Introduction

This chapter introduces the basic thesis of this book through an example. Two ideas are emphasized in the chapter. The first is that epistemic rationality consists of responding correctly to the reasons that one possesses. The other is that to possess a reason, one must not only be aware of that reason but should also treat the relevant consideration as a reason where, as it turns out, reason-possession has a dispositional architecture. These two ideas provide the bases of a framework through which one could see how such notions as possessed reasons, propositional justification, doxastic justification, and the basing relation are related to and interact with one another. The payoffs of such a framework are subsequently highlighted for a number of issues in epistemology and ethics.