## 1. Are there epistemic facts? Metaepistemological realism vs. anti-realism



One dividing line in metaepistemology is broadly analogous to a
familiar dividing line in metaethics, between (roughly)
*realist* and *anti-realist* positions. This section
will discuss several prominent realist and anti-realist positions in
metaepistemology and, in some cases, we will note connections between
these positions and their metaethical counterparts (see also entry on
 metaethics).



First, however, it will be useful to clarify how we are using these
terms. It is contentious what, for a given subject matter a,
realism, *vis-a-vis* a amounts to. One generally
accepted idea is that an a-realist takes a-claims to be
*validated* by the way things stand in the world (Blackburn
1993). In the epistemic case of interest here, realism implies that
attributions of, e.g., knowledge, justification, epistemic virtue and
epistemic vice are validated by how things stand in the world. Compare
here with the *metaethical realist* (e.g., Shafer-Landau 2003)
who takes attributions of rightness, goodness, moral virtue and vice
to be so validated. Likewise, just as the metaethical anti-realist
denies that moral claims have this kind of status, the
*metaepistemological anti-realist* will deny the same
*vis-a-vis* epistemic claims, in at least one of two
ways: either (i) by denying that there are any epistemic facts
(metaepistemological non-cognitivists and error-theorists fall into
this category of anti-realism). Or, alternatively, metaepistemological
anti-realists might (ii) grant that there are epistemic facts while
denying that the obtaining of these facts is *independent* of
anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and
so on. Here we may locate metaepistemological idealism,
constructivism, subjectivism, and relativism (for discussion, see
Miller 2002 [2019]; Cuneo 2007; Carter 2016; Baghramian & Carter
2015 [2021]).



In what follows, we'll look first at metaepistemological
realism, and then at a few versions of metaepistemological
anti-realism.


### 1.1 Metaepistemological realism



Metaepistemological realists *at the very least* accept that
there are epistemic facts, and that these facts are not
(non-trivially) mind-dependent. Thus, this means that, for the
realist, when you say that you *know* that Paris is the capital
of France, there is a *fact* of the matter--either you do
or you do not know this--and further, the obtaining of this fact
is *not* simply down to, e.g., cultural consensus, approval, or
what you *think* about what you know. Thus, for the realist,
when two people disagree about who knows what, this disagreement is
genuine; both parties cannot be right (cf., Kolbel 2004;
MacFarlane 2011); likewise, for the realist, there will be cases where
you believe you know something, and you are mistaken.



The above kind of minimal metaepistemological realism is plausibly the
default *presupposition* of many first-order debates in
mainstream epistemology, even though--as a metaepistemological
position--it is not often explicitly argued for (Carter 2016: Ch.
1). There are, however, some notable exceptions in the recent
literature, due to Paul Boghossian (2006) and Terence Cuneo (2007).
Both Boghossian and Cuneo share a common kind of
"pro-realist" argumentative strategy, which is to argue
that metaepistemological anti-realism, in one or more of its forms, is
implausible or incoherent, and thus, that a realist position holds up
better by contrast.



Boghossian (2006), challenges specifically those strands of
metaepistemological anti-realism that maintain that epistemic facts
are (strongly) mind-dependent. His critical target is a doctrine he
terms "Equal Validity", which Boghossian identifies with
the kind of "postmodern relativism" about knowledge that
he suggests is now orthodoxy in "vast stretches of the
humanities and social sciences" (2006: 2).



> 
> 
> *Equal Validity*: There are many radically different, yet
> "equally valid" ways of knowing the world, with science
> being just one of them. (Boghossian 2006: 2)
> 
> 
> 



Boghossian challenges Equal Validity under two guises:
*constructivism* and *relativism* (see
 SS1.2),
 in the service of defending a realist position he terms
"absolutism". Importantly, though, the version of
metaepistemological realism that Boghossian contrasts (under the
description of "absolutism") favorably to constructivist
and relativist anti-realism goes beyond the kind of minimal realist
position described above. Boghossian's absolutism
involves--additionally--a package of theses about the status
of *epistemic principles*, which he defines as "general
normative propositions" that specify conditions under which a
particular type of belief is justified (Boghossian 2006: 85; 2001: 38
fn. 3). Included in this package are the theses that (i) there is an
objective fact of the matter as to which epistemic principles are
true; (ii) there is a uniquely correct set of epistemic principles,
which all rational agents are bound by; and that (iii) if there are
objective facts about which epistemic principles (and which particular
epistemic judgments) are true, these facts should be
*knowable*: it ought to be possible to arrive at justified
beliefs about them (2006: 77).



While a critic might resist the rationale for accepting
Boghossian's absolutist position by challenging his critical
assessments of the viability of the constructivist and relativist
positions that he associates with "Equal Validity" (see,
e.g., MacFarlane 2008a; Wright 2008; Sosa 2008; Carter 2016: Ch. 6;
Kusch 2009), a separate space for critical engagement concerns
Boghossian's characterization of the metaepistemological option
space. For example, even if Equal Validity is false,
Boghossian's strong version of absolutism described should be
accepted only if it also compares favorably with forms of anti-realism
that (unlike constructivism and relativism) reject epistemic facts
wholesale (e.g., metaepistemic error theory--see
 SS1.2),
 as well as, importantly, with *weaker* forms of
metaepistemological realism that do not sign up to Boghossian's
full package. On this latter point, for example, it has been argued
that one can agree with Boghossian in rejecting constructivism and
relativism (as well as other forms of anti-realism) while subscribing
to a version of metaepistemological realism that maintains that
epistemic principles are objective and knowable, but relative to
worlds, and thus, that there is not a unique set of epistemic
principles applicable across all worlds (for discussion of this kind
of view, see Carter & McKenna 2021).



Whereas Boghossian's wider objective in defending (a version of)
metaepistemological realism was to press back against
"postmodern" thinking in the academy, Terence
Cuneo's (2007) defense of metaepistemological realism also comes
in the service of a further objective, in Cuneo's case, a
defense of metaethical realism. Cuneo's master argument is as
follows:


1. If moral facts do not exist, then epistemic facts do not
exist.
2. **Epistemic facts exist.**
3. So, moral facts exist.
4. If moral facts exist, then moral realism is true.
5. So, moral realism is true (Cuneo 2007: 6)



Because Premise (2) is his central focus, Cuneo's case for
metaethical realism largely boils down to a sustained defense of
metaepistemological realism (see also here Cuneo & Shafer-Landau
2014). Also, like Boghossian, Cuneo's case in favor of
metaepistemological realism proceeds as a negative case against
various forms of metaepistemological anti-realism, including
especially error theory and expressivism (see
 SS1.2
 for discussion of these views).



