The ‘Do It Yourself’ Paradigm
An Inquiry into the Historical Roots of the Neglect of Testimony
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12619647 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Emmanuel Alloa (0000-0003-1919-5074, University of St.Gallen, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 333-360 |
| Publication date | 2017-11-09 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Early Science and Medicine (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1383-7427 • E-ISSN: 1573-3823 |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/15733823-00224p03 |
| OpenAlex | W2767875212 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
In contemporary social epistemology, the claim has been made that there is a traditional “neglect of testimonial knowledge,” and that in the history of epistemology, first-hand self-knowledge was invariably prioritised over secondary knowledge. While this paper acknowledges some truth in these statements, it challenges the given explanations: the mentioned neglect of testimonial knowledge is based not so much on a primacy of self-knowledge, but that of self-agency. This article retraces some crucial chapters of this ‘do-it-yourself’ paradigm: it considers the imperative of autopsia in early Greek epistemology, history and medicine, and the early modern refashioning of the privilege of self-generated and self-taught (autodidactic) knowledge. A new picture emerges of how the emphasis on (self-)agency progressively shifted towards a focus on the self as the source of ultimate knowledge
Agency (philosophy · Epistemology · Focus (optics · Neglect · Political science · Privilege (computing · Self-knowledge · Sociology · Testimonial · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Hermeneutics and Narrative Identity · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Renaissance and Early Modern Studies
| Highly cited | No |
|---|