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Metaepistemology
Metaepistemology
edited by
Conor McHugh, Jonathan Way,
and Daniel Whiting
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
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First Edition published in 2018
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Contents
List of Contributors vi
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction1
Conor McHugh, Jonathan Way, and Daniel Whiting
1. The Costs of Epistemic Realism 9
Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij
2. Defending the Moral/Epistemic Parity 27
Terence Cuneo and Christos Kyriacou
3. Passing the Epistemic Buck 46
Davide Fassio and Anne Meylan
4. Is Epistemology Autonomous? 67
Daniel Greco
5. Logical Disagreement 88
Anandi Hattiangadi
6. Moral and Epistemic Error Theory: The Parity Premise Reconsidered 107
Jonas Olson
7. Doubts about “Genuinely Normative” Epistemic Reasons 122
Hille Paakkunainen
8. How to Be an Epistemic Expressivist 141
Michael Ridge
9. Thick Epistemic Concepts 159
Debbie Roberts
10. Epistemic Planning, Epistemic Internalism, and Luminosity 179
Karl Schafer
11. Believing Well 196
Mark Schroeder
Index 213
List of Contributors
Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij, Birkbeck, University of London, UK

Terence Cuneo, University of Vermont, USA
Davide Fassio, Zhejiang University, China
Daniel Greco, Yale University, USA
Anandi Hattiangadi, Stockholm University, Sweden
Christos Kyriacou, University of Cyprus
Conor McHugh, University of Southampton, UK
Anne Meylan, University of Basel, Switzerland
Jonas Olson, Stockholm University, Sweden
Hille Paakkunainen, Syracuse University, USA
Michael Ridge, University of Edinburgh, UK
Debbie Roberts, University of Edinburgh, UK
Karl Schafer, University of California, Irvine, USA
Mark Schroeder, University of Southern California, USA
Jonathan Way, University of Southampton, UK
Daniel Whiting, University of Southampton, UK
Acknowledgements
This is the second of two volumes of essays to emerge from a research project on
normativity at the University of Southampton. The first volume, Normativity: Epistemic
and Practical, was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. We are very grateful
to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding the project (grant number
AH/K008188/1), and to the many colleagues at the University of Southampton and
elsewhere who supported or participated in it—including, of course, the contributors
to this volume. We also thank Oxford University Press, and especially Peter Momtchiloff,
for encouraging and overseeing the publication of both volumes, and to St.John
Lambert for preparing the index of the present one.
Introduction
Conor McHugh, Jonathan Way, and Daniel Whiting
Epistemology is, at least in part, a normative subject. Just as ethics is concerned with
questions such as ‘what should I do?’, ‘what would I be justified in doing?’, and ‘what do
I have good reason to do?’, epistemology is concerned with questions such as ‘what
should I think?’, ‘what would I be justified in thinking?’, and ‘what do I have good
reason to think?’.
Normativity raises many questions. Are there facts about what we should do or think?
If so, what is the nature of these facts? Do they depend on us in some way? How do they
relate to psychological, social, biological, and other descriptive facts? How might we
know such facts? If there are no such facts, how should we make sense of our practices
of making judgments about what people should do and think, of guiding our deliber-
ation by these judgments, and of holding each other responsible in light of them? Are
the judgments we make simply errors? Or can we understand them as useful fictions,
or as non-cognitive attitudes such as plans, desires, or emotions?
Such questions have been most widely discussed in their application to ethics.
Metaethics is the study of the metaphysics, epistemology, psychology, and language
of ethics. Metaethicists have developed a rich and sophisticated range of theories
concerning these issues, and devoted much work to evaluating their prospects. But as
should be clear from the generality of the above questions, and as has begun to be
widely appreciated, such questions are not specific to ethics. This volume explores
their application to epistemology: it is a collection of metaepistemology—the meta-
physics, epistemology, psychology, and language of epistemology. The chapters explore
how theories and frameworks familiar from metaethics bear on the epistemic domain,
new issues which arise when we apply the questions of metaethics to epistemology,
and ways in which arguments and conclusions in metaepistemology might in turn
impact on metaethics. The aim of the present chapter is to introduce some of the
questions of metaepistemology, the issues they raise, and some important attempts to
answer them, and to situate the volume’s chapters in relation to them.1
1
The volume is a companion to McHugh et al. 2018. That volume explores substantive and explanatory
connections between epistemic and practical norms.
