Assesing Testimony and Others Sources in Law: An Epistemological Approach

Abstract

In this paper we seek to address some platitudes surrounding the epistemic weight of testimony in legal domain by taking into account how epistemology explains the different but related phenomenon of forming beliefs based on the words of others. We propose a way of analysing the legal decision-maker in terms of a rational believer without committing ourselves with subjective readings of legal evidential assessments. In light of this, we analyse the pragmatic implications of legal platitudes and the conceptual possibility to hold them together, as well as the singularity of testimony in an institutional domain like the law.