Abstract

This chapter begins with a diagnosis of the problem afflicting both reductionism and non-reductionism: in a testimonial exchange, information is typically communicated between two central participants, the speaker and the hearer. Reductionists and non-reductionists alike have attempted to place all of the epistemic work on only one or the other of these participants and, in so doing, have ignored the positive epistemic contribution that needs to be made by the other. In contrast to both of these views, it is argued that we need to look toward a view of testimonial justification or warrant — which is called _dualism_ — that gives proper credence to its _dual_ nature by requiring both the truth-conduciveness of the speaker's testimony and the possession of appropriate positive reasons by the hearer. The remainder of this chapter is then devoted to explicating the specific conditions of dualism and defending them from various objections found in the literature on testimony.