Of special interest to Cuneo's own version of
metaepistemological realism is the sense in which it--like
Boghossian's "absolutism"--goes beyond a
"minimal" realist's commitment to countenancing
mind-independent epistemic facts. For Cuneo, metaepistemological
realism of the sort he takes to be "paradigmatic" (and
analogous to metaethical realism) will also accept the following:



> 
> 
> [Epistemic facts] are prescriptive ... they are, imply, or
> indicate reasons for properly situated individuals to behave in
> certain ways ... regardless of whether these agents care about
> conducting their behaviour in a rational way, whether they belong to a
> social group of a certain kind, or whether they have entered into
> social agreements with others. (Cuneo 2007: 59)
> 
> 
> 



As Cuneo sees it, then, when the realist accepts that there is an
epistemic fact consisting in your having an (epistemic) reason to
believe that *p* for which evidence is compelling, then
*that you have this epistemic reason* is "not contingent
on whether [you] care about believing what is true" (2007: 59).
This qualification Cuneo takes to be important for distinguishing
between the particular kind of epistemic facts countenanced by the
realist as such, from epistemic facts capturing mere
*hypothetical* epistemic imperatives--e.g., "If I
want to believe something true about *p*, then I have a reason
to believe what the evidence says about *p*"--which
epistemic error theorists (e.g., Olson 2011, 2014) can accept under
the banner of metaepistemological anti-realism.



Whereas Cuneo's and Boghossian's respective cases for
metaepistemological realism are negative in that they rest principally
on challenging the credentials of various forms of anti-realism, at
least two other strategies do not. One such envisioned metanormative
strategy would be to (rather than as Cuneo has done) aim to establish
metaethical realism on independent grounds and then argue from here to
meta*epistemological* realism via a parity premise (for an
instance of such a strategy, see Kyriacou 2018). Fourthly, we can
envision a kind of pragmatic justification of metaepistemological
realism, as a precondition for doing first-order epistemology. For
example, as such a line of thought goes, paradigmatic first-order
debates in epistemology--take for instance the decades-long
debate between Richard Feldman and Alvin Goldman about whether
epistemic internalism or externalism is correct in
epistemology--tend to make sense only against a background
presumption of metaepistemological realism. If this is right, then, as
Carter (2016: Ch. 1, Ch. 9) has suggested, the *presumption* of
metaepistemological realism is plausibly essential to pursuing typical
projects that are characteristic of mainstream analytic
epistemology.


### 1.2 Metaepistemological anti-realism



There are two central types of metaepistemological anti-realist, those
that reject epistemic facts and those that accept epistemic facts but
reject that the obtaining of these facts is mind-independent in the
way the realist insists. Explicit defenses of anti-realist positions
in metaepistemology are few and far between--at least, compared
with explicit defense of versions of metaethical
anti-realism--and rely typically on rationales drawn from
metanormative theory and philosophy of language more so than
epistemology.



Within the first broad type of anti-realism--which parts with
realism by denying the existence of epistemic facts--we can
locate (i) *metaepistemological error theory* and (i)
*metaepistemological non-cognitivism*, the most typical version
of which goes under the heading *epistemic expressivism*
(Chrisman 2012; Ahlstrom-Vij 2013, 2018).



In the case of metaepistemological error theory, two prominent
defenses are due to Jonas Olson and, with some qualifications, Bart
Streumer (2008, 2013, 2017). Olson's tack is a kind of
"reverse" of Cuneo's parity strategy; that is, Olson
(2011, 2014) first takes himself to have established
*metaethical* error theory on independent grounds, and then
argues from here via a parity premise, for metaepistemological error
theory. Two ways to press this rationale will be to either reject
moral error theory (e.g., Finlay 2008) or to challenge Olson's
use of a parity premise (see Cote-Bouchard &
Littlejohn 2018 for criticism). Streumer, by contrast, embraces
metaepistemological error theory by defending, in the first instance,
a kind of universal metanormative error theory (Streumer 2008, 2017)
which, if correct, would imply metaepistemological error
theory--including, importantly, the thesis that there are no
epistemic reasons for belief. Some critics of error theory, such as
Nishi Shah (2010), have challenged the stability of such an epistemic
error theory by appealing to considerations to do with the alleged
inescapable character of epistemic norms. A different line of
criticism of epistemic error theory insists that--by the
theory's own lights--one has no reason to believe it
(compare here with Putnam's (1981: 121) critique of Protagorean
relativism as a position a proponent ought to think her opponent has
no reason to believe). Whether this second line of criticism against
the epistemic error theorist holds water remains contentious in two
ways; for one, it is contested whether, if epistemic error theory
implies that there is no reason to believe the theory, this should be
held as a mark against the theory (for relevant discussion see Hyun
& Sampson 2014; Rowland 2012; and Streumer 2013); secondly, it is
contentious whether it is *possible* to genuinely believe the
epistemic error theory, regardless of whether, were one to believe it,
one could have an epistemic reason for doing so. On this second point,
see, along with Streumer (2013), Lillehammer and Moller (2015)
and Olson (2016).



Along with metaepistemological error theory, another notable form of
metaepistemological anti-realism that parts ways with realism by
denying the very existence of epistemic facts is defended by
*metaepistemological**non-cognitivists* (Field 1996,
1998; Heller 1999; Gibbard 2003; Blackburn 1996; Chrisman 2007; Ridge
2007; Ahlstrom-Vij 2013). Versions of this thesis vary in their scope
and commitments. One early and influential example of epistemic
non-cognitivism is Hartry Field's non-cognitivism about *a
priori* justification. Field holds that:



> 
> 
> we should have a non-factualist attitude towards
> justification...; it is a matter of policy rather than
> fact,...and the question is only whether it is a good policy. It
> makes no sense to ask whether logic *really is* justifiable a
> priori. (Field 1996: 377, for criticism see Kvanvig 2003 and Jenkins
> 2008)
> 
> 
> 



Likewise, for Mark Heller (1999)--a non-cognitivist about
"knowledge"--"'Knowledge' is our
word for saying that S's epistemic condition is good
enough". What unifies metaepistemological non-cognitivist
positions, according to Matthew Chrisman (2012) is a commitment to
thinking that



> 
> 
> epistemic claims express a ... non-representational kind of
> mental state ... epistemic judgments have, at least in part, a
> desire-like direction of fit with the world. (2012: 119)
> 
> 
> 



