Trusting others. The epistemological authority of testimony”. This volume

ABSTRACT: I propose to consider the interpersonal character of testimony as a kind of social bond created by the mutual intention of sharing knowledge. The paper explores the social mechanism that supports this mutual intention starting from an initial situation of modelling the other’s epistemic perspective. Accepting testi-mony as a joint action creates epistemic duties and responsibilities and the eventual success can be consid-ered as a genuine achievement at the social level of epistemology. Trust is presented here as the symptom that both parties are involved in such a social bond