Philosophy of testimony captured in the motto of the Royal Society – ‘Nullius in verba (no man's word)’. Crudely put, the question is: 'How can testimony give us knowledge when we have no reasons of our own?' Coady suggests that there are two approaches to this problem: and Hume is one of the few early philosophers to offer anything like a sustained account of testimony, this can be found in his "‘An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding’" in the section on miracles. The basic idea is that our justification for believing what people tell us comes from our experience of the ‘...constant and regular
Terra nullius location for another one. Chinese ships have been seen in the vicinity of the shoal. Observers of the photos have concluded that the ships lack dredging equipment and therefore represent no imminent threat of reclamation work. In 1840, Lieutenant William Hobson, following instructions of the British government, pronounced the southern island of New Zealand to be uninhabited by civilized peoples, which qualified the land to be "terra nullius", and therefore fit for the Crown's political occupation. Hobson's decision was also influenced by a small party of French settlers heading towards Akaroa on Banks Peninsula to settle in 1840. Joseph Trutch,