ABSTRACT
Rationality is important to epistemologists since there seems to be a close connection between having a rational belief and having knowledge. The type of rationality that we are interested in as epistemologists is epistemic rationality, which is a kind of rationality that is specifically aimed at true belief. One way of understanding epistemic rationality is that it demands that one should try to maximise one’s true beliefs. One problem with the proposal is that one could achieve this goal by acquiring lots of trivial true beliefs. Another problem is that one could maximise one’s true beliefs by believing as much as possible, but this would also result in lots of false beliefs. A different conception of epistemic rationality demands not that we maximise true beliefs but that we minimise false ones, but the best way to go about meeting this requirement is by believing nothing. We can distinguish between two conceptions of epistemic rationality: deontic and non-deontic. The deontic conception of epistemic rationality is a form of epistemic internalism in that it draws a close connection between epistemic standing and what the agent can be held responsible for. In contrast, the non-deontic conception of epistemic rationality is a form of epistemic externalism in that it allows that one can responsibly form one’s beliefs and yet, because one blamelessly employs the wrong epistemic norms, one’s belief is not epistemically rational.
