem concerning the recovery of asserted contents (the 'recovery problem'), and argues that it prevents audiences from gaining testimonial knowledge in a range of cases (even when the speaker is both sincere and a reliable belief former). The recovery problem, in essence, is simply that due to the collective epistemic limitations of the speaker and audience speakers will, in certain cases, be insensitive to the ways in which they may be misinterpreted. As a result audiences' beliefs will often fail the safety and sensitivity conditions on knowledge. Once the problem has been outlined and distinguished from several related problems in the
philosophy of language and the epistemology of testimony, a series of responses are considered. The first response holds that audiences possess defeaters in recovery problem cases, and thus wouldn't form beliefs. The second response holds that the beliefs audiences form are very coarse grained, meaning they are not very vulnerable to failures of safety and sensitivity. The final response holds that the objects of speaker meaning are not propositional. All three responses are found to be
unsatisfactory.
Episteme.
In order to assign content to a wide range of context sensitive utterances audiences must rely he... more In order to assign content to a wide range of context sensitive utterances audiences must rely heavily on their knowledge of the conversational context. Because of this reliance on context there are many ways the recovery of content can go wrong. As a result, speakers are able to make assertions and yet deny responsibility for the proposition asserted, claiming that the audience made a mistake in resolving the context sensitivity. That is, speakers are able to maintain plausible deniability about what is said. Call this the 'deniability problem'. The aim of this paper is to explain why the deniability problem is problematic, and start to identify the range of utterances to which it applies.