ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects upon some of the most relevant manifestations of the unmarked in contemporary epistemology. It is argued that one can single out two main conceptions of the unmarked in epistemology. First, many writers claimed that our cognitive activities always happen within the contours of a certain background knowledge, which, as its name suggests, remains silent despite being present. The idea of background knowledge, which is shaped after the model of Euclid’s geometry, has two remarkable features. On the one hand, it has a constructive role: like in Euclid’s geometry, we need a firm starting point to create new thoughts. On the other, it is under our full control: epistemic agents are able to choose what stays in the background and what comes to the fore. This contention became increasingly suspect in the postwar period, as more and more philosophers pointed out that our hidden presuppositions are so intertwined with the visible part of our epistemic life that a clear separation between the two is practically impossible – what it is dubbed here ‘default knowledge’. There are two noteworthy aspects of this process of transformation. First, the unmarked retains its constructive role. Most writers still agree that we need to rely on plenty of tacit presumptions in order to get our inferential work done. Second, it acquires a distinctive social situatedness, which leads to the issue of control. The unmarked is the default not only because it is a socially determined starting point but also because it is more often than not outside our doxastic control. This chapter shows how this fact opens up the question of the moral import of the unmarked, a dimension that cannot be detached from its epistemic functions.
