Abstract

There are many instruments of knowledge. The primary feature of an instrument of knowledge is that it be a trustworthy source of information about the world. But what is the source of the trustworthiness of instruments? What does it mean to say that an instrument is a trustworthy source of information that p? Is there, for example, an implicit reference to the trustworthiness of a person who receives the information that p? If the answer to this question is affirmative, then we should modify our first question to include the reference to a subject. Must we then allow that an instrument that is a trustworthy source of information that p for one person is not a trustworthy source of information that p for another? It seems that we must, for one person who understands an instrument may learn an important fact from it when another, who does not, learns nothing at all. But that consideration does not appear to reflect on the trustworthiness of the instrument but, rather, on the trustworthiness of the person who uses it. There are deep and more subtle questions pertaining to knowledge. A person who understands the instrument and a person who does not may both read the instrument and receive correct information that p from it, that is, they may both believe the information that p they receive, but only the person who understands the instrument knows that the information that p is correct. But how can a person receive correct information that p from a trustworthy instrument and not know that p? These are questions I shall attempt to answer. To answer them, we need some account of knowledge, and I proceed briefly with the necessary analysis.