Epistemic Norms

Everything we do as humans is provisional. Because of time's eroding power, everything is revisable. There is a reason for the word 'decision' being a part of our language. Not accidentally, the term derives from the Latin for 'cut;' in other words, when we decide something, we make a volitional 'cut' of sorts in the sequence of events, or in the reasoning concerning such events, that precede the decision - a concrete reminder that human beings are not equipped with an algorithmic device that enables them to know with absolute certainty what course of action to pursue. Every decision, therefore, represents an acknowledgment that we have to act with incomplete, provisional knowledge, and by implication, that more information and more comprehension could lead to a different decision. This article further elaborates on the many facets of such 'provisional' knowledge, alluding to Nietzsche, Plato, Derrida, Kuhn and others, and concludes by relating (ignorance of) provisionality to the hubristic manifestation, since 2020, of the futile belief in the possibility of absolute knowledge (in a non-Hegelian sense) on the part of a global totalitarian cabal.

What is it for the verdict of a criminal trial to be just? It is widely agreed that a Guilty verdict is just only if the defendant did the relevant deed, and only if his rights were not violated in the process of apprehending, charging, and convicting him. I argue that more is required: he must be
found Guilty because he is guilty, and not solely for other reasons. The conviction must be based on the guilt. I argue that many rules of evidence and procedural rules designed to protect a defendant's rights also encourage fulfillment of this basing condition and that the condition helps to explain how an erroneous conviction involving no misconduct
can nevertheless be a moral wrong. I argue that the condition also gives an explanation (among others) of why a naked statistic is insufficient for a just conviction.

The paper examines a central argument in support of the thesis that mean- ing is essentially normative. The argument tries to derive meaning normativism from the fact that meaningful expressions necessarily have conditions of correct application: Since correctness is a normative notion, it is argued, statements of correctness condi- tions for an expression have direct normative consequences for the use of that expres- sion. We have labeled this the 'simple argument', and have argued that it fails. In this paper we elaborate on our objections to the argument in response to Daniel Whiting's recent attempt to rescue it. We argue, first, that statements of correctness conditions simply allow us to categorize the applications of an expression into two basic kinds (for instance, the true and the false) without this having any normative implications; and, second, that the normativist has not provided any reasons to think that some further, normative notion of semantic correctne...

When I say that I am better off today than I was two weeks ago, I make a claim about my well-being at particular points in time, or at timespans that are shorter than my life as a whole. Thus, I talk about temporal wellbeing. Ben Bramble (2018) argues that there is no such thing as temporal well-being. He says it's okay for us to keep talking that way, but we should keep in mind that welfare at a time-say a day, a week or a year-doesn't really exist. Bramble suggests that most normal people wouldn't assume the existence of temporal welfare; it's mainly philosophers who make this mistake. I am highly suspicious about this empirical statement, since I hear non-philosophers talk about temporal well-being quite frequently. Bramble doesn't present any support for his empirical claim, and I'm not going to discuss it any further here. Instead, I'm going to evaluate and reject his ontological claim that there is no such thing as temporal welfare. What, then, are Bramble's arguments against the existence of temporal welfare? Bramble presents the "normative significance argument," which I will dismiss in Section 2, and the "no credible theory argument," which I will reject in Section 3. I will conclude in Section 4 that Bramble's attempt at rejecting temporal welfare fails, and I will draw out some implications. 2 Bramble's Argument from Normative Significance Bramble's first of two arguments against the existence of temporal welfare can be sketched as follows.

The proof paradox results from conflicting intuitions concerning different types of fallible evidence in a court of law. We accept fallible individual evidence but reject fallible statistical evidence even when the conditional probability that the defendant is guilty given the evidence is the same, a seeming inconsistency. This paper defends a solution to the proof paradox, building on a sensitivity account of checking and settling a question. The proposed sensitivity account of legal proof not only requires sensitivity simpliciter but sensitivity of each relevant step of the proof procedure and/or sensitivity concerning all relevant alternatives. This account avoids problems that have been identified for other sensitivity views of legal proof. Moreover, it is argued that sensitivity, rather than safety, is the crucial modal condition for legal proof. It is, finally, shown that the provided account can fruitfully support very different existing views on the relationship between knowledge and legal proof.

