Abstract

In the past two decades a debate has raged concerning the epistemic status of testimony---i.e., the verbal acquisition of information---between neo-Humean reductivists, who argue that testimony only provides one with reason to believe if one is capable of mounting an argument supporting the sincerity and reliability of one's informant, and Reidian non-reductivists , who argue that testimony is a epistemically basic source of justification and knowledge---and, as such, an independent source of reasons for belief. After reviewing the history of the debate between Hume and Reid, I critically examine the attempts of contemporary neo-Humeans to revive Hume's reductivism with respect to the epistemic status of testimony. I then consider in greater depth the notion of epistemic status, and argue that neither foundationalist nor coherentist explications of such status require the rejection of epistemically basic status to testimony; thus, neither epistemological position may be used to force the issue in favor of reductivism. However, I suggest that non-reductivism has suffered from a lack of strong positive arguments in support of ceding to testimony epistemically basic status. After canvassing---and, ultimately, rejecting---contemporary attempts to provide such an argument, I then provide my own account, based on an explication of the norms governing assertional practice, of the epistemically basic status of testimony. Finally, I provide evidence from recent research in developmental psychology to suggest that the assertional norms account for which I argue better explains the stages of language acquisition in children than do other, rival accounts