Most forms of metaepistemological non-cognitivism go a step further to
embrace the (optional) expressivist thesis that, e.g., knowledge and
justification attributions express "pro" attitudes
(Chrisman 2012). Proponents of general versions of metaepistemological
non-cognitivism (Gibbard 2003; Blackburn 1996; Chrisman 2007; Ridge
2007) have typically availed themselves to the idea that, as Michael
Ridge puts it,



> 
> 
> arguments for metaethical expressivism carry over nicely to provide
> arguments for expressivism about epistemic discourse. (2007: 83)
> 
> 
> 



Critics by contrast have typically focused on particular problems that
appear to arise for metaepistemical non-cognitivism without assuming
such problems carry over by parity to metaethical expressivism. For
example, according to Jon Kvanvig (2003: 176), metaepistemological
non-cognitivism is incoherent (even if metaethical expressivism is
not) because a defense of the view will have to presuppose the truth
of certain norms of justification and explanation. In a similar vein,
Michael P. Lynch (2009) suggests that "we lack any
standpoint" from which we can make the position intelligible.
This is because, for Lynch, as a prerequisite of holding the
non-cognitivist's position (including a denial of epistemic
value facts), one must disengage from any commitment to epistemic
values, which is to take up a standpoint disengaged from epistemic
values; but this, he maintains, is a standpoint we cannot take up
while inquiring. In this respect, the incoherence of metaethical
non-cognitivism lies in its incompatibility with inquiry. For
criticisms to incoherence-style arguments against epistemic
expressivism (though these critiques fall short of outright
endorsement of expressivism), see, e.g., Carter & Chrisman 2012
and Kappel 2011).



While metaepistemological error theory and noncognitivism represent
the most notable examples of metaepistemological views that are
anti-realist in virtue of denying epistemic facts, there have
been--throughout the history of epistemology--a wide variety
of views that would qualify as anti-realist in virtue of maintaining
that epistemic facts are *mind-dependent* in a way that the
realist will reject. Here we will discuss two such positions: idealism
and relativism.



According to idealism (e.g., of a Berkeleyan sort), *anything we
know* we know because some mental state of affairs obtains, and
this is because, for such an idealist, there is no external world;
empirical reality is internal to our minds. This view of course
implies that truths we might know, and indeed any epistemic facts,
will be *trivially* mind dependent, given that part of what it
is to be an idealist is to deny that there is a mind-independent
objective reality. Importantly, this kind of heavyweight anti-realist
position is distinct from, and not implied by, *indirect
realist* views in the philosophy of perception (e.g., F. Jackson
1977), which maintain that that we are only indirectly aware of the
object of perceptual experiences by being aware of, e.g., sense-data.
Indirect realism in the philosophy of perception is compatible with
metaepistemological realism, while full-fledged idealism about
empirical reality is not.



Although metaepistemological idealism has not held much sway in
epistemological circles (with the exception of, perhaps, with G.E.
Moore who arguably attempted to refute it (for discussion see Sosa
2009: Ch. 1) *metaepistemological**relativism* has by
contrast generated much more interest. Metaepistemological relativists
(hereafter relativists) regard the status of (at least some kinds of)
epistemological claims as, in some interesting way, *relative*;
that is to say, relativists hold that the truths which (some kinds of)
epistemological claims aspire to are relative truths (Baghramian &
Carter 2015 [2021]).



While some limited forms of metaepistemological relativism are implied
by relativistic positions in the philosophy of science (Kuhn 1962;
Laudan 1990; Hacking 1982) concerning the status of scientific
knowledge, there are two forms of relativism that bear special
relevance to epistemology and which go beyond claims about scientific
knowledge specifically: these are (i) *explicitly relational*
forms epistemic relativism (e.g., Rorty 1979), and *new-age*
epistemic relativism--viz., relativism about the semantics of
"knows"--of the sort defended by John MacFarlane
(2014).



The first explicitly relational form of relativism fits the
description of "the relativist" as challenged by
Boghossian (2006) in *Fear of Knowledge.* According to
Boghossian, the relativist should be understood as submitting the
following "epistemic relationist" thesis:



> 
> 
> If a person, *S*'s, epistemic judgments are to have any
> prospect of being true, we must not construe his utterances of the
> form "*E* justifies belief *B*" as
> expressing the claim *E* justifies belief *B* but rather
> as expressing the claim: According to the epistemic system *C*,
> that *I*, *S*, accept, information *E* justifies
> belief *B*. (Boghossian 2006: 84)
> 
> 
> 



This characterization of relativism is called
"replacement" relativism because it is effectively
endorsing a *replacing* of unqualified epistemic claims with
explicitly relational ones that make implicit epistemic standards
explicit. This is precisely the kind of endorsement Boghossian thinks
Richard Rorty is encouraging, in suggesting that, e.g., Galileo and
Bellarmine are each right about the cosmos--Galileo about
heliocentrism, Bellarmine about geocentrism--*according
to* the different "epistemic grids" each accepts
(Rorty 1979: 330).



One important feature of the above explicitly relational kind of
relativism is that, once the "hidden parameter" implicit
in e.g., knowledge and justification attributions is made explicit,
knowledge and justification attributions then get their truth values
*absolutely* (MacFarlane 2011); such attributions, thus, do
*not* get their truth values *relatively.* For instance,
such a view implies that an attribution such as "Galileo is
epistemically justified in believing heliocentrism" is
*absolutely* true, given that it is absolutely true that



> 
> 
> Galileo is epistemically justified in believing heliocentrism,
> according to the scientific worldview that Galileo accepts.
> 
> 
> 



But, according to John MacFarlane and Crispin Wright, once this point
is appreciated--viz., that Boghossian's characterization of
epistemic relativism is one that countenances absolute truths--it
is contestable whether the position is genuinely relativistic in a
philosophically interesting sense. As Wright (2008) says, the
construal of epistemic relativism as signing on to the absolute truth
of (explicitly relational) claims about knowledge and
justification



> 
> 
> [...] is just to fail to take seriously the thesis that claims
> such as [sic ... *S* is justified in believing *X*]
> can indeed be true or false, albeit, *only relatively so*.
> (2008: 383, our italics).
> 
> 
> 



In a similar vein, MacFarlane takes Boghossian's
characterization of epistemic relativism to be modelled on Gilbert
Harman's (1975) moral relativism, which is (by
MacFarlane's lights) best understood as a version of epistemic
contextualism (see MacFarlane 2014: 33, fn. 5).



