TESTIMONY, REASONING, AND RATIONALITY

 

Testimony, Reasoning, and rationality

According to the Oxford dictionary, the meaning of the testimony is “a formal written or spoken statement saying what you know to be true, usually in court”. The word “court” is also included in the definition of the testimony. Therefore it is obvious the word testimony is closely related to the court. In modern society, testimony is considered one of the main sources of belief. One person's testimony will create diffusion within the society. These testimonies will create the diffusion among the news, information, opinion, gossip, etc. Testimonies will help to preserve the heritage knowledge and beliefs, especially areas related to history, science, etc. Testimony is related to philosophy. Philosophy of the testimony considers the nature of the languages, knowledge’s confluence, and beliefs between the speaker and listeners are transferred through the testimonials. Testimony constitutes words, gestures, or utterances that convey beliefs. Testimony is depending on the grounding beliefs and knowledge of the person who is making the testimonies. Primarily concern of the testimony is related to epistemology. Epistemology interlocks the testimony with the philosophy. In the field of philosophy, testimony is defined as the intentional transfer of a belief from one person to another. The transfer can be verbal, written, or signaled in some way. 

Issues concerning the epistemology of testimony have become increasingly discussed in contemporary philosophy, with the debate widening out from epistemology to other fields such as philosophy of mind, action theory, and philosophy of language. We need to assess the credibility of the testimony, before taking any decision. Testimonial providing persons need to have the ability to recall the previous knowledge and incidents to become credible testimony. He should be able to recognize the source of reliable information, an event, or the phenomena.

Rationality implies the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons to believe, and of one's actions with one's reasons for action. Sometimes reasons are referred to as rationality. Reasons provide some sort of explanation. Some it would explain the cause for an action or event and justifies. Reasoning and rationality are interdisciplinary areas. Reasoning and rationality are frequently used as synonyms. But they are not. Something rational is not always reasonable. Reason provides an explanation, justification for an event or action, while rationality will depend upon the quality of the person, whether he thinks and makes logical and sensible decisions. Rationality is started from the reasons but the reasons are not started from rationality. The reasoning is generally used to improve knowledge and it will lead to better decisions. However, reasons might lead to distortion and lead to poor decisions. Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given the exceptional dependence of humans on communication and their vulnerability to misinformation. Lack of argumentative context will lead to poor performance of reasoning.