Natalie Alana Ashton
Stratified Epistemic Relativism
Abstract
I defend a picture of the structure of epistemic justification which I call stratified. On a stratified
picture of justification there are four different 'layers' of epistemic frameworks, and which
propositions count as justified for a subject is a function of a cross-section of these layers.
The view is inspired by Wittgenstein’s On Certainty (1969); I understand epistemic
frameworks as sets of propositions which are used to determine whether or not further
propositions are justified, and characterise these framework propositions as Wittgensteinian
‘hinge propositions’. I draw heavily on the work of several contemporary hinge epistemologists,
but my thesis is distinctive in two, related ways. First, because I develop an explicitly relativist
understanding of hinge epistemologies, which other authors have been reluctant to do, and
second, because as well as intending the account to be able to deal with ‘traditional’
epistemological problems I also develop it with one eye on social and feminist epistemologies.
As well as a critical introduction, this thesis is comprised of five papers. In the first of these
(Appropriate Belief without Evidence) I lay much of the groundwork for stratified epistemic
relativism; I trace the history of the view, suggest how it might be developed in order to avoid
two objections – the anti-relativist objection and the normativity objection – and outline some
potential applications. A version of this paper has been published in Teorema, and won the
2014 Teorema Essay Prize.
In the second paper (Rethinking Epistemic Relativism) I attempt to rescue the reputation of
epistemic relativism, and thus defend stratified epistemic relativism from the anti-relativist
objection. Epistemic relativism is often treated as an obviously-unappealing consequence of
views or arguments rather than as a defensible view in its own right, but I argue that there is no
good reason for this common assessment. I do this by systematically categorising, and then
responding to, what I take to be the five types of anti-relativist objection.
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Natalie Alana Ashton
Stratified Epistemic Relativism
The third paper (A New Non-Evidentialist Norm of Belief ) is my response to the normativity
objection to hinge epistemologies; that they fail to make room for reasons for belief. I argue
that a constitutivist account modelled on the one Coliva (2015) defends can be employed by
stratified epistemic relativism, and that doing so allows the account to satisfy pragmatist
leanings, whilst also providing the epistemic reasons favoured by evidentialists.
In the fourth paper (Undercutting Underdetermination-based Scepticism) I argue that a
properly constructed hinge epistemology is able to respond to both of the kinds of radical
scepticism with which contemporary epistemologists generally concern themselves: closurebased scepticism and underdetermination-based scepticism. The paper is thus both a reply to
Pritchard’s (forthcominga) criticism of hinge epistemologies, and a demonstration of one of the
applications of the view to traditional epistemological problems. A version of this paper is
forthcoming in Theoria.
The final paper (Feminist Epistemology and Mainstream) demonstrates applications that
stratified epistemic relativism can have beyond traditional epistemology. In it I highlight
parallels between hinge epistemologies and feminist ones, argue that the mainstream suspicion
of feminist epistemologies is misguided, and that ‘mainstreaming’ feminist epistemology would
benefit both sides.
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