TRUST AND TESTIMONIAL ARROGANCE IN THE DIGITAL ERA

Snježana Prijić-Samaržija

doi:10.2298/FID250818005P

Authors

Snježana Prijić-Samaržija Full professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2298/FID250818005P

Keywords:

trust, testimonial agency, online communication, testimonial arrogance, epistemic responsibility, evidence

Abstract

The contemporary era of continuous online communication and informational availability on the Internet – on websites, social networks, forums, blogs, podcasts, and like – has transformed how we produce, distribute and disseminate knowledge. These communicational circumstances are often described as “hostile epistemic circumstances” due to widespread epistemic pollution with content that endeavours to bias beliefs instead of providing accurate information. As digital communication is both a situation of increased epistemic dependence and a source of heightened risk of being deceived or forming an unjustified belief, the evidential standards for ascribing trust accordingly become more challenging. The circumstances of digital communication thus require us to reconsider the traditional discussion on reductionism and anti-reductionism within the epistemology of testimony. The evidential
basis for ascribing trust in the digital era must include assessments of the absence of reasonable doubt about being misinformed and higherorder evidence about the reliability of our own credibility capacities in virtual communication. These epistemically responsible testimonial practices of gathering evidence are hampered by testimonial arrogance, an epistemically corruptive overconfidence in one’s own epistemic capacities encouraged and cultivated within online communication.

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