According to "new age" relativism (MacFarlane 2005, 2008b,
2011, 2014; Richard 2004), by contrast, attributions of knowledge and
justification are candidates only for *relative* truth values,
and this is for the reason that their truth is always relative to a
context in which they are being *assessed*, and there are
*potentially infinitely* many such contexts, and so there will
never be any "once and for all" truth value for any given
knowledge ascription. In a bit more detail, for the new age relativist
about knowledge ascriptions, when *S* asserts that
"*X* knows there is a barn", the proposition
*S* expresses with this assertion gets a truth value on the
relativist's semantics for "knows" only once the
epistemic standard of the *assessor* is specified (e.g., only
once we supply an epistemic standard for an individual who is
assessing *S*'s attribution of knowledge to *X*);
if the assessor is enthralled in a sceptical debate or has money
invested in whether *X* knows there is a barn, the standard for
the assessor might be high, if not, perhaps it won't. Crucially,
*without* the specification of an assessor's standard for
*S*'s knowledge attribution, *S*'s claim
that "*X* knows there is a barn" lacks a
truth-value in much that same way as, e.g., indexical expressions such
as "*X* is here now" do not get a truth-value
independent of a specification of contextual facts about the context
of *use* (i.e., facts about the time and location in which the
utterance is made). Another point for clarification here (see entry on
 realism, section on new relativism
 for further details) is that, although the epistemic contextualist
*also* takes knowledge attributions to be relative always to a
"standards" parameter supplied by context, notice that for
the contextualist, the value of this parameter will always be supplied
by the *context of use* (which is a standard fixed, for a given
attribution, once and for all), whereas the relativist takes the
relevant standards parameter to be supplied completely independently
of the context of use, always only by the context of assessment.



These two positions under the broad description of metaepistemological
relativism--the explicitly relational kind of relativism
Boghossian attributes to Rorty, and the semantically motivated
"new age" relativism about knowledge attributions defended
by MacFarlane--are strikingly different. Each appeals to
distinctive kinds of considerations and is subject to distinctive
kinds of criticisms. The former appeals, e.g., to considerations of
tolerance and diversity (e.g., Rorty 1979, 1989). The latter appeals
to patterns of our use of "knows" in the service of
defending truth conditions for knowledge ascriptions; as such it is a
semantic thesis. A point we will take up in
 SS3.2
 is the broader epistemological question of how to locate semantic
theses about "knows" within epistemological
theorizing.


## 2. Characterizations of epistemology



One thriving question in metaepistemology concerns how to characterize
the subject matter of epistemology. What is epistemology about? What
questions are genuine *epistemological* questions?



This section will discuss two dimensions to the "subject
matter" question which have generated recent interest. The first
 (SS2.1)
 concerns how and to what extent epistemic norms include the norms
governing good *inquiry*, including, e.g., norms governing what
inquiries to take up, and when to terminate them. The second
 (SS2.2)
 concerns the respective places of belief versus credence in
epistemology, and whether either should be regarded as of a more
fundamental theoretical standing than the other.


### 2.1 Theory of knowledge, inquiry, and intellectual ethics



On one very wide conception of epistemology, epistemology is the
"theory of knowledge", including its nature (what is
knowledge?) and scope (how much if any do we have?) This definition,
though common, is of course inaccurate. Epistemologists are
interested, for one thing, in epistemic justification, understanding,
rationality, and their associated norms. For another,
epistemologists--especially those working in the tradition of
*responsibilist**virtue epistemology* (Zagzebski 1996,
2020; Baehr 2006, 2011; Tanesini 2021; Battaly 2015, 2018; Cassam
2019, 2020)--are interested in the kinds of character traits
(e.g., openmindedness, intellectual honesty, intellectual courage)
that put us in good positions to gain epistemically valuable goods
(knowledge, justification, etc.) and which contribute to intellectual
flourishing.



Is epistemology about *all* of these things, and if so, is
there a way to characterize epistemology's subject matter that
isn't too thin so as to apply to ethics and other areas?



One distinction within epistemology--very broadly
construed--which offers a solution to this question is to
distinguish between two distinct but complementary "sides"
to epistemology: the side that concerns our evaluation of our
*constitutive attempts* to gain knowledge (viz., our beliefs
and our judgments about whether something is so), and the side that
concerns our evaluation of which inquiries to take up, and how to
sustain them given our limited resources, interests, and concerns.
Ernest Sosa (2021: Ch. 2; see also 2015: Ch. 2) refers to these two
sides of epistemology, broadly construed, as *gnoseology* and
*intellectual ethics*, respectively.



To get a sense of this distinction, consider how we might evaluate an
archer's shot, aimed at a target. *Even if* this target
was a poor target to have initially chosen as the object of
one's archery attempt *from a practical point of view*
(perhaps hitting it will have bad ethical consequences, perhaps the
target is too easy to be worthwhile), such a fact would be irrelevant
to whether we should evaluate the shot as *accurate* when it
*in fact* hits the target as intended, and for that matter,
whether the shot is *competent* (i.e., if it issues from a
skill to reliably enough hit the target in appropriate conditions), or
*apt* (i.e., if it is accurate because competent), or *fully
apt* (in that it aptness is attained aptly, and not just by
accident or luck. In this respect, the success, competence, and
aptness of a shot, as well as its *full* aptness, can all be
appreciated as "sealed off" from many
considerations--which speak well or poorly of the
archer--that concern how the archer came to select that
particular shot, and how else she has conducted herself in doing so.
*Some* of the wisdom of shot selection is itself gnoseological,
as when it bears importantly on whether the risk of failure it too
high, the assured reliability sufficient. After all, these will bear
on whether the shot will be not only apt but also *fully* apt,
as not only its accuracy but also its aptness is aptly attained. Even
so, we *do care* about wise rather than foolish shot selection
in evaluating archery more holistically, where we import
considerations that go beyond a focus on accuracy or aptness. We might
admire an archer for choosing well, from a *practical* point of
view, what targets to attempt and which to forbear from attempting,
and for her resilience in continuing to pursue a worthy aim, despite
obstacles.



On Sosa's (2021) approach, what goes for the archer goes,
*mutatis mutandis,* for the inquirer. Whereas our evaluation of
the inquirer's constitutive attempts at knowing (viz., her
intellectual shots) are assessable as successful, competent, and
apt--these are *gnoseological* or knowledge-related
assessments--our evaluations of how the inquirer conducts herself
as an inquirer--apart from her constitutive attempts at
knowing--also matter, but *some of these* are best
understood as part of a different normative domain of epistemology:
*intellectual ethics*. Here we should distinguish the
*constitutive* attempt to answer the pertinent question
knowledgeably, and how that differs from the preliminary attempts to
eventually answer the question knowledgeably. Once one *gives*
one's answer in the constitutive attempt to answer
knowledgeably, that is no longer inquiry. Inquiry has a distinctive
aim of its own, that of *putting oneself in a position to
constitutively make one's attempt to answer knowledgeably.*
Once one is ready to answer, once one considers oneself to be in a
position to make a proper such constitutive attempt, one ceases
inquiring, and one then *gives* one's answer, even if it
is an answer that one gives to oneself *in foro interno*.



