Formulating reductionism about testimonial warrant and the challenge from childhood testimony

Peter J. Graham

pp. 3013-3033

in: Luca Moretti, Tommaso Piazza (eds), Defeaters in current epistemology, Synthese 195 (7), 2018.

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.