2 Conor M c Hugh, Jonathan Way, and Daniel Whiting
1. Epistemic Concepts and Properties:

Normative versus Descriptive
The normative contrasts with the (purely) descriptive. The distinction applies to
concepts in the first instance. We won’t define the contrast but can offer paradigms:
ought, may, reason, and justification are normative; quark, green, tree, and computer
are descriptive. Among the normative concepts, we can further distinguish between
deontic and evaluative concepts. The normative concepts mentioned above are deontic.
Evaluative concepts include good, bad, admirable, and (arguably) beautiful.2 This dis-
tinction is also hard to pin down precisely. The basic idea is that judgments involving
deontic concepts serve to guide our actions, beliefs, and other responses directly in
a way that judgments involving evaluative concepts do not. How exactly to articu
late this distinction precisely, and whether it stands up to scrutiny, is unclear (see
Tappolet 2013). But the distinction has some intuitive purchase, and we will work with
it in what follows.
Some concepts central to epistemology are paradigmatically normative. Epistemology
is concerned with what we ought to or may believe, what we have justification to believe,
and what we have good reason to believe. Epistemologists are also interested in ques-
tions about value—for instance, whether knowledge is of final value (see Pritchard
and Turri 2014 for an overview)—and in the relationship between deontic and evalu-
ative claims—for instance, whether epistemic norms derive from the value of true
belief, as epistemic teleologists claim (for discussion see, e.g., Steglich-Petersen 2011;
Berker 2013).
There are other important epistemic concepts which it is less clear whether to clas-
sify as normative. Epistemologists are interested in knowledge, evidence, reliability,
probability, and entailment, and with concepts of intellectual virtues such as open-
mindedness and intellectual curiosity. Each of these concepts has been thought by some
to be normative. For instance, traditional definitions of knowledge in terms of justified
true belief plus some anti-Gettier condition imply that knowledge is normative insofar
as it is analysable in part in normative terms.3 But each of these concepts has also been
thought to be non-normative—consider, for instance, pure reliabilist analyses of
knowledge (see Schroeder, this volume, for discussion and references).
These debates matter insofar as they help to define the subject matter of metanorma-
tive inquiry. They also have implications for the question of whether normativity is
compatible with naturalism in metaphysics—roughly, the view that all facts are, or
reduce to, or are grounded in, natural facts (the kinds of facts which are the objects of
2
Some hold that so-called ‘thick concepts’, such as beautiful, are purely descriptive. For an overview of
the debates about thick concepts, see Roberts 2013.
3
Some suggest that the concept of belief is also normative. For criticism see Glüer and Wikforss 2013;
for further references and discussion, see McHugh and Whiting 2014. Some suggest that the concept of
truth is normative. For critical discussion, see Horwich 2005: ch. 5.
introduction 3
the natural sciences).4 Many epistemologists have suggested analyses of normative

epistemic concepts in terms of the disputed concepts—e.g., analyses of reasons for
belief in terms of evidence. If these latter concepts are purely descriptive, then they are
also presumably natural, and so these analyses show us how the properties picked
out by normative epistemic concepts can be analysed in terms of natural properties.
(Of course, even if all of the epistemic concepts we have mentioned turn out to be
normative, and not analysable in descriptive terms, it might still turn out that the
properties these concepts pick out are analysable in terms of natural properties.)
Several chapters in this volume explore these issues. Mark Schroeder defends an
analysis of knowledge in normative terms. For Schroeder, knowledge is believing
well—roughly, to know is to satisfy the norms for belief in a way that deserves credit.
Debbie Roberts defends the claim that concepts such as open-mindedness and intellec-
tual curiosity are thick concepts—both normative and descriptive. Davide Fassio and
Anne Meylan explore the prospects for analyses of a range of evaluative epistemic
concepts in terms of reasons. Anandi Hattiangadi raises some problems that arise from
the assumption that logical concepts, such as entailment, are normative.
Before moving on, it is worth indicating two issues that complicate the picture so far.