In this article, I argue that faith's going beyond the evidence need not compromise faith's epistemic rationality. First, I explain how some of the recent literature on belief and credence points to a distinction between what I call B-evidence and C-evidence. Then, I apply this distinction to rational faith. I argue that if faith is more sensitive to B-evidence than to C-evidence, faith can go beyond the evidence and still be epistemically rational.

In this paper I explore Phyllis Rooney’s 2003 chapter, “Feminist Epistemology and Naturalized Epistemology: An Uneasy Alliance,” taking guidance from her critique of naturalized epistemology in pursuing my own analysis of another uneasy alliance: that between feminist epistemology and social epistemology. Investigating some of the background assumptions at work in prominent conceptions of social epistemology, I consider recent analyses of "epistemic bubbles" to ask how closely such analyses are aligned with ongoing research in feminist epistemology. I argue that critical feminist insights in political philosophy are called for here, especially those that focus on multiple politically salient relationships and also emphasize practices of personal transformation as inseparably bound up with broader movements for social transformation. Insofar as feminist epistemology continues to carry another world in its heart, I argue that it will continue to rest uneasily with any effort to align it with—let alone subsume it within—the still emerging field of social epistemology.

The aim of the paper is to state a version of epistemic expressivism regarding knowledge, and to suggest how this expressivism about knowledge explains the value of knowledge. The paper considers how an account of the value of knowledge based on expressivism about knowledge responds to the Meno Problem, the Swamping Problem, and a variety of other questions that pertains to the value of knowledge, and the role of knowlegde in our cognitive ecology.

In her recent book Evidence and Inquiry, Susan Haack suggests that "pure" foundationalism faces an insuperable difficulty because it rules out circular loops of justification. Loops in the branch of an evidence tree, Haack maintains, represent relations of mutual support among our beliefs. And since there are clearly cases of nonvicious mutual support, non-vicious circularity must be possible in our justificatory schemes. Since pure foundationalism rules these out, it must be fundamentally flawed as a theory of epistemic justification. The sort of mutual support Haack has in mind can be seen in a crossword puzzle. How reasonable one's confidence is that 4 across is correct depends, inter alia, on one's confidence that 2 down is correct. .. [H]ow reasonable one's confidence is that 2 down is correct in turn depends, intera alia, on how reasonable one's confidence is that 4 across is correct. 1

There are considerations – excuses – which reduce or eliminate responsibility for wrongdoing and so shield us from blame without casting doubt on the wrongfulness of our conduct. Many think that these excuses reflect the agent's incapacity to do the right thing in the face of duress, provocation, exhaustion etc. I shall suggest that the crucial thing is rather how much control one ought to exercise over one’s action, a requirement specified in a standard of culpability. This standard is distinct from the rules of conduct that determine what is right or wrong and it is often conventional. For example, social roles like that of soldier, engineer or parent have distinctive standards of culpability as well as rules of conduct associated with them and it is these standards which determine the range of excuses available to those who breach the rules of conduct.

According to a widely held norm of rationality, one should not change prior credences without new evidence. An important argument for this norm appeals to accuracy considerations, which says that changing priors doesn't maximize expected accuracy. This is because accuracy measures are strictly proper, and thus any probabilistically coherent person regards her own priors as uniquely maximizing expected accuracy compared with other priors. This paper attempts to resist the accuracy argument against changing priors. We argue that even if rational epistemic decisions maximize expected accuracy according to strictly proper accuracy measures, it can still be rational to change priors sometimes. The core idea of our argument is that changing priors can be rational if one wants to maximize not just one's current, short-term accuracy but also future, long-term accuracy. Our argument, if successful, shows that considering long-term accuracy has significant ramifications for the accuracy-first project.

There are considerations – excuses – which reduce or eliminate responsibility for wrongdoing and so shield us from blame without casting doubt on the wrongfulness of our conduct. Many think that these excuses reflect the agent's incapacity to do the right thing in the face of duress, provocation, exhaustion etc. I shall suggest that the crucial thing is rather how much control one ought to exercise over one’s action, a requirement specified in a standard of culpability. This standard is distinct from the rules of conduct that determine what is right or wrong and it is often conventional. For example, social roles like that of soldier, engineer or parent have distinctive standards of culpability as well as rules of conduct associated with them and it is these standards which determine the range of excuses available to those who breach the rules of conduct.

