To Trust or not to Trust? Children's Social Epistemology
To Trust or not to Trust? Children's Social Epistemology
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DOI：
10.1007/s13164-010-0022-3
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发表时间：
2010-12-01
影响因子：
2
通讯作者：
Clement, Fabrice
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Clement, Fabrice
哲学家们一致认为，我们知识的一个重要部分是通过见证获得的。因此，社会认识论的主要目标之一就是规定听话人接受来源陈述的命题的条件。非还原论者认为证词可以被视为知识的先验来源，还原论者认为证词必须增加另一种证明，他们对儿童发展有着共同的概念。非还原论者认为，婴儿和儿童从根本上是容易上当受骗的，他们的上当受骗可以被视为证明证词合理的例子，而还原论者认为，这种上当受骗只是一个例外，应该加以考虑。本文的目的是回顾发展心理学的当代文献，为澄清这一哲学争论提供经验依据。从目前的研究中出现的是一个更详细的儿童对证词的态度。即使在很小的时候，儿童也不会盲目地接受来自证词的信息;他们的认知系统会自动筛选可疑或矛盾的信息。即使他们不能给出接受某一证词的积极理由，幼儿也不会轻信。这样的实证研究结果倾向于质疑还原论和非还原论之间的根本对立。
Philosophers agree that an important part of our knowledge is acquired via testimony. One of the main objectives of social epistemology is therefore to specify the conditions under which a hearer is justified in accepting a proposition stated by a source. Non-reductionists, who think that testimony could be considered as an a priori source of knowledge, as well as reductionists, who think that another type of justification has to be added to testimony, share a common conception about children development. Non-reductionists believe that infants and children are fundamentally gullible and their gullibility could be seen as an example for justifying testimony, while reductionists believe that this gullibility is merely an exception that should be taken into account. The objective of this paper is to review contemporary literature in developmental psychology providing empirical grounds likely to clarify this philosophical debate. What emerges from current research is a more elaborated vision of children's attitude toward testimony. Even at a very young age, children do not blindly swallow information coming from testimony; doubtful or contradictory information is automatically screened by their cognitive system. Even if they are unable to give positive reasons for the acceptance of a given testimony, young children are not gullible. Such empirical findings tend to call into question the radical opposition between reductionism and non-reductionism.