First, it is common to distinguish between different kinds of normativity. For
instance, we might think that the fact that people are dying from malaria is a moral
reason to donate to the Against Malaria Foundation. The fact that my running shoes
are worn out is a prudential reason to buy new ones. Epistemic normativity is often
taken to be a further such category, one which contrasts with practical normativity,
where that includes the moral and the prudential, perhaps among others. However, it
is not clear exactly how to draw this distinction. For instance, the initially tempting
thought that epistemic normativity applies to doxastic states and events (e.g. beliefs,
credences, perhaps acts of judgment) and practical normativity applies to practical
states and events (e.g. actions, intentions, desires) seems too simple in light of the
point that doxastic states can clearly be evaluated as practically valuable and, for some
philosophers, are also subject to practical deontic standards (for recent discussion see,
e.g., Shah 2006; Reisner 2009; Parfit 2011; Rinard 2017). Equally, many philosophers
claim that action, or some specific kinds of action such as assertion, are subject to
epistemic norms (see Littlejohn and Turri 2014 for discussion).
Second, there is an intuitive distinction between formal and substantive normativity.5
The rules of games, practices, and conventions can be expressed using terms like ‘ought’
and ‘may’—e.g. ‘you may only move the King one square at a time’. Such uses seem to
contrast with common uses of claims like ‘you ought to keep your promises’ or ‘you
ought to eat less dairy’. It’s tempting to say that the former have no automatic ‘force’
(cf. Foot 1972), don’t give us genuine reasons, or don’t concern what we really ought to do.
4
For discussion of how to characterize naturalism for the purposes of metanormative inquiry, see, e.g.,
Jackson 1998, Shafer-Landau 2003, and Enoch 2011.
5
Broome 2013: 26–7, Hattiangadi 2007, and Parfit 2011: 145ff., among others, draw this distinction,
though not always in the same terms.
This distinction is relevant here because the most difficult metanormative questions
seem to concern substantive normativity. But some have contended that epistemic
normativity is just a kind of formal normativity (see, e.g., Sosa 2007: ch. 4). Others
have objected to certain accounts of epistemic normativity on the grounds that they
only capture a kind of formal normativity, not the real deal. In her contribution, Hille
Paakkunainen explores this issue, arguing that the alleged distinction here does not
hold up to inspection.
2. Epistemic Judgments: Cognitivism versus

Non-Cognitivism
Suppose I sincerely say, ‘Given the evidence, you ought to believe that human activity
has contributed significantly to climate change.’ Let’s say I hereby express an epistemic
judgment. What kind of mental states are epistemic judgments?
Cognitivists hold that epistemic judgments are beliefs. They are states which ‘aim’ to
fit the world—to accurately represent how things are. Non-cognitivists6 hold that epi-
stemic judgments are not beliefs, and do not aim to accurately represent the world.
Rather, they are states which ‘aim’ to change the world—states which serve to motivate
us to act or otherwise respond.7 The non-cognitive attitudes which are epistemic judg-
ments might, for instance, be plans about how to regulate our beliefs in response to
new evidence.8
The debate between cognitivists and non-cognitivists about epistemic judgments
parallels the extensively explored debate between cognitivists and non-cognitivists
about moral judgments. Cognitivists hold that moral judgments—e.g. the judgment
you might express by sincerely saying ‘we ought to reduce carbon emissions’—are
beliefs. Non-cognitivists hold that moral judgments are not beliefs but states which
aim to change the world. Moral judgments might, for instance, be desires, or inten-
tions, or states of approval and disapproval (see, e.g., Schroeder 2010 for an overview).
The most significant argument for non-cognitivism about moral judgments turns
on their motivational role. Roughly, the argument runs as follows. First, moral judg-
ments can motivate us in their own right—for instance, if you judge that you ought to
reduce carbon emissions, this judgment might move you, in its own right, to reduce
your carbon emissions—for instance, by flying less. Second, beliefs cannot motivate us
in their own right. For example, the belief that the café is open, or that 10 per cent of
74 is 7.4, might motivate you to go to the café, or to leave a £7.40 tip. But these beliefs
will not motivate you in their own right. They will only motivate if combined with
6
Non-cognitivism is often called ‘expressivism’, including in this volume.
7
The characterization of the difference between cognitive and non-cognitive attitudes in terms of their
‘aims’ is a common and helpful heuristic but requires some unpacking. For discussion, see, e.g., Smith 1994:
ch. 4 and Velleman 2000: ch. 11.
