testimony in African epistemology revisited

South African Journal of Philosophy 40 (3):279-289 (2021)
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Abstract

This article addresses important epistemological issues raised by Barry Hallen and J. Olubi Sodipo’s pioneering philosophical fieldwork among Yoruba herbalists or masters of medicine (onisegun). More precisely, I shall primarily investigate, as well as object to, the unduly restrictive view they take on testimony in Yoruba epistemic practice. With this criticism as the starting point, but still based on the cases Hallen and Sodipo provide, I explore different ways in which an “oral culture” like Yoruba (as traditionally depicted) can rely on testimony as a source of justification without succumbing to the gullible and uncritical attitude towards tradition such societies have been charged with. To this purpose, I put to use relevant developments in analytic epistemology taking place after Hallen and Sodipo published their work.

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Mikael Janvid
Stockholm University

Citations of this work

African Epistemology.Paul Irikefe - forthcoming - The Blackwell Companion to Epistemology, Third Edition, Kurt Sylvan, Matthias Steup, Ernest Sosa and Jonathan Dancy (Eds.).
Decolonising philosophical analysis: In defence of “ethnolysis”.Babalola Joseph Balogun - 2023 - South African Journal of Philosophy 42 (2):144-159.

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References found in this work

Internalism and Externalism in the Epistemology of Testimony.Mikkel Gerken - 2011 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87 (3):532-557.
Fallibilism.Baron Reed - 2012 - Philosophy Compass 7 (9):585-596.
Defeater Goes External.Mikael Janvid - 2017 - Philosophia 45 (2):701-715.

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