This innovative, well-structured series is for students who have already done an introductory course in philosophy. Each book introduces a core general subject in contemporary philosophy and offers students an accessible but substantial transition from introductory to higher-level college work in that subject. The series is accessible to non-specialists and each book clearly motivates and expounds the problems and positions introduced. An orientating chapter briefly introduces its topic and reminds readers of any crucial material they need to have retained from a typical introductory course. Considerable attention is given to explaining the central philosophical problems of a subject and the main competing solutions and arguments for those solutions. The primary aim is to educate students in the main problems, positions and arguments of contemporary philosophy rather than to convince students of a single position.

A further reply to Trent Dougherty, author of Evidentialism and its Discontents, on a range of issues regarding a proper understanding of epistemic normativity and doxastic responsibility. The relative importance of synchronic and diachronic concerns with epistemic agency is discussed, both with respect to epistemology 'proper,' as well as in connection with broader concerns with 'ethics of belief' and 'epistemology of disagreement.'

This paper defends the epistemological importance of 'diachronic' or crosstemporal evaluation of epistemic agents against an interesting dilemma posed for this view in Trent Dougherty's recent paper "Reducing Responsibility." This is primarily a debate between evidentialists and character epistemologists, and key issues of contention that the paper treats include the divergent functions of synchronic and diachronic (longitudinal) evaluations of agents and their beliefs, the nature and sources of epistemic normativity, and the advantages versus the costs of the evidentialists' reductionism about sources of epistemic normativity.

Foundherentism is a new and promising theory of epistemic justification that has not received its due in the secondary literature. Accordingly, in this paper, I will examine foundherentism with three principal concerns in mind. First, I explain the epistemic components of foundherentism. Second, I defend foundherentism against the charge of reliabilism. While third and finally, I argue that foundherentism needs to be supplemented with a virtuous component.

Merely saying that someone believes that p does not imply anything about whether the .belief is held consciously and/ or held with certainty. In this paper I will give some analysis of such subjective differences of belief and try to express them in terms of the combinations of familiar epistemic operators such as the knowledge operator K and the belief operator B. Proper formulation of such differences will in turn clarify the interconnection between consciousness and certainty qua properties of belief, and assure us that we do not have to take special care of these properties when we are concerned with formal theories of belief and knowledge.

In this new kind of entrée to contemporary epistemology, Kevin McCain presents fifty of the field's most important puzzles, paradoxes, and thought experiments. Assuming no familiarity with epistemology from the reader, McCain titles each case with a memorable name, describes the details of the case, explains the issue(s) to which the case is relevant, and assesses its significance. McCain also briefly reviews the key responses to the case that have been put forward, and provides a helpful list of suggested readings on the topic. Each entry is accessible, succinct, and self-contained. Epistemology: 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments is a fantastic learning tool as well as a handy resource for anyone interested in epistemological issues. Key Features: • Though concise overall, offers broad coverage of the key areas of epistemology. • Describes each imaginative case directly and in a memorable way, making the cases accessible and easy to remember. • Provides a list of Suggested Readings for each case, divided into General Overviews, Seminal Presentations, and Other Important Discussions.

In this analysis of Marcia Baron's account of excuses, I seek to do twothings. I try to draw out the nature of the distinction between forgiving and excusing. I also defend the distinction between excuses (like duress), and denials of responsibility (like insanity). Keywords Excuse AE Forgiveness AE Exemption AE Reasons AE Justification AE Responsibility The importance of Marcia Baron's contribution is that it looks in a highly sophisticated and broad-ranging way at excuses, by reviving Austin's approach in his justly famous paper, 'A Plea for Excuses' (Austin, 1979). In recent years, anxious to underline the legal payoffs their analysis is meant to have, many scholars have overlooked the wider significance of excusing in non-legal contexts. Following Austin, Baron considers a whole raft of excusatory practices (and their relationship with other largely non-legal practices such as forgiving) and her analysis is much the richer in consequence. In retracing Austin's steps, she seeks to look at the concepts of justification and excuse 'as they arise in everyday life'. That raises an initial question of methodology: is this a good place to start? 1 Language and moral judgement in 'ordinary life' For Baron, 'the concepts of justification and excuse should function in law at least roughly the way they do in everyday life'. 1 This claim is liable to lead one into

Reasoning about what is best for an agent to do in a particular situation is a challenging task. What makes it even more challenging in a dynamic environment is the existence of norms that aim to regulate a self-interested agent's behaviour. Practical reasoning is reasoning about what to do in a given situation, particularly in the presence of conflicts between the agent's practical attitude such as goals, plans and norms. In this paper we: (i) introduce a formal model for normative practical reasoning that allows an agent to plan for multiple and potentially conflicting goals and norms at the same time (ii) identify the best plan(s) for the agent to execute by means of argumentation schemes and critical questions (iii) justify the best plan(s) via an argumentation-based persuasion dialogue for grounded semantics.