8
For an overview of the cognitivist/non-cognitivist dispute in metaepistemology, see Chrisman 2012.
introduction 5
an appropriate desire. It follows from these premises that moral judgments are not
beliefs. If we add the further premise that only states which aim to change the world
can motivate in their own right, we reach the conclusion that moral judgments are
such states (for versions of this argument see, e.g., Hare 1952: 1, Blackburn 1984: 187–9,
and Gibbard 2003: 11–13).
Does a parallel argument apply to epistemic judgments? In his contribution, Michael
Ridge explores this question, and argues that several existing attempts to develop such
an argument fail. He then develops and offers some qualified support to two new ways
to develop such an argument. Several other chapters in the volume also concern issues
related to epistemic non-cognitivism. Daniel Greco argues that the view leads us to see
the debate between internalism and externalism about justification—the debate over
whether justification for belief depends only on factors which are in some sense
‘internal’ to a subject’s perspective—as ill-formed. (This conclusion is part of a broader
argument that metaepistemological views can have implications in first-order epis-
temology.) Karl Schafer draws on some related considerations to argue that, by focus-
ing on the motivational role of epistemic judgments, as non-cognitivists—though not
only non-cognitivists—do, we can defend a form of internalism about justification.
Anandi Hattiangadi argues that non-cognitivism about logical judgments runs into
problems in accounting for disagreement about logic—problems which, she suggests,
may arise for non-cognitivists more generally.
3. Epistemic Facts: Realism versus Error Theory

If epistemic judgments are beliefs, they represent the world as containing epistemic
facts—e.g. facts about what we (epistemically) ought to believe. Are there any such facts?
If so, what is the nature of these facts? How do they relate to (purely) descriptive facts?
Epistemic realists hold that there are epistemic facts. Epistemic error theorists deny
that there are such facts, and hold that our epistemic judgments are therefore mis-
taken.9 Realists divide into reductive and non-reductive camps. Reductive realists hold
that epistemic facts reduce to descriptive facts. Non-reductive realists deny this.10
In metaethics, non-reductive moral realism is often motivated by the thought that it
has a kind of default status, insofar as it seems to be the view which fits most straight-
forwardly with much of ordinary thought and talk about ethics—e.g. the way that in
deliberation and advice we presuppose that there are correct answers to moral ques-
tions, that these answers do not depend on us in any simple way, and that we cannot
discover these answers only by thinking about the relevant descriptive facts. However,
non-reductive realism is also often thought to face severe problems. In general, it
seems to many to be metaphysically extravagant and epistemologically mysterious.
And it raises more specific concerns about whether it can explain the extent of
9
For objections to epistemic error theory, see Shah 2011. For defence, see Streumer 2017.
10
The nature of reduction is contested. See, e.g., Jackson 1998, Schroeder 2007: ch. 4, and Rosen 2015.
isagreement over moral questions, the relationship between moral and non-moral
d
facts, and the motivational significance of moral facts (see, e.g., Shafer-Landau 2003
and Enoch 2011 for defences of non-reductive realism along the above lines, and
discussion of these concerns).
It is at this point that a look to epistemology has been thought to come to the rescue
of non-reductive moral realism. Terence Cuneo (2007) has argued that if the argu-
ments against irreducible moral facts succeed, then analogues of these arguments
show that there are no irreducible epistemic facts. Thus we should reject irreducible
moral facts only if we reject irreducible epistemic facts. (Cuneo calls this the ‘parity
premise’.) However, rejecting irreducible epistemic facts raises all sorts of new prob-
lems. Our ordinary concept of an epistemic fact, Cuneo suggests, is a concept of an
irreducible epistemic fact. So if there are no irreducible epistemic facts, there are no
epistemic facts simpliciter. But this is hard to maintain. For instance, it seems incoherent
to claim that we epistemically ought to believe that there are no facts about what we
epistemically ought to believe. We are thus committed to the existence of irreducible
epistemic facts and so the arguments against such facts—and by extension against
irreducible moral facts—must fail.
