In this excellent book, Christoph Kelp and Mona Simion defend an etiological-functionalist account of the normativity of assertion. Specifically, the etiological function of assertion is to generate knowledge in hearers. Kelp and Simion argue that this functionalist thesis has two important implications: a) that epistemically good assertions are those that are disposed to generate knowledge in hearers, and b) that epistemically permissible assertions are those that conform to the Knowledge Rule of Assertion (KRA). One important feature of the book is a sophisticated defense of KRA by means of an etiological-functionalist framework.
The book is lucidly written, rigorously argued, informed, and original. All of this is as expected, coming from two authors who have already made significant contributions to the topic. Indeed, the book draws on both their single-authored and coauthored work on related issues, including the normativity of assertion, the epistemology of testimony, epistemic norms, and epistemic normativity. The...
