Formulating reductionism about testimonial warrant and the challenge from childhood testimony

Synthese 195 (7):3013-3033 (2018)
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Abstract

The case of very young children is a test case for the plausibility of reductionism about testimonial warrant. Reductionism requires reductive reasons, reductively justified and actively deployed for testimonial justification. Though nascent language-users enjoy warranted testimony based beliefs, they do not meet these three reductionist demands. This paper clearly formulates reductionism and the infant/child objection. Two rejoinders are discussed: an influential conceptual argument from Jennifer Lackey’s paper “Testimony and the Infant/Child Objection” and the growing empirical evidence from developmental psychology on selective trust in children. Neither Lackey’s argument nor the empirical evidence vindicate reductionism.

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Peter Graham
University of California, Riverside

Citations of this work

Epistemological problems of testimony.Jonathan E. Adler - 2006 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Testimonial Knowledge: A Unified Account.Peter J. Graham - 2016 - Philosophical Issues 26 (1):172-186.
Testimonial liberalism and the balance of epistemic goals.Ross F. Patrizio - 2024 - Philosophical Studies 181 (11):2997-3015.

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References found in this work

Origins of Objectivity.Tyler Burge - 2010 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Testimony: a philosophical study.C. A. J. Coady - 1992 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Content preservation.Tyler Burge - 1993 - Philosophical Review 102 (4):457-488.

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