Browse results
Abstract
Many social epistemologists suggest that testimonies may be considered a valid source of knowledge, no less than, for instance, direct observation. In this article, I will focus on the accounts of testimonial knowledge in classical kalām and Islamic law. I will present the arguments for why Islamic philosophers and jurists believe that testimonies convey knowledge. I will address the main disagreement in Islamic philosophy regarding the nature of testimonial knowledge, whether we can apply an internalist model of epistemic justification to testimonial knowledge or not. I will suggest that the best way to understand the traditional view on testimonial knowledge in Islamic philosophy and law is as “weak testimonial reliabilism”: testimonial knowledge typically results from the occurrence of certain external conditions (of which we might be unaware), even though they hold only insofar as our experience of this world tells us so, and may not hold in another possible world.
Abstract
At Phaedo 74b–c an important argument is given for the non–identity of perceptible equals and equality. The argument is usually understood as an application of Leibniz’s Law in which the predicate appears unequal is affirmed of perceptible equals but not equality. But this reading requires explaining why the plural locution the equals themselves is initially used for equality, and why the additional predicate appears as inequality is denied of it. In this paper, an account of the equality premise is given which allows for an initial grasp of equality as a plurality (suitably expressed by a plural locution), and introduces a generic predicate for appearance, appears its opposite (rightly denied of equality). The former ensures that the question of non–identity is not begged, while the latter secures a role for every element in the premise. So understood, the argument is both more robust and carefully formulated than is usually thought.
Abstract
In On the Trinity 15.12.21, Augustine appears to endorse the KK principle (that if one knows that