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The Epistemic Role of Trust

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 2631))

Abstract

It is commonly assumed that either testimony is credulously taken on trust or it is accepted with good reason and trust plays no role. I argue that this opposition is ill judged. Trust should not be aligned with credulity and its absence with reason. Rather, the acquisition of testimonial knowledge always presupposes trust: to trust a speaker is simply to treat them as a source of knowledge. The question of whether and what justifies this attitude of trust remains open.

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© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Faulkner, P. (2003). The Epistemic Role of Trust. In: Falcone, R., Barber, S., Korba, L., Singh, M. (eds) Trust, Reputation, and Security: Theories and Practice. TRUST 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2631. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36609-1_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36609-1_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-00988-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-36609-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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