Against meta-skepticism

This paper addresses a new skeptical challenge called “meta-skepticism.” While traditional skepticism is concerned with whether our beliefs are justified or amount to knowledge, meta-skepticism is concerned with whether the epistemic concepts we use to evaluate our beliefs are significant. The worry is that there are many knowledge-like and justification-like concepts, and no principled reason to prefer our epistemic concepts over rivals. Thus, meeting our epistemic standards might be insignificant. In response, I argue that our epistemic concepts are significant because of the role they play in identifying reliable believers, regulating inquiry, and coordinating information exchange. By comparing our concept of knowledge with alternatives, we can appreciate that our ordinary notion of knowledge is better suited to these roles than its rivals. I conclude that meta-skepticism mistakenly assumes that we must evaluate epistemic importance independently of the functions our concepts serve.