This paper develops a novel account of the nature of disinformation that challenges several widely spread theoretical assumptions, such as that disinformation is a species of information, a species of misinformation, essentially false or misleading, essentially intended/aimed/having the function of generating false beliefs in/misleading hearers. The paper defends a view of disinformation as ignorance generating content: on this account, X is disinformation in a context C iff X is a content unit communicated at C that has a disposition to generate ignorance at C in normal conditions. I also offer a taxonomy of disinformation, and a view of what it is for a signal to constitute disinformation for a particular agent in a particular context. The account, if correct, carries high stakes upshots, both theoretically and practically: disinformation tracking will need to go well beyond mere fact checking.

Since the publication of Timothy Williamson’s Knowledge and its Limits, knowledge-first epistemology has become increasingly influential within epistemology. This paper discusses the viability of the knowledge-first program. The paper has two main parts. In the first part, I briefly present knowledge-first epistemology as well as several big picture reasons for concern about this program. While this considerations are pressing, I concede, however, that they are not conclusive. To determine the viability of knowledge-first epistemology will require philosophers to carefully evaluate the individual theses endorsed by knowledge-first epistemologists as well as to compare it with alternative packages of views. In the second part of the paper, I contribute to this evaluation by considering a specific thesis endorsed by many knowledge-first epistemologists – the knowledge norm of assertion. According to this norm, roughly speaking, one should assert that p only if one knows that p. I present and motivate this thesis. I then turn to a familiar concern with the norm: In many cases, it is intuitively appropriate for someone who has a strongly justified belief that p, but who doesn't know that p, to assert that p. Proponents of the knowledge norm of assertion typically explain away our judgments about such cases by arguing that the relevant assertion is improper but that the subject has an excuse and is therefore not blameworthy for making the assertion. I argue that that this response does not work. In many of the problem cases, it is not merely that the subject’s assertion is blameless. Rather, the subject positively ought to make the assertion. Appealing to an excuse cannot be used to adequately explain this fact. (Nor can we explain this fact by appealing to some other, quite different, consideration.) Finally, I conclude by briefly considering whether we should replace the knowledge norm of assertion with an alternative norm. I argue that the most plausible view is that there is no norm specifically tied to assertion.

Are there practical reasons for belief? The answer to this question has become a site of contention in analytic philosophy. On one side, there are the so-called “evidentialists” who hold that there are no practical reasons for belief. On the other, stand the “pragmatists” who hold that there are practical reasons for belief. A practical reason is defined as a reason for taking a course of action to accomplish an end. A practical reason for belief, therefore, is one in which a desire to accomplish an end provides a reason to hold a belief that something is the case. Typically, beliefs are thought of as supported by epistemic reasons. There is much debate about how exactly epistemic reasons should be defined. For the purposes of this paper, I will take an epistemic reason to be one that is determined by evidence  and uninfluenced by any desire to achieve an end. In this paper, I will offer an abductive argument in favor of a version of interactionist pragmatism by looking at several concrete cases. I will argue that an interactionist pragmatist position gives us the most intuitive reading of these cases. Along the way, I will contrast my position with those of Thomas Kelly and Stewart Cohen (who I take to be paradigmatic evidentialists) and that of Susanna Rinard (who I take to be a paradigmatic austere pragmatist). I will conclude by addressing an argument against pragmatism advanced by Selim Berker.

Since Descartes, the quest for the foundation in epistemology has suffered a series of setbacks. The consequence of the opposition against an epistemic foundation is epistemic skepticism. The irony of the skeptic position is that scepticism in all its hues is self-refuting. Although the establishment of a foundation is essential for coherent epistemology, the quest for epistemic foundation has suffered some oppositions because most attempts at establishing foundational epistemology have focused on intentional signs or productsbeliefs, concepts, propositions, etc. In this essay, I argue that in order to establish foundational epistemology, cognitional and intentionality analysis should take priority over conceptual analysis. Hence, instead of focusing on intentional signs or products, attention should be paid to intentional actsexperiencing, understanding and judgingof the knowing subject. In other words, I argue that paying adequate attention to human cognitional structure is vital in the defense of epistemic foundation and that the foundation is found in the structure of human knowing rather than in the products of human knowing. Focusing on cognitional analysis will help to account for both epistemic foundation and epistemic pluralism. The shift from conceptual to cognitional and intentionality analysis has implications for the articulation of the African perspective on knowledge since the human cognitional structure is the same, but contextual differences arise because of one's epistemic environment. Following the example of Bernard Lonergan, I argue that self-knowledge or self-affirmation of the knower, as he terms it, is the paradigmatic case for the establishment of epistemic foundation.

