Institutional Testimony
We receive a significant amount of information from others without our awareness.
Another quote from Testimony: A Philosophical Study.
Thirdly, there is what we might call institutional testimony. This is the sort of thing mentioned, but not distinguished in any way from the ordinary giving of testimony, by H.H. Price in connection with such matters as road signs, maps, the measurement markings on rulers, destination-markers on buses and trams, the author attribution on the title-page of a book, and so on . . . From these we get what we might call orientation information and we get it so naturally and pervasively that we tend to think of it under the heading of observation rather than testimony. That is, we seem to find out for ourselves by merely looking or looking plus acting in such cases; none the less a moment's reflection shows that the information in question is really provided by others and it is a tribute to the strength of our implicit trust in them that we hardly notice it.
Given the significant amount of information we receive—and implicitly trust—from others without our awareness, it is almost obscene to watch people prattle on obsessively about critical thinking and self-reliance—especially when they do so looking down on students.
