Content internalism and testimonial knowledge

It is commonly assumed that content preservation is required for success in testimonial exchanges. Many content internalists, however, cannot endorse this assumption. They must claim instead that testimonial exchanges can often succeed when the content grasped by the hearer is not the content of the speaker’s testimony, p, but some merely similar content, p*. Goldberg (2007. Anti-Individualism: Mind and Language, Knowledge and Justification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) argues that this internalist approach is epistemically problematic: it cannot maintain certain features thought to be characteristic of testimonial exchanges. I argue that, contrary to appearances, the internalist’s account is just as epistemically respectable as the traditional ‘same content’ approach favoured by externalists.