Why believe what people say?

Leslie Stevenson

pp. 429-451

in: Synthese 94 (3), 1993.

Abstract

The basic alternatives seem to be either a Humean reductionist view that any particular assertion needs backing with inductive evidence for its reliability before it can retionally be believed, or a Reidian criterial view that testimony is intrinscially, though defeasibly, credible, in the absence of evidence against its reliability.