I feel immense gratitude to the nine philosophers who have taken the time to consider my ideas and share their reactions with me. I’ve learnt a great deal thinking through their objections. Addressing them adequately would require rewriting the book. All I can offer here is a few hints of where I might hope to find satisfactory answers to the questions that they raise.

Some externalists have recently argued that the unity of theoretical and practical reason implies that epistemic justification is factive. It is argued that arguments for the factivity of epistemic justification either (i) equate two actions that are in fact different, or (ii) make the unwarranted assumption that the by-relation transmits justification. The unity of reason does not imply that epistemic justification is factive.

After a period of inactivity, interest in explanationism as a thesis about the nature of epistemic justification has been renewed. Poston (Reason and explanation: a defense of explanatory coherentism, 2014) and McCain (Evidentialism and epistemic justification 2014; Erkenntnis 79:99-109, 2014) have both recently offered versions of explanationist evidentialism. In this paper, we pose two objections to explanationist evidentialism. First, explanationist evidentialism fails to state a sufficient condition for justification. Second, explanationist evidentialism implies a vicious regress.

We constantly assess each other's epistemic positions. We attempt to distinguish valuable from worthless information, reliable from unreliable informants, etc. Without established social practices of epistemic evaluations we could not navigate the flood of information we are exposed to every day in order to perform essential selections of valiable information. Yet the way we epistemically evaluate each other, ascribe or deny knowledge, who we deem knowledgeable or ignorant, and whom we refer to as an expert or a layman also crucially shape our epistemic milieu and the structure of our society. Epistemic asymmetry often results in and reflects social asymmetry; higher epistemic appraisal often increases social standing. Also, epistemic evaluations such as knowledge ascriptions are commonly performed against the background of certain epistemic and non-epistemic (e.g., practical) concerns and interests. Consequently, epistemic and non-epistemic factors interact in guiding our epistemic practice. To advance our understanding of how they do so is not only a worthwhile project from an epistemological point of view but can be expected to have repercussions on decision making, in debates within political and social theory as well as within ethics, and help us understand and evaluate how we act and even how to act. Moreover, it might shed light on the perennial question of how theoretical and practical rationality relate to one another. A much-discussed question in recent debates on knowledge ascriptions is the question of whether-and if so, how-epistemic standards (standards of how much it takes to count as knowing or as a knower) are influenced by, and/or contextually vary with, non-epistemic factors such as stakes, interests, aims, etc., and whether this in turn affects the truth-conditions of knowledge ascriptions or only their assertibility (or sayability) conditions. This has been a main point of contention between contextualists, invariantists and relativists (of various brands) concerning knowledge acsriptions (cf.,

In this paper, we argue that there are epistemic norms on evidence-gathering and consider consequences for how to understand epistemic normativity. Though the view that there are such norms seems intuitive, it has found surprisingly little defense. Rather, many philosophers have argued that norms on evidence-gathering can only be practical or moral. On a prominent evidentialist version of this position, epistemic norms only apply to responding to the evidence one already has. Here we challenge the orthodoxy. First, we argue that there is no significant normative difference between responding to evidence you have and gathering more evidence. Second, we argue that our practices of epistemically criticizing agents for their poor evidence-gathering indicate the existence of epistemic norms on evidence-gathering. Finally, we show that our thesis has important implications for recent debates about the relationship between epistemic norms and inquiry.

