Editing Testimony (section)

==Philosophy==
In [[philosophy]], testimony is a proposition conveyed by one entity (person or group) to another entity, whether through speech or writing or through facial expression, that is based on the entity's knowledge base.<ref>{{Citation|last=Audi|first=Robert|chapter=The Place of Testimony in the Fabric of Knowledge and Justification|date=2015-09-01|title=Rational Belief|pages=217–236|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190221843.003.0012|isbn=978-0-19-022184-3}}</ref> The proposition believed on the basis of a testimony is justified if conditions are met which assess, among other things, the speaker's reliability (whether her testimony is true often) and the hearer's possession of positive reasons (for instance, that the speaker is unbiased).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Lackey|first=Jennifer|date=1999|title=Testimonial Knowledge and Transmission|journal=The Philosophical Quarterly|volume=49|issue=197|pages=471–490|doi=10.1111/1467-9213.00154|jstor=2660497|issn=0031-8094}}</ref>

We can also rationally accept a claim on the basis of another person's testimony unless at least one of the following is found to be true:

# The claim is implausible;
# The person or the source in which the [[Cause of action|claim]] is quoted lacks [[credibility]];
# The claim goes beyond what the person could know from his or her own [[experience]] and competence.<ref>{{cite book|title=A practical study of Argument|edition=6th|author=Trudy Govier|orig-year=1985|year=2005|publisher=Wadsworth |isbn=9780534605254|author-link=Trudy Govier}} For the notion of testimony in general, and especially after David Hume, see the seminal research by C. A. J. Coady, Testimony: A Philosophical Study, Oxford 1992.</ref>