When you make a constitutive attempt to attain aptness on a question
whether p, and especially when you inquire in the endeavor to put
yourself in a position to make such a constitutive attempt and to do
so aptly, both what you do in so inquiring, and what you do in making
your constitutive attempt can be assessed either gnoseologically or in
the broader way of intellectual ethics where anything goes, anything
that bears on the desirability and appropriateness of such an attempt
or such an endeavor. Gnoseological assessment can be of constitutive
attempts to attain aptness or of endeavors to put oneself in a
position to (aptly) make one's constitutive attempt by actually
answering the question aptly. Either way, the assessment is telically
constrained by the gnoseological aims of attaining aptness of alethic
affirmation, of correct (true) answer. Practical values are mostly
irrelevant to such assessment, whether it is assessment of inquiry or
assessment of constitutive attempts to answer a question
knowledgeably. (But this is not to rule out that practical values
might still be relevant at a deep global level. For example, they may
still bear on the very norms and standards *properly* set by
epistemic communities for when reliability is high enough to sustain
long-term belief storage, beyond the time when one can be expected to
retain the operative reasons for the storing of that belief.)



On Sosa's view, drawing that distinction between gnoseology and
intellectual ethics allows us to better appreciate the sense in which
practical considerations bear importance in epistemology. While they
do not matter for gnoseological assessment as such (with the exception
noted), they are often important to intellectual ethics, viz., to the
questions that one actually bothers to answer, even to those that one
bothers to answer in constitutive attempts to answer aptly, and of
course practical values matter also to what inquiries one takes up,
and how one budgets intellectual resources. However, the distinction
helps us to avoid *conflating* different kinds of intellectual
norms, while at the same time allowing these different kinds of norms
(of gnoseology and intellectual ethics) to coexist within a wider
picture of intellectual life.



Sosa's approach may be contrasted with three different kinds of
approaches, due to Linda Zagzebski (1996, 2020), Christoph Kelp
(2021a,b), and Jane Friedman (2020, forthcoming)--as each hold
different views about how norms governing good (and bad) inquiry
should be conceived of, in connection with norms governing belief,
under the banner of epistemology. For Zagzebski, there can be no
meaningful distinction between gnoseology and intellectual ethics
because our constitutive attempts at knowing are *exercises* of
intellectual character virtues that, themselves, reflect our
motivations and values as inquirers. For example, for Zagzebski,
knowledge just is gaining a true belief because of an intellectual
virtue, which she construes as a



> 
> 
> deep and enduring acquired intellectual excellence consisting of an
> admirable intellectual motive disposition and reliable success in
> reaching the truth because of the behavior to which that motive leads.
> (Zagzebski 2020: 103)
> 
> 
> 



Thus, for Zagzebski, an evaluation of your attempt at knowing is
*at the same time* is an evaluation of your intellectual
character and motivations; there is for Zagzebski no knowledge
compresent with bad intellectual motivations and thus with bad
character (though see Sosa 2017: 148 and Carter forthcoming: 2 for
criticisms in the case of perceptual knowledge).



A different take on these two landscapes, which lines up more closely
with Sosa than with Zagzebski, is due to Christoph Kelp (2021a), who
construes epistemology *as* the theory of inquiry. According to
Kelp, we should "take inquiry (or finding out about things) as
the starting point for epistemological theorizing" (Kelp 2021a:
2). Whereas Sosa takes constitutive attempts at knowing--viz.,
belief and judgments--to have have aims internal to them (with
inquiry itself best understood a wider kind of activity within which
we make these attempts), Kelp takes *inquiry itself* to be a
kind of activity with an aim, where the particular aim of a given
inquiry depends on the type of inquiry it is. For Kelp,
*knowledge* is the constitutive aim of inquiry into specific
questions (e.g., whether Frege ever met Russell) and understanding is
the constitutive aim of inquiry into general phenomena (e.g., the
UK's exit from the European Union, the rise of the Roman Empire,
etc.). While Kelp doesn't attempt to analyze either knowledge or
understanding reductively, he offers non-reductive
"network" analyses for both knowledge and understanding
which are meant to elucidate the nature of knowledge and understanding
in terms of their place in inquiry.



A fourth kind of picture is developed in recent work by Jane Friedman
(2020; *forthcoming*). Like Sosa, Friedman distinguishes
between norms that govern believing and norms that govern ways of
inquiring, the latter of which she terms "zetetic" norms.
How are zetetic norms related to epistemic norms? Friedman's
answer is that they are often in stark tension with one another, and
in ways epistemologists have often overlooked. As she puts it,



> 
> 
> That some judgment or belief is, by our current measures, in
> impeccable epistemic standing is not a good guide to whether
> it's an acceptable judgment to make in inquiry. (2020: 533)
> 
> 
> 



The extent of the tension between these two kinds of norms, Friedman
claims, raises a kind of puzzle, given the presumably close connection
between the epistemic and the zetetic, viz., between aimed believing
and aimed inquiring. According to Friedman,



> 
> 
> I think following just those thoughts through calls for a revision to
> our standard epistemic norms, and perhaps even a significant one. The
> only alternative seems to me to involve insisting on a fairly radical
> separation of epistemology and a theory of inquiry. (2020: 533)
> 
> 
> 


### 2.2 Belief-based and credence-based epistemology



One of the most significant divides in contemporary epistemology
concerns the *granularity* of the target psychological
phenomena of interest: some projects in epistemology (e.g., the
traditional analysis of knowledge) make use primarily of
*belief* and its cognates (e.g., disbelief, and suspended
judgment)--all of which are comparatively coarse grained in
comparison with *credences*--the target psychological
phenomena of central interest to Bayesian epistemologists--which
are fine-grained and precise, and which represent a thinker's
subjective probability or confidence with respect to a
proposition.



A metaepistemological research question that has generated much
discussion recently asks how we should understand the relationship
between belief and credence within epistemology generally. Is either
more fundamental to answering questions of epistemological interest
than the other?



