Abstract

Reductionism and Non-Reductionism are two camps in the literature on the epistemology of testimony, each with their own unique difficulties. Hybrid views have emerged to alleviate problems and preserve insights of each camp, but still suffer in various ways from the problems that motivated hybrid views in the first place. The hybrids I consider grant an uptake principle requiring epistemic agents to be able to cite positive reasons, other than the receipt of testimony, to be epistemically justified in their uptake. I group stronger and weaker versions under the heading PR-N-Always (positive reasons are always necessary) and argue this requirement for independent confirmation fails to strike a balance between the theoretical desiderata of being neither too gullible nor generally skeptical about everyday testimonial uptake. I propose instead the uptake principle PR-N-Unfriendly, which states that positive reasons are only necessary for justified uptake when the unfriendliness of the testimonial environment is over a threshold, where the friendliness of the environment is a ratio of perceived epistemic safety over subject stakes. Thus, my view contends that stakes of epistemic agents influence the testimonial environment and the epistemic warrant of uptake. Additionally, my hybrid theory of testimony doubles as a theory of epistemic trust. I argue there is an epistemic trust condition on testimony whereby for testimonial uptake to be warranted it must have been instantiated by epistemic trust which was warranted. My hybrid view is unique insofar as it draws on the notions of epistemic trust and subject stakes to generate explanatory and theoretical insights better than alternatives.