b. 1939
C.A.J. Coady (Cecil Anthony John Coady) is an Australian analytic philosopher and Emeritus Professor at the University of Melbourne, best known for his landmark study of testimony as a foundational epistemic source. His work spans social epistemology, political philosophy, and the ethics of violence and war.
Authored Testimony: A Philosophical Study (1992), the seminal analytic treatment of testimonial knowledge
Argued that testimony is a basic, irreducible source of epistemic justification rather than reducible to inference from perception or memory
Developed influential accounts of political violence, terrorism, and just war theory
Contributed to the ethics of lying, deception, and moral responsibility in collective contexts
Helped establish social epistemology as a rigorous subfield within analytic philosophy