Rauf Oran

In its non-epistemological usage, testimony generally refers to formal legal statements. In epistemology, however, testimony is commonly treated as the act of one person telling something to another. Unlike other sources of knowledge, such as perception, reasoning, introspection, and memory, testimony is inherently intersubjective, requiring the existence of the Other. This intersubjective nature, however, does not receive sufficient attention by prevalent approaches. This paper proposes a novel Epistemic Role View (ERV) of testimony, grounded in Alfred Schütz’s phenomenological sociology and Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology as theoretical foundations, while remaining methodologically within analytic epistemology. ERV argues that because the Other is a constitutive aspect of testimony, analytic epistemology alone cannot fully capture its structure. Thus, ERV holds that testimony should serve as a point of convergence between analytic epistemology, phenomenological sociology, and ethnomethodology, offering a more comprehensive account than views that neglect the socially shared common sense that structures everyday interactions.

The rivalry between intuition and reasoning has long been a central topic in philosophy and cognitive science. In recent decades, Dual Process Theory (DPT) has formalised this distinction, differentiating between intuitive, automatic processes (System 1) and reflective, deliberate processes (System 2). While this duality has historical roots, Thomas Reid’s philosophy of common sense offers a prescient and systematic articulation of these ideas. Reid’s emphasis on common sense aligns with System 1 processes, setting his approach apart from his contemporaries who prioritised System 2’s analytical reasoning. This paper argues that Reid not only anticipates key aspects of DPT but also provides a normative framework for understanding the role of System 1 processes in knowledge acquisition, particularly in the context of testimony. By analysing Reid’s discussions of common sense philosophy, his ‘first principles,’ and social cognition, this study demonstrates how Reid’s ideas bridge descriptive cognitive science and normative epistemology, highlighting his significance as a precursor to contemporary DPT and offering valuable insights for current debates in these fields.

It is a widely held view that lying is defined in the traditional tripartite model as the conjunction of a statement, the false belief, and the intended deception. Much of the criticisms have been levelled at the third condition—intended deception—with contemporary counterexamples. My main criticism of the traditional and contemporary model of lying centres on that philosophers discard the social existence of the hearer. Schutz‘s phenomenological sociology gives a sheer inspiration to redefine the third condition by taking the hearer as a consciously social being into account. Lying should be an intersubjective action for the Other from the perspective of the liar; it might be, thus, reasonable to assume that there should be commonsense awareness between the speaker and the hearer. This paper, by focusing on this commonsenseness and its typifications, introduces a new approach to the third condition: S must intend that H be induced to believe that p, where p is false. In this regard, once you lie, by being subjected to the taken-for-granted commonsenseness in our daily life, you must try as hard as possible to succeed in deceiving the hearer by stating that p. You, as a typical person, tell a typical lie in typical contexts for typical Others. The focus of attention, therefore, is on the hearer and it is the key to understanding that mere intent to deceive is too broad and unpragmatic for a social human being who always intends to flee the negative consequences of the context in which she has to lie. Making the extension narrower necessitates a new term, anti-social bullshit generally being replied rhetorically as "how can you expect me to believe that?" comprises the excluded cases.