ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to take up two problems that supporters of hinge epistemology have to face: the lost hinge disagreement problem and the problem of rational inertia. The lost hinge disagreement problem challenges the very possibility of disagreeing over hinges. The problem of rational inertia is, in a nutshell, the problem that we can never rationally resolve our hinge disagreements. We first argue that we can make sense of genuine hinge disagreement in a limited but epistemologically significant number of cases by deploying the notion of deflationary truth. Focusing on such cases, we then turn to the problem of rational inertia. We begin with critically examining an attempt at solving the problem that rests on an entitlement version of hinge epistemology championed by Crispin Wright. We then develop a solution to the problem of rational inertia which deploys the resources of the constitutivist version of hinge epistemology. The key contention of the constitutivist-based solution is that a disagreement between a hinge epistemologist and a sceptic concerns the correct explication of the concept of epistemic rationality. Interpreted this way, the disagreement between a constitutivist and a sceptic is not rationally inert: first, a constitutivist offers a reason why we should take her explication of the concept of rationality to be superior to the sceptic’s; and second, a sceptic cannot simply dismiss the constitutivist’s stance as merely dogmatic or ad hoc, but must engage with the constitutivist pattern of reasoning head on.
