Hearer-oriented etiological functionalism explains the epistemic norm of assertion by appeal to assertion’s characteristic epistemic function. On the version defended by Christoph Kelp and Mona Simion, assertion characteristically functions to generate testimonial knowledge in audiences, and an assertion is epistemically permissible when it is disposed to do so under normal conditions. The view is stronger than a crude actual-success condition, because it asks about normal functioning. The view is also more social than speaker-centered rule accounts, because it places the hearer at the center of evaluation. I argue that confidentiality practices create a deeper problem for the account than existing discussion has recognized. Some true assertions that would predictably give a hearer testimonial knowledge of their content are epistemically impermissible, because the hearer’s knowledge of that content would block the route to the knowledge the inquiry is organized to secure. The argument concerns a constitutive epistemic role. A promotional gain alone would not suffice. Finite inquirers sometimes need managed ignorance in order to know what they often set out to know. Science makes the pattern vivid, and ordinary evaluative practices display the same pattern.