This line of reasoning has been very influential. In this volume, Jonas Olson attacks
the parity premise. He argues that even if moral facts are irreducible, epistemic facts
are reducible. Olson suggests that epistemic normativity can be understood in terms of
the function of belief. For example, and roughly, for a consideration R to be a reason to
believe p is for it to be the case that, were you to base belief in p on R, then, to that
extent, your belief in p would be fulfilling its function of helping you to navigate and
explain the world. In their contribution, Terence Cuneo and Christos Kyriacou defend
the parity premise against a related line of attack, due to Chris Heathwood (2009).
Hille Paakkunainen’s discussion of the alleged distinction between epistemic reasons
and genuinely normative epistemic reasons is also relevant to this issue.
In his contribution, Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij argues that epistemic realists face a
problem accounting for disagreement amongst epistemologists. Realists, Ahlstrom-Vij
contends, are committed to expecting a convergence in theories of epistemic norma-
tivity. But this is not what we are seeing.11 As noted, Anandi Hattiangadi’s contribution
also addresses issues about disagreement, arguing for the contrary claim that, if logic is
normative, then realists are better placed to explain disagreement about logic than
various anti-realist views.
4. Conclusion
The above provides an overview of some of the issues that frame the volume and the
themes that it explores. Neither this introduction nor the volume itself is intended to
11
For a different route to epistemic anti-realism, see Street 2013.
introduction 7
be comprehensive—metaethics, metaepistemology, and the connections and parallels

between them are rich and diverse fields, raising a host of difficult issues. We hope that
this collection demonstrates the significance and interest of these issues.
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1
The Costs of Epistemic Realism
Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij
1. Introduction
Expressivists explain normativity, not by way of some independent value referred
to through normative discourse, but in terms of the norms accepted or sentiments
expressed by agents through such discourse. As Simon Blackburn (1993) says in
relation to moral discourse, expressivism (or quasi-realism, as he calls it) ‘avoids the
view that when we moralize we respond to, and describe, an independent aspect of
reality’ (157). Rather, when we assert values, we ‘voice’ (Blackburn 1998: 50) or ‘express’
(Gibbard 1990: 8) our state of mind. This makes for what J. Adam Carter and Matthew
Chrisman (2012) refer to as ‘the core expressivist maneuver’ of addressing questions
about what values are in terms of what it is to judge something to be valuable.
Expressivists disagree about what exactly the relevant judgments express. Suggestions
include states of norm-acceptance (Gibbard 1990), practical states (Blackburn 1998),
‘plan-laden’ normative beliefs (Gibbard 2003), and combinations of beliefs and desires
(Ridge 2006). Common to most expressivist accounts, however, is a naturalistically
motivated anti-realism about normative facts.1 The particular kind of facts denied by
the epistemic expressivist is epistemic facts, the most relevant feature of which is that
they are authoritative, to borrow a term from Terence Cuneo (2007).2 According to
Cuneo, epistemic facts are authoritative in that they ‘are, imply, or indicate categorical
reasons for agents to behave in certain ways’, in virtue of which ‘whether I have an
epistemic reason, say, to believe a proposition for which I have compelling evidence is
not contingent upon whether I care about believing what is true’ (59).
1
I am setting aside concerns about creeping minimalism (Dreier 2004), or the problem of how the
sophisticated minimalist machinery of recent forms of expressivism makes the distinction between trad-
itional realism and anti-realism hard to draw in the contemporary debate. Consider for example Blackburn’s
fairly liberal attitude towards talk about ethical facts and properties (e.g., in his 1999: 216, and his 1993: 81)
and the ontologically non-committal stance of Gibbard on the existence of normative facts (see, e.g.,
his 2003: x and 18). For present purposes, I will assume two things. First, a clear distinction between realism
and anti-realism can be drawn in the epistemological domain. Second, it is to be drawn in terms of the
acceptance or denial—or, to accommodate Gibbard’s non-committal stance, non-acceptance—of the existence
of epistemic facts, as understood by epistemic realists like Cuneo (2007).
2
But see footnote 19.
