Output details

Knowledge on Trust

The book develops and extends three of the four outputs selected for the 2008 RAE. "On Telling and Trusting" and "What is Wrong with Lying?" - outputs 1 and 2 of 4 - both employ an analysis (of trust) and an idea (that trust gives a reason for belief) that figure prominently in chapter 6 of the book. "On the Rationality of Our Response to Testimony" - output 3 of 4 - offers an argument (in defense of reductive views of testimony) that is developed in chapter 2 of the book. However, chapters 2 and 6 go substantially beyond these papers in their formulations, and chapters 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 have no ancestors in previous papers.

A double-weighting request is made for this output because even though it develops and extends earlier papers - see additional information below for a more detailed specification of how - it represents a great deal more research than a single paper. It engages with existing positions in the epistemology of testimony and presents a sustained and complex argument for an original position. This is a substantial and original piece of research, which occupied the bulk of my research time in this REF period, and whose scope and ambition is far beyond that of an article.