One trivial approach to resolving such questions is implied by those
epistemologists who are *eliminativists* about either belief or
credence but not the other. For example, Richard Jeffrey (1970) and
more recently Richard Pettigrew (2016) affirm credences while denying
that beliefs exist (or at least express sympathy to denying this, in
Pettigrew's case); by contrast, Richard Holton (2008) takes the
opposite position, affirming beliefs while denying that credences
exist.



These eliminativist positions are the minority (for discussion see E.
Jackson 2020); more common are positions that either regard belief or
credence to be more fundamental than the other, or that neither is
more fundamental than the other (i.e., belief-credence
*dualism*--see Staffel 2019; Buchak 2014; E. Jackson
forthcoming; Weisberg 2020). Non-eliminativists who deny dualism
typically defend either that (i) credence is a species of belief (or
can be explained in terms of or otherwise reduced to belief), or that
belief is a species of credence (or can be explained in terms of
otherwise reduced to credence). The former kind of position is usually
described as the "belief-first" position (e.g., Moon &
Jackson 2020; Holton 2008; Easwaran 2016; Moon 2018; Carter, Jarvis,
& Rubin 2016), the latter as the "credence-first"
position (e.g., Wedgwood 2012; Greco 2015; Weatherson 2005; Lee &
Silvia 2022).



While it might be tempting to think that the
"belief-first" versus "credence-first" debate
is a proxy for a wider debate about whether the research agenda and
questions of mainstream epistemology are more fundamental than those
of formal epistemology (e.g., Bayesianism), this inference would be
too quick.



For example, as Scott Sturgeon (2020: 2) points out, the
informal/formal distinction, ostensibly a methodological distinction,
does not line up neatly with the belief/credence distinction in
granularity. Although there is of course *informal* work in
epistemology on *coarse-grained attitudes* (an example here is
traditional work on the Gettier problem and the JTB analysis of
knowledge; see entry on
 the analysis of knowledge),
 there is also informal work in epistemology on fine-grained
attitudes--an example Sturgeon notes is Keith Lehrer's work
on comparative confidence. Likewise, some projects in epistemology use
formal methods to explore the epistemology of belief (see, e.g.,
Pollock 1987) as well as, more typically, the epistemology of
credence.



Putting this together, Sturgeon's contention is that a
granularity/methodology pairing in epistemology is misleading, and
that more accurate is a picture that makes room for four broad kinds
of project-types in epistemology, which pair combinations of formal
and informal methods with combinations of coarse-grained and
fine-grained attitudes, as represented in the following 2x2
matrix:





|  | *Coarse-Grained* | *Fine-grained* |
| --- | --- | --- |
| *Informal* | Informal work on belief and its revision (A) | Informal work on rational confidence and its revision (B) |
| *Formal* | Formal work on rational belief and its revision (C) | Formal work on rational confidence and its revision (D) |



Table 1 (Sturgeon 2020: 2)




If the epistemology of belief includes both informal (A) and formal
(C) approaches, and the epistemology of credence also admits of formal
(D) and informal approaches (B), we can envision how this might
differently frame the "credence-first" versus
"belief-first" debate described above. For one thing, this
wider option space would invite us to ask whether (under the
credence-first slogan) we should think of cells B and D as more
fundamental than work in cells A and C, or rather, just that work in
cell D is more fundamental than work in cell A. Likewise, the wider
option space invites us to consider whether (under the belief-first
slogan) we should think of cells A and C as more fundamental than work
in cells B and D, or rather, just that work in cell A is more
fundamental than work in cell D.



Furthermore, we might imagine an even further expansion of our 2x2
matrix to a 3x3 matrix. Consider that the above picture, divided four
ways, does not neatly make room for epistemological projects that
*combine* coarse-grained and fine-grained attitudes. One
example is Jennifer Lackey's (2000) approach to defeaters in
epistemology--in which a sufficient*degrees of confidence*
against the target proposition can undermine the justification one has
for *believing* the target proposition. Another example is
Sosa's approach to suspension of judgment (2021: Ch. 4), which
combines coarse-grained and fine-grained attitudes in the an
evaluation of the quality of suspension of judgment. That is, for
Sosa, the quality of suspended judgment is sensitive to *both*
(i) the competence by which you align your *degrees of
confidence* with your corresponding degrees of epistemic
probability, as well as (ii) the competence by which you *judge or
suspend* within the respective proper bounds of confidence.
Finally, our table expands even more when we make room for cases of
*mixed* methodology (formal *and* informal) to subject
matter that includes combinations of coarse-grained, fine-grained and
*mixed* attitudes of interest.



These complications provide a useful perspective to revisit the
initial "credence-first" versus "belief-first"
literature. It suggests exercising caution in moving too quickly from
claims about whether credence or belief "reduce to" or
"are a species of" the other, to more wide-reaching
conclusions about whether one or the other--or for that matter,
the kinds of methods and projects ordinarily associated with one or
another--is of more fundamental epistemological interest.


## 3. Methodology in epistemology



This section briefly surveys four *methodological* issues in
epistemology, each of which raise (different) and contested issues
about the best ways of doing epistemology. The focus in particular
will be on
 (SS3.1)
 the legitimacy of assumptions we make about the nature and scope of
knowledge in the course of investigating these very things;
 (SS3.2)
 what kind of *analyses* (conceptual, semantic, metaphysical)
our epistemological inquiries should be understood as seeking; and
 (SS3.3)
 the place of experimental results in epistemology.


### 3.1 Methodism and particularism



The (very broad) characterization of epistemology as the "theory
of knowledge"--even if strictly speaking an oversimplified
picture--is often associated with two different questions about
knowledge:


1. What do we know?
2. How do we know?



The answer to the first might include both specific knowledge (i.e.,
your knowledge that you have a hand) or *types* of
knowledge--viz., we have knowledge of mathematics, knowledge of
the past, knowledge of the qualitative character of our experiences,
etc. An answer to the second kind of question would look very
different. An answer to the second would give us criteria (or canons,
methods, principles, or the like) that would explain how we know
whatever it is that we do know (Sosa 1980: 4; cf., Cassam (2007) for a
slightly different "how possible" reading of this second
question).



