A Defence of Quasi-reductionism in the Epistemology of Testimony

Abstract

Two key intuitions regarding knowledge are explored: that knowledge is a kind of cognitive achievement and that knowledge excludes luck. It is claimed that a proper understanding of how these intuitions should inform our conception of knowledge leads to some surprising results, not just as regards the theory of knowledge more generally but also as regards the epistemology of testimonial knowledge. In particular, it is argued that this conception of knowledge motivates a new kind of proposal-quasi-reductionism-that can accommodate the motivations behind both reductionist and anti-reductionist accounts of the epistemology of testimonial knowledge. Here are two intuitions that many have regarding knowledge, and which inform much of our theorising about knowledge. The first-what I will call the achievement intuition-is that knowledge is a cognitive achievement of some sort. The second-what I will call the anti-luck intuition-is that knowledge is incompatible with luck. It is tempting to think that these intuitions are just two sides of the same coin, or at least that once the intuitions are suitably fleshed out then we will come to see that the one intuition is simply an entailment of the other. For example, one might hold that achievements by their nature exclude luck in the relevant way and thus that the anti-luck intuition is simply a consequence of the achievement intuition. As I will show, however, this natural way of thinking about these two intuitions is mistaken, and this has important ramifications not only for our understanding of knowledge but also for our understanding of specifically testimonial knowledge. Indeed, I will claim that the intuition that knowledge is a type of cognitive achievement, while containing (like all intuitions) an important truth, is