10 Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij
The purpose of the present chapter is not to defend epistemic expressivism. In

epistemology, as in other theoretical pursuits, theories are accepted on the basis of
their costs and benefits. Benefits consist in possibilities for explaining significant phe-
nomena, while costs comprise undesirable implications. Recent discussions of epistemic
expressivism have focused on the costs of epistemic expressivism (e.g., Lynch 2009;
Cuneo 2007), the benefits of epistemic expressivism (e.g., Ahlstrom-Vij 2013; Field
2009; Chrisman 2007; Gibbard 2003 and 1990), and the benefits of epistemic realism
(e.g., Cuneo 2007). What follows focuses on the fourth and heretofore neglected part
of the dialectical space: the costs of epistemic realism.
As for the nature of those costs, it will be argued that those responding to the realist’s
main argument against epistemic expressivism—the so-called perspective objection3
(Section 2)—have overlooked the fact that a central premise of that argument can be
used to turn the tables on the realist. More specifically, the premise entails that, unless
the realist accepts a far-reaching scepticism concerning claims about normativity
(Section 3), she must reject the idea that true belief is a central epistemic goal
(Sections 4–5), and hold that the diversity of views in discussions about epistemic
normativity is a sign of cognitive–behavioural incoherence, if not of widespread
irrationality, on the part of epistemologists (Section 6). The purpose of identifying
these costs is not to suggest that we should be expressivists, but to contribute to a
more complete picture of the costs and benefits of epistemic realism and expressivism,
respectively. Only against the background of such a picture can we make an informed
choice between the two.
2. The Perspective Objection

The main charge against epistemic expressivism starts out with the claim that it presup-
poses a distinction between an internal and an external perspective. Cuneo explains:
The internal perspective . . . is supposed to be the perspective that captures what it is like to be
an agent engaged in ordinary epistemic thought and discourse; it is the arena in which it
appears to an agent that she is giving and assembling epistemic reasons, epistemically evaluating
beliefs, uttering epistemic truths, representing epistemic reality, and so forth. The external
perspective, by contrast, is supposed to be the perspective of the naturalist philosopher who in
Terry Horgan and Mark Timmons’s words is engaged in ‘metaphysical speculation’ or ‘theoretical
inquiry’, but believes that there are no epistemic reasons or facts. (Cuneo 2007: 170)
The ‘naturalist philosopher’ at issue here is the epistemic expressivist who denies not
only that there are any epistemic facts, but—according to Cuneo—also that there are
3
While the perspective objection is the main objection to epistemic expressivism, there are of course
other problems for expressivism generally that might also apply to epistemic expressivism, including the
Frege-Geach problem (Geach 1965). See Ridge (2006) and Boisvert (2008) for two attempts to come to
terms with that problem.
the costs of epistemic realism 11
any epistemic reasons. The problem for the expressivist is that the idea of an external
perspective makes no sense in epistemology:
it is very difficult to see how there could be a perspective in which a person at once engages in
theoretical inquiry and does not believe (or take it for granted) that there are epistemic reasons.
After all, anything we could recognizably call ‘theoretical inquiry’ or ‘inquiry from a naturalist
perspective’ involves viewing ourselves as assembling reasons, epistemically evaluating claims,
offering arguments, and so forth. (2007: 171)
The idea that the epistemic expressivists must inhabit a philosophically uninhabitable
perspective amounts to what Cuneo refers to as the perspective objection (see also
Lynch 2009). Available responses to this objection include the following. First, Carter
and Chrisman (2012) defend a metaphysically agnostic form of expressivism, on which
the expressivist is not committed to an external perspective, on account of remaining
neutral on whether there are epistemic facts. Second, Klemens Kappel (2011) argues
for the anti-realist response that there are epistemic reasons, and theoretical inquiry, in
the absence of epistemic facts. I will not evaluate the merits of these responses here.
Instead, I will assume that at least one of them works, and then defend the so far over-
looked point that we can use a central premise of the perspective objection to turn the
tables on the epistemic realist. The premise is the following:
(P) When engaging in a theoretical inquiry into epistemic normativity, we are
engaged in the business of assembling and exchanging epistemic reasons.
As Cuneo points out, it would be hard to make sense of what we are doing when
inquiring about epistemic normativity, if we are not thereby engaged in the business
of assembling and exchanging epistemic reasons. Contrary to what Cuneo suggests,
however, acknowledging that this is so doesn’t present a problem for the expressivist,
who (I’ll assume) can accommodate (P) along the lines of Carter and Chrisman (2012)
or Kappel (2011). The challenge instead lies with the realist. But before explaining why,
let us get clearer on the realist’s theoretical commitments.
