Introduction !

to Philosophy

Week 5 Should You Believe What You Hear?

Rough transcript for Lecture 5: Should You Believe What You Hear? Video 1 of 5 Hi, my name is Allan Hazlett. This week we are going to be talking about testimony whether and in what circumstances you can believe what other people tell you. We are going to talk about the way people were talking about this during the Enlightenment. Historians use the term the Enlightenment to refer to a period in European intellectual history, roughly the year 1700 to the year 1800. What was distinctive of the Enlightenment? Some big ideas were on the rise reason, science, liberal democracy and others were losing traction monarchy, religion. But another fascinating aspect of the Enlightenment a certain ideal or virtue that contemporary philosophers call intellectual autonomy. I want to look at his this notion of intellectual autonomy plays out in some of the thinking of two big figures in the Scottish Enlightenment: David Hume and Thomas Reid. Hume lived most of his life in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was famous in his lifetime as a historian and essayist the leading man of letters writing in English. Hume is probably most well-known for his naturalistic philosophy if you look at all his philosophical work, he doesnt appeal to God or anything supernatural in giving philosophical explanations. Hume was one of the first philosophers to have something to say about almost all areas of philosopher but he doesnt appeal to anything supernatural in any of it. In his Treatise of Human Nature, he proposed to study human beings with the same experimental scientific method that we use to study the rest of nature. Hes also well-known for his spirited critiques of religion, although in 18th century Scotland he had to be careful about what he put in print. What I want to talk about is Humes essay on miracles, in Section Ten of his Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, first published in 1748. Humes conclusion in the section on miracles is that you should never believe that a miracle has occurred, on the basis of testimony. To understand why he drew this conclusion, we need to figure out: what did he mean by testimony, and what did he mean by a miracle? First: what is testimony? Philosophers use the term testimony to refer to any situation in which you believe something on the basis of what someone else asserts, either verbally or in writing.
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Week 5 Should You Believe What You Hear?

Hume and other philosophers writing about testimony are keen to point out: a lot of what we believe about the world is based on the testimony of other people. As Hume put it in the essay on miracles: there is no species of reasoning more common, more useful, and even necessary to human life, than that which is derived from the testimony of men. To get a feel for what Hume is talking about, think of some city that youve never visited. Youve got a lot of beliefs about that city: beliefs about who lives there, population size, what its like. All these beliefs are based on testimony: they are based on what youve read in newspapers about that city, or youve talked to someone who has been there, or youve read the Wikipedia article about it. Hume makes an important assumption about testimony in his essay on miracles. Hume assumes that you should only trust testimony when you have evidence that the testifier is likely to be right. Hume thinks that this assumption follows from what seems like an innocuous assumption, sometimes called evidentialism: A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence. This applies, Hume argues, when it comes to trusting someones testimony. So he assumes that you need evidence of someone reliability, before you can trust that person or, at least, you need evidence that people are generally reliable, before you can trust people in general. You can see why this evidentialist principle is true if you think about cases where someone testifies to something unusual. Hume says, the credit we give testimony admits of a diminution, greater or less, in proportion as the fact is more or less unusual. So imagine that you go to a caf and order a cup of coffee, and the waiter says that the coffee machine has broken. Youre likely to believe him. But now imagine that he says that aliens broke into the caf last night and stole all their coffee. Youre likely not to believe him, at least not as readily. Hes probably either deliberately saying something false (maybe hes joking, maybe hes lying) or hes sincere, but his beliefs are false (maybe hes having paranoid delusions).

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Introduction ! to Philosophy

Week 5 Should You Believe What You Hear?

So thats what Hume says about testimony. Second issue: what does Hume mean by a miracle? He gives us the following definition: A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature, i.e. something that has never happened in the common course of nature. Its important to keep this definition in mind. For Hume, a miracle is an event that is an exception to a previously exceptionless regularity. Its just something that has never happened before. For example: someone rising from the dead. This is something that has never happened before: this is a paradigm example for Hume of a miracle. With this definition of a miracle in place, and with Humes assumption about testimony, we can now start to see why Hume concludes that you should never believe that a miracle has occurred, on the basis of testimony. Heres how Hume articulates his argument in the essay on miracles: no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish. This is just another way of putting that assumption that you should only trust testimony when you have evidence that the testifier is likely to be right. It is just another way of putting that assumption that the more unusual the event testified to is, the less trusting you should be of the testimony. Think again of the case of the caf waiter. The reason that youd be inclined not to believe his story about the aliens is that its more likely that the caf waiter is wrong (for whatever reason) than that aliens really did steal his coffee. So now imagine that someone asserts that a miracle has occurred, e.g. that someone rose from the dead. What should you believe? Hume argues that you should treat this case like any other case, and ask: whats more likely, that this person is wrong (for whatever reason), or that someone really did rise from the dead? Or, as he puts it, whats more miraculous: that someone rose from the dead, or that this person is wrong (for whatever reason)? Well, recall Humes definition of a miracle: an exception to a previously exceptionless regularity. So weve always got a lot of evidence that the occurrence of the miracle is

