Examining Greco’s Solution to ‘The Garbage Problem’ inthe Epistemology of Testimony

Posing the issue of fallacies, Aristotle tried to keep safe the discursive reason-one of the sources of knowledge-from likely errors. Likewise, John Greco wants, in fact, to determine the reliable framework of testimony-another source of knowledge-by introducing the garbage problem. To solve the problem, he tries to consider the garbage problem as a generality problem. In this way, the relevant parameters-which are determined by the practical concerns/tasks that form the epistemic community -warrant reliability by narrowing the transmission channels. We will recognize some deficiencies in his view taking an analytical and critical approach and a comprehensive look at his epistemology of testimony in general. Therefore, we indicate that a better formulation of the problem can be offered. We cannot ignore the two following difficulties though the difficulty of letting luck into knowledge and the difficulty of a partly person-oriented solution being somehow resolvable. First, Greco does not explain how practical concerns lead us to the right results. Second, it is not that the practical tasks and the relevant parameters are always known.