Conversation and Joint Agency: Why Addressees Are Epistemically Special

The category of conversation is both broader and narrower than the category of testimony. It is broader because conversations involve more than testimony. It is narrower because not all testimony takes place within conversation. Nevertheless, the epistemologies of conversation and testimony overlap in interesting ways. On the account to be defended here, both conversation and testimony essentially involve joint agency and joint achievement, including epistemic joint agency and achievement. Moreover, it will be argued, appreciation of this point resolves an important dispute in the epistemology of testimony: whether addressees have a special epistemic standing over eavesdroppers and other overhearers of testimony. The claim defended here is that they do, and precisely in virtue of their participation in joint agency.