Knowledge about skepticism: a response to Doan Q. C. Vu Duc, Quentin Hiernaux and Olivier Sartenaer

Duc et al. argue that I am committed to “radical skepticism” about the possibility of novices acquiring knowledge on the basis of expert testimony. I show that this is a misreading of the paper they are commenting on. I am skeptical neither about the possibility of acquiring knowledge from expert testimony nor about the rational justification of that knowledge. I am skeptical, rather, that applying the criteria on the basis of which we appropriately choose between experts grounds that knowledge in the way that Alvin Goldman, and those who have followed him, want. These criteria are ways of extending our trust, not circumventing it.