Shoud you believe what you are told

Your parent or less reliably your Teacher tells you 'something' and asserts it is true

The question to ask is:

 Is testimony a basic source of justification, or can testimonial justification be reduced to a combination of other epistemic sources?

So much of what we know about the world, e.g., history, science, politics, one another, etc., comes from the testimony of others. But while testimony is clearly an indispensable source of knowledge, specifying exactly how it is that we are able to learn from a speaker’s say-so has proven to be a difficult task.

To this end, a lot (but certainly not all) of the interest in the epistemology of testimony has centered on the following questions:

1. Is testimony a basic source of justification, or can testimonial justification be reduced to a combination of other epistemic sources, e.g., perception, memory, and inference?
2. Can testimony generate knowledge, or can it merely transmit it?
3. When one acquires testimonial justification, is one’s belief justified by evidence, or by something else, e.g., non-evidential assurances?
4. Should testimonial justification be understood individualistically (in the sense that one’s testimonial justification depends entirely on factors having to do with one’s self), or should it be understood anti-individualistically (in the sense that one’s testimonial justification depends at least in part on factors having to do with the speaker)?
5. How should we understand the difference between expert and novice testimony?
6. Do groups testify? And if so, how can we learn from a group’s say-so?
7. What is testimony itself?