A distinctive feature of Juan Comesaña's epistemological account is the possibility of an agent possessing a false proposition as evidence. Comesaña argues that there are a number of theoretical virtues of his account once we accept this possibility, however, one might expect that there are particular vices of his account as well. Littlejohn and Dutant (2021) claim that a reflective agent who accepts Comesaña's view is rationally compelled to update their credences differently than unreflective agents, or else they will be guilty of a problematic kind of doublethink: evidence in general can be false, but my evidence is never false. I argue that parallel reasoning applies to any epistemological view that says that it is possible for a rational agent to be wrong about what their evidence is. When a rational agent reflectively accepts that they could be wrong about their evidence they are rationally compelled to update their credences differently than unreflective agents, or else they will be guilty of a problematic kind of doublethink: even though rational agents in general are wrong about their evidence, I'm never wrong about my evidence. Reflecting on a particular challenge to Comesaña's view ultimately reveals a general challenge to fallibilism.

A single argument template-the EPH template-can be used to generate versions of the best known and most challenging skeptical problems. In his brilliantly groundbreaking book Knowledge and Its Limits, Timothy Williamson presents a theory of knowledge and evidence which he clearly intends to provide a response to skepticism in its most important forms. After laying out EPH skepticism and reviewing possible ways of responding to it, I show how elements of Williamson's theory motivate a hitherto unexplored way of responding to EPH-generated skeptical arguments. Then I offer reasons to doubt the correctness of Williamson's response.

Tomás wants a candy, and so grabs the candy-looking thing Lucas is offering him and puts it in his mouth. Tomás has no reason to think that there is anything amiss with Lucas's offer, he thinks that Lucas is genuinely being generous and sharing his Halloween bounty with him. However, what Lucas gave Tomás was no candy, but a marble. Lucas himself is unaware of the fact that there is a candy-looking marble among the candy. Understandably, Tomás is disappointed-but was he irrational in acting as he did? Juan Comesaña's answer is: Obviously not. According to Comesaña, Tomás's action was rational because based on the rational belief that the candy-looking object Lucas was offering him was a candy. Tomás's belief was rational because based on evidence, which, in Comesaña's view, is constituted by those propositions that Tomás is basically justified in believing by his experiences. The declared aim of Comesaña's book is to vindicate Tomás's rationality. In order to do that, he does two main things: first, he argues against some of the main theories of evidence on the market, which, he claims, entail that Tomás's action was irrational. Second, he develops a novel account of the nature of evidence. Being Rational and Being Right is a fantastic book, very well argued, and extremely rich; it is hard to do it justice within the word limit restrictions of this article. What I would do next, then, is to focus on what I take to be the main two contributions of the book: (1) the critical contribution-arguing that competing accounts of evidence fail to account for the rationality of Tomas's action, and (2) the positive contribution-putting forth the novel view of evidence. Comesaña takes the main competing views on evidence on the market to be two fairly extreme internalist and, respectively, externalist accounts. According to the internalist view-what he dubs

Un fait Mooréen, selon l’expression de David Lewis, est « l’une des choses que nous savons mieux que toute prémisse d’une argumentation philosophique visant à établir le contraire. » La proposition « Nous savons beaucoup de choses » peut servir comme point fixe dans notre enquête, et nous devrions faire des ajustements là où cela est nécessaire afin de tenir ferme cet engagement fondamental. Pour le dire simplement, c’est autour de ce point fixe que nous devrions bâtir notre théorie.

* I want to thank everyone who had faith in me and supported me during the process of writing this thesis-most importantly my family and people from the Department of Philosophy of the University of Tartu. I would also like to express my gratitude to people from the Department of Philosophy of the University of Konstanz, above all prof. Wolfgang Spohn whose supervision and guidance helped me make a significant leap forward.

I argue that there is a wide variety of epistemic norms, distributed along two different spectra. One spectrum runs from the ideal to the practical and concerns the extent to which it is possible to follow the norm given our cognitive and epistemic limitations. The other spectrum runs from thin to thick and concerns the extent to which the norm concerns facts about our beliefs over and above the content of the belief. Many putative epistemic norms, such as truth and various conceptions of justification, can be found at different points on the spectra. There is no single obvious privileged point from which to say any of these norms is more fundamental than the others, though there may be some reason to doubt that some of the norms are intrinsically interesting. Epistemology is the study of our beliefs and whether they are good beliefs. This may be a bit tendentious; there are those who would argue that beliefs are not part of our mental furniture, and even relentless naturalists such as Quine who argue that belief is not normative at all. 1 But supposing we do take our mind to represent the world through beliefs, and supposing we do take there to be norms on those beliefs, we may ask 1 Stich (1983) is one person who has argued that our mind is not best described in terms of belief. Toward the end of this essay I will consider the views of Wiliamson (2000) that we should consider knowledge as a mental state that is more fundamental than any state of belief. The locus classicus for the naturalized nonnormative view of epistemology is Quine (1969). Zagzebski, Linda Trinkaus (1996). Virtues of the Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Recently attention has been paid to the epistemic requirements for proper assertion. The most popular account has been the knowledge account, that we can only properly assert what we know. Others have criticized the knowledge account and argued that the norm of assertion is truth, belief, or assertion of what it is reasonable to believe.