Because these are different questions of interest--seeking
different kinds of answers--epistemologists have long debated
which to *take up first* in epistemological theorizing. This
methodological question is vexed, because it may seem as though we
cannot begin to answer the first question without already having an
answer to the second (viz., we can't identify instances of
knowledge absent knowledge of general criteria for identifying those
instances), but we can't know what the criteria are without
reference to particular cases in connection with which we could then
identify such criteria. According to Roderick Chisholm, the problem of
resolving this *prima facie* tension--the "Problem
of the Criterion"--constitutes



> 
> 
> one of the most important and one of the most difficult of all the
> problems of philosophy. I am tempted to say that one has not begun to
> philosophize until one has faced this problem and has recognized how
> unappealing, in the end, each possible solution is. (Chisholm 1973:
> 12).
> 
> 
> 



The canonical non-skeptical approaches to the problem are
*particularism* and *methodism* (for overviews, see
Fumerton 2008; Amico 1993; McCain 2014
 [Other Internet Resources];
 Cling 1994; Vahid 2005). The *particularist* strategy (e.g.,
Chisholm 1977) begins with the first question and on this basis then
answers the second question, albeit, in a way that would seem to
assume *ex ante* the falsity of skepticism. The
*methodist* makes no such initial assumption that we have any
knowledge at all (i.e., no assumption about *what* we know) and
instead first answers the more general question about what the
criteria are for knowing, and then only on this basis then (with
reference to such criteria) answers question (i).



The analysis of knowledge from the middle 20th century
onward (see Ichikawa & Steup 2012 [2018]) largely follows a
particularist strategy, in so far as, especially following Gettier
(1963), candidate criteria for knowing are tested for adequacy against
paradigmatic cases of knowledge as reference points (Shope 1983). Such
a strategy marks a shift from earlier influential strategies, such as
by Descartes and Hume, both of whom took as a starting point--and
in a way that is *in principle* open to skepticism--that
only the obvious and what is proved deductively on its basis can
possibly be known (Sosa 1980: 4). Whereas a standard objection against
the particularist is that she begs the question against the skeptic,
the most standard objection against the methodist starting point is
not so easily captured. As Chisholm puts it, beginning (as the
methodist does) with a broad generalization would



> 
> 
> leave us completely in the dark so far as concerns what reasons he may
> have for adopting this particular criterion rather than some other.
> (Chisholm 1973: 67)
> 
> 
> 



On one way of reading the objection, starting with a broad
generalization is objectionably *arbitrary*; however, the
extent of the arbitrariness here would plausibly depend on whether the
methodist can adduce a reason in favor of her broad starting point
which doesn't itself involve pointing to specific instances of
knowledge (see, e.g., Amico 1988).



The particularism/methodism divide connects naturally to other wider
issues of interest in epistemology. First, a strong methodist starting
point, such as the starting point from Descartes and Hume, implies a
foundationalist approach to the structure of justified belief and
knowledge. That is, Descartes and Hume opt for foundationalism *by
way of* taking the particular methodist starting point that they
do. Second, the particularism/methodism divide might well be such that
*other* epistemological problems of interest are special cases
of this problem. For example, James Van Cleve (1979) and Sosa (2009)
both regard the Cartesian Circle as closely connected with the Problem
of the Criterion in this way. Third, while the Problem of the
Criterion in epistemology is typically formulated in connection with
the project of analyzing *knowledge*, the philosophical
problems associated with methodism or particularism (and which might
be our proper starting point) apply, *mutatis mutandis*, to
projects in epistemology that investigate other epistemic phenomena of
interest, including, e.g., epistemic justification, understanding,
intellectual virtues, and the like. And, as a point of philosophical
method, the problem might also be appreciated as a philosophical
problem *about* philosophical method, one that extends beyond
epistemology to other kinds of philosophical analyses (for discussion
see Fumerton 1995, 2008).


### 3.2 Analyses in epistemology: semantic, conceptual and metaphysical



The project of analyzing knowledge is often identified with the task
of satisfactorily filling in the English schema "*S*
knows that *p* if and only if \_\_\_ "



In the first place, we can assess which attempts are satisfactory
((Ichikawa & Steup 2018; Shope 1983; Littlejohn & Carter 2021:
Ch. 5), or whether all attempts are bound to fail (e.g., Williamson
2000, 2007). Alternatively, from a metaepistemological perspective, we
may step back and ask *what kind of thing we are doing* when
attempting to complete this schema? What is being investigated?
Different answers here track different metaepistemological assumptions
about the role of analyses in epistemology (Sosa 2017: 66-7).
(This point applies generally to analyses in epistemology, though for
illustrative purposes here, we will focus on the simple
"*S* knows that *p*" analysis.)



Here is one kind of metaepistemological answer: By filling in the
above English schema, we are attempting to give a *semantic*
analysis of the linguistic expression "*S* knows that
*p*". Those engaged in this project are investigating
*meaning.* Of course, one aim might (distally) to investigate
one thing by investigating (proximately) another. And so the
epistemologist might purport to investigate *knowledge* rather
than merely *meaning* by means of a semantic analysis of
"*S* knows that *p*". This is, in fact, the
kind of position taken by various researchers who maintain that their
positions about the semantics of knowledge attributions should be
understood as casting light on the nature of knowledge (e.g., Stanley
2005; DeRose 2009; MacFarlane 2005; 2008b).



One limitation to this strategy--viz., the strategy of
investigating knowledge *by way of* investigating the meaning
of *knows*--is that (i) when aiming to establish facts
about meaning, we appeal inevitably to patterns of use; and (ii) the
connection between meaning and use is (as the philosophy of language
since the 1960s has shown) at most indirect (e.g., Grice 1989; Searle
1969). As John MacFarlane captures this idea:



> 
> 
> Even if we restrict ourselves to sincere, knowledgeable informants,
> the most we can discern directly from their use of sentences are the
> conditions in which they find it reasonable to use these sentences to
> make assertions. And these are not the same as the truth conditions.
> (2008b: 783)
> 
> 
> 



A *metaepistemological* task of epistemologists putting forward
semantic analyses--as theses with import in epistemology--is
to articulate how we should understand the evidential import of both
(i) patterns of use (e.g., of "knows") in supporting
semantic analyses (i.e., truth conditions); and (ii) semantic analyses
in establishing *nature* of the referents of the terms that
feature in those analyses.



A second metaepistemological answer to the question of what one is
doing when filling in the schema "*S* knows that
*p* if and only if \_\_\_ " is that one is illuminating
something about the *concept* (or concepts) expressed by that
schema. This answer will be a familiar one for those who view
philosophy, and so epistemology, as centrally engaged in conceptual
analysis (F. Jackson 1998; cf., Williamson 2018; see also for
discussion Balcerak Jackson 2013). What are we investigating when
inquiring about concepts? According to Jackson, filling in the
"*S* knows that *p*" would--if a matter
of investigating concepts--be in the service of explicating our
folk theory of knowledge *by way of* elucidating our concepts
(F. Jackson 1998: 31-33; for discussion see Beaney 2003 [2021]:
SS5), or perhaps we are investigating what is involved in
someone's possession and/or deployment of a given concept (Sosa
2015: Chapter 1). Such a characterization, both of philosophy and by
extension of epistemology, has been subject to sustained recent
criticism from Williamson (2007, 2014, 2018). One common thread of
argument Williamson adverts to draws an analogy between philosophy and
physics. Physicists, who also complete English schemas, are not
plausibly regarded as investigating words and concepts; by parity of
reasoning, it is unclear why epistemologists (or philosophers
generally) should be thought to be investigating merely words and
concepts (rather than *knowledge*) any more than physicists are
investigating words and concepts.