3. Realism and Reason-Responsiveness

The epistemic realist at issue takes the following to be true:
(ER) There are categorical epistemic reasons in virtue of there being epistemic facts.
According to Cuneo (2007), epistemic reasons are categorical in that they exercise a
particular kind of authority over us, and thereby ‘inescapably govern our conduct’
(59). Epistemic reasons are authoritative ‘inasmuch as the decisiveness of some such
reasons for an agent is not a function of whether she wants to act in an epistemically
commendable fashion, or belongs to a certain social group, or has entered into certain
agreements with others, and so forth’, nor ‘contingent upon whether I care about
believing what is true’ (59).
I will follow Cuneo in taking a commitment to (ER) to be necessary for being an

epistemic realist, whether or not it is also sufficient. The reason is that, if what is to be
argued below is on the right track, anyone accepting (ER)—which, if Cuneo is right,
includes all epistemic realists—is bound to face serious problems when attempting
to say something substantive about what epistemic facts there are, and does so simply
in virtue of the combination of (ER), (P), and an additional commitment to which
we now turn.
To get at this additional commitment, consider that the realist is going to want to
commit to epistemologists inquiring into the nature of epistemic normativity respond-
ing to epistemic facts. This simply means that, when epistemologists engage in the rele-
vant type of inquiry—i.e., when cognitively evaluating beliefs, giving and asking for
reasons, and so forth—they are sensitive to the categorical reasons there are in virtue of
the epistemic facts, and possibly tacitly so. (Might there be degrees of responsiveness?
We will discuss this question in Section 5.) Why should the epistemic realist commit to
such responsiveness? Because to deny that is to hold that any epistemological theoriz-
ing in accordance with good reason is accidental at best. And if so, why pay any atten-
tion to the conclusions epistemologists reach on the basis of such inquiry? To fail to
track reason is to lack reason, and consequently also knowledge and justification, on
the relevant matters. In other words, if epistemologists are not responsive to the epi-
stemic facts and reasons, the only available stance vis-à-vis claims made on the basis of
their inquiry is one on which we hold that we neither know nor are justified in believ-
ing the claims in question. That is, in the absence of responsiveness, the only available
stance vis-à-vis the relevant domain of inquiry is one of scepticism, entailing that any
claims about epistemic facts or reasons lack justification, and consequently also fail to
amount to knowledge.4 Assuming that the epistemic realist finds such scepticism
unpalatable, she would have to commit to the following:
(R) When engaging in epistemological inquiry, we are responsive to the categorical
epistemic reasons there are in virtue of the epistemic facts.
While (ER) commits the epistemic realist to the claim that there are epistemic facts,
it does not commit her to saying anything in particular about what epistemic
facts there are. However, I will argue that, as soon as the realist attempts to tell us
something substantive about what epistemic facts there actually are, we see that the
combination of (ER), (P), and (R) has two implications that she is going to find hard
to swallow.
4
This might be taken to be too quick. Perhaps we have reason to pay attention to the conclusions of
epistemologists, even if epistemological theorizing doesn’t generate justification or knowledge, because
some of the theories involved are—even if only accidentally—on the right track, and we might make pro-
gress towards knowledge by engaging carefully with them. But such progress will only be possible if we in
so engaging are responsive to the categorical reasons there are in virtue of the epistemic facts, in which case
epistemological theorizing is ultimately responsive to the categorical reasons there are, in accordance with
the anti-sceptical commitment under consideration.
In order to show this, let us tease out some more specific ideas on the part of the
realist as to what epistemic facts there are. One way to do so is by looking more closely
at her conception of epistemic merit terms like ‘justification’, ‘warrant’, and ‘knowledge’.
After all, when believing with justification or warrant, or when knowing something,
we believe with (good) reason. So, if we want to find out what reasons there are, and
as such what epistemic facts there are, we can look at what the realist says about the
relevant merit terms. For that purpose, let us return to Cuneo.