very unlikely.
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Week 5 Should You Believe What You Hear?

Now we just need one more premise to see how Hume gets to his conclusion. Its a pretty innocuous assumption: people are often wrong when they testify. False testimony is very common. Its common because people are often wrong about things, and so their sincere testimony is mistaken. But its also common because people often have reason to assert falsehoods, as in when they are lying or joking. We can put all the steps of the argument together now. To sum all this up, again imagine someone asserts that someone rose from the dead. We have lots of evidence that its very unlikely that someone rose from the dead. And we dont have much evidence at all that the speaker is unlikely to be wrong. In fact, we know that people are often wrong in what they assert. It looks like this case is almost exactly like the case of the caf waiter: because what he asserts is very unlikely, we conclude that hes probably wrong, since its not all that unlikely that hes wrong. Therefore, Hume concludes, you shouldnt trust someones testimony, if what theyre claiming is that a miracle occurred.

Video 2 of 5 So in the last segment we talked about David Humes argument that you should never believe that a miracle has occurred, on the basis of testimony. Now you might challenge Humes argument in lots of different ways. You might challenge his definition of a miracle, for example. But I think one of the most interesting challenges to Humes argument is to challenge the assumption Hume makes about testimony: that you should only trust testimony when you have evidence that the testifier is likely to be right. And it was this assumption that Humes most important contemporary critic, Thomas Reid, took issue with. Reid, a minister in the Church of Scotland and a Professor at the Universities of Aberdeen and Glasgow, challenged Humes assumption in a book called Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, first published in 1764. The challenge comes in a section that Reid entitled Of the analogy between perception, and the credit we give human testimony. Reid argued that trusting testimony is analogous to trusting your senses. Believing something, on the basis of what someone else says is just like believing something on the basis of seeing it with your own eyes, so Reid thought. And heres the interesting thing: we dont only trust our senses when we have evidence that theyre likely to be right. This is something that Hume and Reid agreed on, since they both thought that we dont have any good evidence that our senses are likely to be right. Reid challenges Humes assumption that we should only
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Week 5 Should You Believe What You Hear?

trust testimony on the basis of evidence that the testifier is likely to be right. So if Reids argument is right, Humes assumption about testimony is false. So what is Reids argument? Hume and Reid both believed that there were innate principles that governed how we think and how we feel. Although they wouldnt have put it this way, they both believed that we are hardwired to think in certain ways. They both agreed, for example, that we are hardwired to trust our senses: we just cant help believing what we see with our own eyes. Reid, however, thought that we were also hardwired to trust other peoples testimony. He thought we had an innate principle of credulity, which he defined as: a disposition to confide in the veracity of others, and to believe what they tell us.

Video 3 of 5 We can now see that Hume and Reid had completely different pictures of how human testimony works. For Reid, we are innately hardwired to trust other peoples testimony. For Hume, we first have to get evidence that theyre likely to be right at least evidence that human beings in generally are likely to be right before we can trust other peoples testimony. So which of these two pictures is right? Which should we accept? Heres why Reid thought his picture was the right one. He asks us to think about small children, and the extent to which they trust the testimony of other people. And he points out that children are very much disposed to trust the testimony of other people theyll believe whatever you tell them! But this, Reid argues, is incompatible with Humes picture of testimony: [I]f credulity were the effect of reasoning and experience [as Hume claims], it must grow up and gather strength, in the same proportion as reason and experience do. But, if it is the gift of Nature, it will be strongest in children, and limited and restrained by experience; and the most superficial view of human life shews, that the last is really the case, and not the first. In other words, if Humes picture were right, the principle of credulity would be weakest in children, because theyd not yet have any experience of how likely (or
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Week 5 Should You Believe What You Hear?