This brings us to a third kind of analysis, *metaphysical*
analysis. As Sosa puts it, when analyzing knowledge:



> 
> 
> Here our focus is on an objective phenomenon that need be neither
> expression nor concept. Our focus is rather on a state that people
> host or an act that they perform. This is the phenomenon whose
> ontology we now wish to understand. What is the nature of such a state
> or act, and how is it grounded? In virtue of what is it actual when it
> is actual? (Sosa 2015: Chapter 1)
> 
> 
> 



Given that, by ostensibly completing the English schema
"*S* knows that *p* if and only if \_\_\_ " one
might take herself to be engaged in either semantic, conceptual, or
metaphysical analyses, there is an important role for metaepistemology
to play here, in untangling potential conflations between projects. A
further metaepistemological question is--just as we may ask how
semantic analyses should inform metaphysical analyses, we may also ask
in what way conceptual analyses inform both semantic analyses and
metaphysical analyses. For more comprehensive discussion of the place
(and varieties) of analysis in analytic philosophy more generally, see
the entry
 analysis.


### 3.3 Experimental epistemology



A relatively recent trend in epistemology--*experimental
epistemology*--(Beebe 2012, 2016; Beebe & Monaghan 2018;
Gerken & Beebe 2016; Turri 2016a,b, 2018; Buckwalter 2012;
Colaco et al. 2014; Carter, Pritchard, & Shepherd 2019)
uses the methodology of psychology, cognitive, and other sciences
(e.g., digital humanities--see Alfano, Carter, & Cheong 2018)
to study (typically) patterns of knowledge, justification and other
epistemic attributions. Results reported have at least two kinds of
potential import in epistemology: first, results may be seen as
bearing on what is or is not believed intuitively by people generally,
and differentially on the basis of cultural and intellectual
backgrounds (e.g., Weinberg, Nichols, & Stich 2001; Colaco
et al. 2014); second, and more ambitiously, such results may be taken
to challenge or support the truth of epistemological positions that
are generally held (Sosa 2007b: 99; see also for discussion Beebe
2016; Knobe & Nichols 2017; Horvath & Koch 2021; Turri
2016a).



Two notable examples where experimental results have been taken to
stand in *prima facie* tension with orthodox positions in
epistemology concern knowledge attributions in cases with (i) shifting
stakes and (ii) unsafe beliefs. In the former case, experimental
results reported in early papers in experimental epistemology
surprisingly did not corroborate a key datum of use appealed to by
epistemic contextualists; that is, contextualists such as Keith DeRose
(1992, 2009) have relied on the thought that--in
"bank" cases (1992: 913)--it is felicitous to
attribute knowledge in low-stakes cases but not in high-stakes cases.
Critics of contextualism had generally accepted this point about use
patterns while challenging the reasoning from here to a contextualist
semantics for "knows". However, early experimental
epistemology papers by Buckwalter (2010), Feltz and Zarpentine (2010),
and May et al. (2010) reported that participants were similarly
inclined to attribute knowledge across cases with shifting stakes, in
both low- and high-stakes cases (for discussion see Knobe &
Nichols 2017: SS2.4).



Another kind of arguably surprising type of result from experimental
epistemology concerns "Gettier cases", and in two distinct
ways: first by suggesting the Gettier "intuition" (viz.,
that the subject lacks knowledge in standard Gettier cases), is highly
sensitive to cultural background (Weinberg, Nichols, & Stich
2001). In particular, Weinberg et al.'s (2001) study reported
results indicating that laypersons with East and South Asian cultural
backgrounds were inclined (more so than those with Western
backgrounds) to attribute knowledge in standard Gettier cases. This
paper generated debate about the philosophical import of these
results, and led to further related studies. Perhaps most notably,
this includes a 2017 study by Machery et al. which presented evidence
that the Gettier intuition was present across four cultures speaking
different languages: Brazil, India, Japan, and the USA.



Relatedly, a now well-replicated result in experimental epistemology
concerns laypersons' judgments in "fake-barn" style
Gettier cases (e.g., Ginet 1975; Goldman 1976). In fake-barn cases,
referred to also as "environmental luck" cases by Duncan
Pritchard (2005, 2007, 2015), the unsafety of the subject's
target belief is entirely down to her being situated in an
epistemically risky environment (e.g., an environment with near-by
error possibilities). Whereas a common position in mainstream
epistemology is that a belief falls short of knowledge provided it is
*unsafe*--viz., if *too easily* the belief would
have been incorrect (see, e.g., Pritchard 2005, 2007; Engel 1992;
Luper-Foy 1984; Sainsbury 1997; Greco 2010; cf, however, Sosa 2007a,
2010; Hetherington 2013; Baumann 2014), studies in experimental
epistemology have pressed back against this orthodoxy. For example,
experiments by Colaco et al. (2014), Turri, Buckwalter, and
Blouw (2015), and Turri (2016b) reported that participants were more
inclined than not to attribute knowledge in fake barn cases (with a
majority of 80% of participants registering this view in Turri
2016b).



Experimental results in epistemology raise metaepistemological
questions. One such question concerns the extent to which facts about
our patterns of using "knows" should inform
epistemological theory (see
 SS3.2).
 Another related metaepistemological question of relevance here asks
what the role of *intuition* is in epistemological theorizing;
this bears relevance to the extent that experimental results purport
to be testing folk (and expert) intuitions about cases. A third
metaepistemological question experimental results in epistemology
encourage concerns the comparative *weight* we should give to
folk judgments about cases. A well-known position on this
question--viz., the *expertise reply*--(e.g.,
Williamson 2011; Ludwig 2007; Kauppinen 2007) maintains that
philosophers' judgments about cases will plausibly be more
reliable than those of laypersons, given that the former's
training would lead them to be more sensitive to nuances of the cases
assessed, as well as to be less likely to be less susceptible to
irrelevant distorting effects (Egler & Ross 2020: 1079). For
criticism of the expertise defense, see e.g., Machery (2015) and
Mizrahi (2015).