Metaepistemology and Realism

Abstract

Metaepistemological commitments are revealed in first-order practice, though (unlike in metaethics) are not often given explicit expression. This chapter does two central things. The first is to develop a reasoned way of locating revealed second-order commitments in metaepistemology by looking straight to paradigmatic first-order disagreements, and to what is common ground to these disagreements. The second is to show that a pervasive element of the common ground in first-order epistemological debates turns out to be a commitment to at least a minimal form of metaepistemological realism. I conclude by considering the kinds of claims that mainstream metaepistemology tacitly excludes, in virtue of presupposing this kind of realism, and how we might best locate epistemic relativism within the picture proposed.