unlikely) people are to asserts truths (or falsehoods). But in fact children are the most trusting, and adults the least trusting and the most sceptical. This is the opposite of what youd expect, if Humes picture were right. So rather than being based on experience, our trust in each others testimony is a gift of Nature. Now theres a bit of a wrinkle here, you might have noticed this. It looks like Reid is talking about what children do in fact believe, whereas Hume was talking about what people ought believe. But we can still appreciate Reids point here if we take him to be saying: Humes view implies that children should not trust the testimony of other people, until they have evidence that people are likely to assert the truth. But this seems wrong: theres nothing wrong with children trusting the testimony of other people, like their parents. Indeed, Reid claims, if we abided by Humes principles: If Hume were right, no proposition that is uttered in discourse would be believed[, and] such distrust and incredulity would deprive us of the greatest benefits of society, and place us in a worse condition than that of the savages. Scary stuff, if we were as sceptical and doubting as Hume suggests that we should be. So that, I think, is the big dispute between Hume and Reid on testimony: is trusting other people an innate principle (as Reid argues), or do we need evidence of the reliability of testimony before we trust it (as Hume argues)? But interestingly Hume and Reid also seem to disagree about the reliability of testimony on the extent to which testimony really is a reliable source of information, about how truthful people really are. In addition to the principle of credulity, Reid said that there was a principle of veracity, which he defined as: a propensity to speak the truth so as to convey our real sentiments. Lying, Reid goes on to say, is doing violence to our nature. For Reid, just as we are naturally trusting creatures, we are naturally honest creatures. Hume, however, would surely have challenged the idea that we are hardwired for honesty. In the essay on miracles, he gives numerous examples of the people testifying falsely:

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Week 5 Should You Believe What You Hear?

People often have motives to lie, as when they have an interest in what they affirm. There are advantages to starting an imposture among an ignorant people. Think here of the lies that politicians tell. Hume also says, Human beings are prone to believe the tales of travellers because human beings generally find the feelings of surprise and wonder agreeable. In Humes day, there were surprising stories arriving in Europe from all over the world a lot of them completely inaccurate. Third Hume says that human beings are prone to testify, regardless of whether they have good evidence for what theyre saying, because of [t]he pleasure of telling a piece of news so interesting, of propagating it, and of being the first reporters of it. This, Hume argued, is why gossip and rumor spread so quickly. What we can see is that Hume and Reid had very different ideas about how we relate, and about how we ought to relate, to each other, when it comes to forming beliefs and opinions. For Reid, we are innately disposed to honesty and credulity, such that the testimony of others is a natural and indispensable source of information. For Hume, the testimony of others is a highly problematic source of information, that is reliable in some cases, but useless in others leaving the individual on her own, when it comes to forming beliefs and opinions.

Video 4 of 5 So weve seen that David Hume and Thomas Reid give us very different pictures of the relationship between the individual and her society, when it comes to intellectual matters where by intellectual matters I just mean matters having to do with how we form beliefs and opinions about the world. I now want to talk about what this can tell us about the Enlightenment. To do that, Id like to look at an essay written by one of the most important figures in the Enlightenment, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. In 1784 Kant published an essay called On Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment? This essay was published right in the middle of the age of Enlightenment, so this may give us some insight into what was distinctive of that age.
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Week 5 Should You Believe What You Hear?

In answer to the question What is Enlightenment?, Kant wrote: Enlightenment is mans emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use ones own understanding without the guidance of another. [] The motto of the enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding. The Latin motto means Dare to be wise, more on that in a second. Kant is talking here about the extent to which we form beliefs or opinions on the basis of testimony. To believe something on the basis of testimony is to allow ones understanding to be guided by another person. And Kant clearly thinks that not being so guided, not basing beliefs on testimony, is in some sense a virtue hence the motto Think for yourself. Contemporary philosophers have come to call this virtue, if indeed it is a virtue, intellectual autonomy. Can we say more about whats involved in being intellectually autonomous? Kant implies that it requires not believing things on the basis of what other people and in particular religious and political authorities tell you to believe. (Interestingly in the same essay, Kant says you should obey what the authorities tell you to do his point is that you shouldnt obey what they tell you to think.) We can think of intellectual autonomy as epitomized by the case of someone who believes something unpopular: everyone else is telling her that what she believes is false, but she believes it anyway. And for fans of intellectual autonomy, this is at least sometimes a good thing its virtuous to be willing to believe whats unpopular, to go against conventional wisdom, to disagree with most other people. Whatever we conclude about David Humes approach to testimony, we can see that he was a fan of intellectual autonomy. Dont trust other peoples testimony, he says, unless you have evidence that they are likely to be right. Now its important to keep in mind that Hume doesnt think we should never believe something on the basis of what someone else asserts. That would be crazy youd have very few beliefs if you stuck to that rule. Hume thinks that we do often have enough to evidence to trust other peoples testimony we rely on it all the time, like when we ask someone for directions, or learn about history by reading first-hand accounts of historical events. But we should only trust others peoples testimony, on his view, when we ourselves have evidence that the person is likely to be right.

