THEORIA
REVISTA DE TEORÍA, HISTORIA Y FUNDAMENTOS DE LA CIENCIA

An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science

Editor: Andoni Ibarra

Volume 23/1, Number 61, January 2008, pp. 1-128       ISSN 0495-4548

SUMMARY:       

MONOGRAPHIC SECTION: Testimony and Trust in Contemporary Epistemology.

Guest Editors: Fernando BRONCANO and Jesús VEGA ENCABO

Fernando BRONCANO (Universidad Carlos III, Madrid) and Jesús VEGA ENCABO (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), "Introduction", Theoría, 2008, Vol. 23/1, N° 61,5-9.

Fernando BRONCANO (Universidad Carlos III, Madrid), "Trusting others. The epistemological authority of testimony", Theoria, 2008, Vol. 23/1, N° 61, 11-22.
Testimony is considerad as an epistemic speech act consttained by normative conditions that derive from the social status of this act as a joint action. Both parties accept duties and responsibilities created by this status. This normative status is epistemic as the aim of the joint intention is to share knowledge.
Keywords: testimony, social epistemology, joint actions, trust.

Paul FAULKNER (University of Sheffield), "Cooperation and trust in conversational exchanges", Theoria, 2008, Vol. 23/1, N° 61, 23-34.
A conversation is more than a disconnected series of remarks because in the basic case we trust our interlocutor in the sense that we presume that their conversational contribution is a response to our conversational needs.
Keywords: trust, cooperation, Grice, knowledge, reasons, belief.

Gloria ORIGGI (Institut Nicod, CNRS, Paris), "Trust, authority and epistemic re-
sponsibility", Theoria, 2008, Vol. 23/1, N° 61, 35-44.
The paper discusses various examples of interaction between the epistemic and the pragmatic dimensión of communication. The underlying idea is that epistemic standard of truthfulness vary through contexts of communication and the capacity to deal with this dynamics is an aspect of our epistemic responsibility.
Keywords: trust, testimonial knowledge, communication, pragmatics of trust, epistemic responsibility.

Jesús VEGA ENCABO (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), "Epistemic merit, auto-
nomy, and testimony", Theoria, 2008, Vol. 23/1, N° 61, 45-56.
This paper argües for the idea that in testimony both the informer and the hearer epis-temically contribute to the acquisition of knowledge. It introduces a distinction between self-sufficient epistemic agents and autonomous agents. The first ideal is rejected and it is argued for autonomy as an ideal preserved in a testimonial situation.
Keywords: merit, testimony, epistemic autonomy, virtue epistemology, epistemic perspective.

Paula OLMOS (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid), "Situated practices of testimony. A rhetorical approach", Theoria, 2008, Vol. 23/1, N° 61 57-68.
The paper offers an alternative approach to the issue of testimony based on the recovery and revaluation of some traits present in the rhetorical framing of the discursive practice of proving by and appealing to testimony, including the dynamical consideration of interrelated settings and ongoing practices and a more careful attention to their social and institutional context.
Keywords: argumentación, argument from authority, epistemology, pragmatics, rhetoric, testimony.

FORUM on Miranda FRICKER's Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing

Miranda FRICKER (University of London), "Précis", Theoria, 2008, Vol. 23/1, N° 61,69-71.
This paper summarizes key themes from Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (OUP, 2007); and it gives replies to commentators.
Keywords: credibility, testimony, social understanding, prejudice, epistemic injustice, virtue, virtue epistemology.

Francisco Javier GIL (Universidad de Oviedo), "Perfectioning trust, reinforcing testimony", Theoria, 2008, Vol. 23/1, N° 61, 73-76.
The paper rise doubts about Miranda Fricker's characterization of testimonial injustice in terms of a déficit in the attribution of credibility caused by an identity-prejudice that connects it up systematically with other kinds of injustice. The paper also asks about a Kantian understanding of the correctiva nature of testimonial justice.
Keywords: epistemic injustice, Miranda Fricker, Kant, testimony, trust.

Jesús ZAMORA BONILLA (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid), "Pure intuition: Miranda Fricker on the economy of prejudice", Theoria, 2008, Vol. 23/1, N° 61, 77-80.
Two aspects of Miranda Fricker's book are criticised: the implicit assumption that ethi-cal theory can solve fundamental problems in epistemology, and the excessive reliance on testimony as a fundamental source of knowledge.
Keywords: epistemic virtue, prejudice, testimony, argumentation.

Miranda FRICKER (University of London), "Replies to critics", Theoria, 2008, Vol. 23/1, N° 61, 81-86.

ARTÍCULOS / ARTICLES

Valeriano IRANZO (Universitat de Valencia), "Bayesianism and inference to the best explanation", Theoria, 2008, Vol. 23/1, N° 61, 89-106.
The paper explores the possibility of "Bayesianizing" inference to the best explanation (IBE). Two different interpretations of prior probabilities are compared (IBE-Bayesianism and Frequentist-Bayesianism). After giving some specific content to Freq-Bay, I argue that it fits better with some aspects of scientific practice. I conclude then that the explanationist approach to Bayes's Theorem afforded by IBE-Bay is seriously flawed.
Keywords: Bayesian epistemology, inference to the best explanation, confirmation, frequentism, prior probability, explanatory value.

Juan Manuel SÁNCHEZ ARTEAGA (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid), "La biología humana como ideología: el racismo biológico y las estructuras simbólicas de dominación racial a fines del siglo XIX" (Human biology as ideology: Biological racism and symbolic structures for racial domination in the last part of the XIXth. century), Theoria, 2008, Vol. 23/1, N° 61, 107-124.
A través de un repaso a las teorías científicas más ortodoxas (a fines del siglo XIX) acerca de la diversidad biológica en nuestra especie —tal y como aparecen en la obra de autores como Darwin, Broca, Huxley, Haeckel, Vogt, etc.— el presente artículo propone la existencia de una conexión ideológica entre las teorías evolutivas sobre las así llamadas "razas humanas" (especialmente los modelos darwinistas sobre evolución humana), y las jerarquías raciales que, a su vez, establecía la lógica económica del imperialismo occidental.
Descriptores: racismo científico, evolución humana, darwinismo, antropología física, siglo XIX.