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In a recent paper, José Ángel Gascón extends the Frankfurtian notion of bullshit to the sphere of argumentation. On Frankfurt's view, the hallmark of bullshit is a lack of concern for the truth of an utterance on the part of the bullshitter. Similarly, Gascón argues, the hallmark of argumentative bullshit should be viewed as a lack of concern for whether the reasons that are adduced for a claim genuinely support that claim. Gascón deserves credit for drawing attention to the idea of argumentative bullshit. Nevertheless, we argue, his treatment leaves room for further refinement as he fails to clarify important points and misidentifies several features of argumentative bullshit. In particular, Gascón's account fails to accommodate non-Frankfurtian forms of argumentative bullshit. This paper aims to amend and extend his proposal and proposes a general account that can encompass both Frankfurtian and non-Frank-furtian forms of argumentative bullshit.

Epistemological Foundationalism is hardly a tenable candidate for the metaphysics of empirical knowledge. Its main alternative is what may be called the Coherence theory of epistemic justification-if one is able to make sense of a theory deserving such a name-and there are reasons for pessimism when one looks at the earlier attempts to clarify, formulate, and apply the alternatives to Foundationalism. However, I take it that my task here is merely to indicate where exactly the primary problem marring Nonfoundationalism might lie. I shall suggest that outside Foundationalism it is difficult, but not impossible, to make sense of the idea that there is any empirical evidence available to a rational epistemic subject and I shall illustrate the problem by means of an example. Nothing else will be attempted. We shall study an epistemological theory which is closely associated with the Coherence theory of truth in its classic idealistic form. The main issues to be dealt with can be illuminated if we focus on this theory: it dismisses exactly what is important in any explication of the necessary conditions of the existence of knowledge. What I mean is that whatever coherence methods we might develop and use in order to be able to make decisions to the effect that one's (empirical) beliefs are justified in certain circumstances or even that these beliefs are true, they must be grounded on some evidence; they must not be outrightly fictional. That there is suitable evidence available for epistemological purposes in the first place is possibly never proved to be true but merely stipulated to be true, presupposed as a methodological necessity or even dismissed as a possible problem (cf. [4], pp. 38-9). But certainly, coherence methods work only if they are applied to some sets of propositions which are iniriullypluusible as to their truth. It is easy to see that one cannot start one's truth-seeking from some pre-established truths, but neither can one start from merely fictional propositions; one therefore starts from potential truths ([7], pp. 50, 54; also [2]). One must be able to make important preliminary decisions here, but on what basis?

There are many things to ask about reasons. We can ask in some particular circumstances what reasons you have for going to the store or for believing that you're out of milk. But we can also ask, much more generally and abstractly, whether or not the conditions under which someone has a reason to / are determined that person's perspective or point of view. I take it that if you know, or are in a position to know, or are justified in believing, or believe that you're out of milk, these are all facts about your perspective. The fact that you're out of milk, on the other hand, is not a fact about your perspective. Given the relatively light work I'm going to ask the notion of a perspective to do, I take it that the idea is clear enough. It would be very odd if it turned out that practical and theoretical reasons differed from each other at this level of abstraction. Reasons to believe are one way, but reasons to act are another. I'm not sure it's impossible for practical and theoretical reasons to differ in this way. It's just that similarities between practical and theoretical reasons have a built-in explanation: they're both reasons. Purported differences between practical and theoretical reasons stand in need of explanation in a way that similarities don't. And the best explanation for such a difference would ultimately explain it in terms of the fact that these reasons are practical and those reasons are theoretical. What's impossible for me is to see how the difference between the theoretical and practical, whatever that difference may be, could result in or explain the difference between perspective-dependence and perspectiveindependence. We can ask questions at various levels of abstraction about the conditions under which it would be reasonable or rational for someone to /. Again, we can ask whether or not these conditions are determined by the person's perspective. And again, it would be odd, though THINGS THAT MAKE THINGS REASONABLE 335