Towards Principles of Epistemic Reasoning

Abstract

I have attempted to motivate an anti-individualist account of the reasoning in the slow-switch case. Part of this exercise has been dialectical. I have argued against some alternative accounts and defended my favored account against various objections. I have not considered every alternative view. Nor have I considered every conceivable objection. Nor do I claim to have conclusively refuted the views that I have considered. Nevertheless, I will take the liberty of considering the central conclusion of the previous investigation as a point of departure for some final, more general and conjectural explorations. That is, I assume that Peter is warranted in his conclusion-beliefs although they fall short of knowledge. Moreover, I assume that he is warranted despite reasoning invalidly because of conceptual equivocation. I then investigate how these assumptions bear on an anti-individualist theory of inferential warrant.