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Week 5 Should You Believe What You Hear?

Its OK to trust other people, on Humes view, but never OK to blindly trust other people. This is the sense in which, for Hume, the individual is left on her own, when it comes to forming her opinions. There is something undeniably individualistic about this picture of our intellectual lives, on which intellectual autonomy is an ideal or a virtue. And this picture contrasts sharply with the picture we get from Reid, on which we are inherently social creatures when it comes to our intellectual lives. Intellectual autonomy, Reid might say, is a violation of our human nature. For Reid, we are essentially social thinkers: our beliefs and opinions are naturally guided by other people. For Reid, it is not mature to be not guided by other people, it is natural and appropriate to be guided by other people. So we might say that for Reid, instead of intellectual autonomy the virtue is

intellectual solidarity. That is the ideal that Reid offers as against the individualism of
Kant and Humes enlightenment. In this respect, Reid anticipated some of the most important criticisms of the Enlightenment that arose in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Video 5 of 5 So whos got the right picture? Hume and Kant, with their ideal of intellectual autonomy? Or Reid, with his ideal of intellectual solidarity? This brings us to the question of the value of intellectual autonomy. Why think that it is a good thing to be intellectually autonomous? Lets look at two interesting things Kant and Hume might say in response to this question. The first is based on that Latin motto that Kant appeals to, Sapere aude, which means Dare to be wise, or a bit less literally, Dare to know. Kant is suggesting here that the person whose beliefs and opinions are based on testimony doesnt really have

knowledge. When Kant says Dare to know, he is saying dare to base your beliefs on
the basis of something other than testimony, because if your beliefs are based merely on testimony, they will not amount to knowledge. Now you might think this sounds completely wrong: surely you can know stuff on the basis of testimony: imagine and old friend calls on the phone and says that shes in town for the weekend. Surely you now know that shes in town. So there is a sense in which you can get knowledge from testimony.

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Week 5 Should You Believe What You Hear?

But there is a philosophical tradition, which goes back to Plato, that requires more for genuine or real knowledge. Genuine or real knowledge requires what Plato called the ability to give an account: the ability to explain, or to situate that knowledge in some broader body of information. That is something, you might think, that you cannot get from testimony. That kind of understanding, or as Kant might put it wisdom can only be gotten on your own: you cannot get it from someone else. Think of the difference here between someone whose belief about the Star Ferry in Hong Kong are only based on reading a Wikipedia article about the Star Ferry, as compared to someone who has lived in Hong Kong her whole life and taken the Star Ferry every day. There is something right about the idea that the first person doesnt really know about the Star Ferry, whereas the second person does. The difference, you might think, is down to the fact that the first person is basing her beliefs about the Star Ferry on testimony, whereas the second person isnt. So, if this is on the right track, then perhaps the value of intellectual autonomy comes from the fact that knowledge (or understanding, or wisdom) is only possible for the intellectually autonomous person. The second way to defend the value of intellectual autonomy is to think about the social or political implications of intellectual solidarity. The policy of trusting other peoples testimony, without evidence of their reliability, has conservative implications. Think of the extent to which our beliefs and opinions can be shaped by our communities, and in particular the communities that we grow up in. People tend to believe what the people around them believe, and they often inherit religious and political and moral views from previous generations. Our question about the value of intellectual autonomy can be seen as a question about the value of this tendency: are we fans of this tendency to trust other people (like Reid, with his views of the naturalness of trusting testimony), or are we sceptical of this tendency (like Hume)? How you answer this question depends on how we think about conservativism in intellectual matters. If you value progressive and innovative breaks with tradition, and hope that conventional wisdom will be overturned, you may side with Hume, and see intellectual autonomy as a virtue a social or political virtue. If you value the conservation of your communitys beliefs, and hope to avoid radical breaks with tradition, you may side with Reid,and see intellectual solidarity as a virtue. In any event, these are the questions that I think are at stake, when it comes to the question of the extent to which we should trust other peoples testimony.
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