Appealing to certain ‘platitudes’ about epistemic facts, Cuneo suggests that ‘[e]pistemic
merits such as being justified, entitled, warranted, a case of knowledge, and so forth are
almost always understood to be alethic merits’, i.e., as ‘merits the presence of which in
an agent’s attitude indicates that the content of his attitude is true, that the content
of his attitude is likely to be true, or that he has done a good job of trying to get at the
truth’ (58). Cuneo does not provide more details on the issue, so the next two sections
will consider the two most promising ways to flesh out the relevant relation between
epistemic facts, reasons, and alethic merit, by considering the two most prominent
approaches to epistemic normativity. Sections 4 and 5 will spell out the relevant
reasons in consequentialist terms, i.e., in terms of means to epistemic ends. Since we,
following Cuneo, will be concerned with alethic merit in particular, the relevant end is
true belief. Section 6 will then consider the option of spelling out the relevant reasons
in non-consequentialist terms, and in terms of epistemic duties in particular.
Before proceeding, however, note that what follows does not assume that a commit-
ment to realism implies any commitment on the question of whether the relevant
reasons are to be understood in consequentialist, deontological, or other terms. That
would be to confuse metaepistemology with normative epistemology. Still, we would
want a commitment to realism to be compatible with at least one normative story about
what the facts and reasons postulated by the realist are like. The following sections
consider the two main contenders for the purpose of surveying the realist’s options. As
we shall see, the problem is that opting for either has implications that she would have
to consider unpalatable.
4. True Belief as a Central Epistemic Goal

True belief, Michael Lynch (2009) claims, is an end of inquiry, and thereby also an epi-
stemic end.5 Moreover, if true belief is an epistemic end, then true belief is a good. More
specifically, Lynch suggests that it is ‘prima facie good that one believes all and only
what is true’ (77), which is to say that ‘there is always something to say for it’ and it’s as
such ‘good considered by itself but not necessarily good all things considered’ (78).
5
On the idea that true belief is an epistemic end, see Alston (1985: 83–4), BonJour (1985: 7–8), Moser
(1985: 4), and Foley (1993: 19), as well as David (2001) for an overview and further references. On the idea
that the domain of inquiry demarcates the epistemic domain, see Alston (2005: 30), Haack (1993: 199), and
BonJour (1985: 83–4).
More specifically, it is always epistemically good to believe all and only truths, whether
or not it is good all things considered.
Taking it to always be epistemically good to believe all and only truths is compatible
with taking there to be other epistemic goals, in addition to true belief.6 However,
Lynch clearly holds the following:
(T) True belief is a central epistemic goal.7
Lynch takes true belief to be a central epistemic goal in (at least) two respects. First, the
reason we pursue other candidate epistemic goods, such as coherence and justification—
and, we might add, evidence and reliability—is because we take them to be conducive
to the goal of true belief (89). As such, true belief is a central epistemic goal in that it
explains a significant part of what we do when engaging in inquiry. Second, it is consti-
tutive of inquiry that it aims to produce true belief (90–1), and Lynch’s main objection
to epistemic expressivism is exactly that it leaves room for conceptions of inquiry that
imply otherwise.8 As such, the truth norm is also central in that it plays an important
role in explaining what inquiry is.
Having introduced (T), Lynch shifts from talk about what is good to talking about
what one should believe, and suggests that ‘we shouldn’t just believe what is true; we
should also avoid error’ (77). But that seems too fast. What is good to believe and what
we should believe are not trivially connected. An analogy might be helpful. Hedonism
tells us what is good, namely happiness. But hedonism doesn’t tell us what to do—
unless combined with a normative ethical theory that provides a bridge principle
between the right and the good. Classic utilitarianism provides such a principle: do
whatever maximizes the good.
At this point, we may return to Cuneo’s idea that epistemic merits are alethic or
‘truth-connected’ merits. As noted above, epistemic merit terms tell us something
about reasons on account of how instantiating the relevant merits—e.g., justification,
warrant, and knowledge—involves believing with (good) reason. Moreover, one way to
read Cuneo’s take on epistemic merits as alethic merits is in consequentialist terms, i.e.,
as merits constituting merits on account of being conducive to epistemic ends, and to
true belief in particular. (We will consider the most plausible non-consequentialist
construal in Section 6.) This suggests a particular bridge principle, which we may refer
to as the consequentialist bridge principle:
(CBP) If one’s beliefs are formed by way of a belief-forming process conducive to
attaining the epistemic goal(s), then one has reasons for those beliefs.
6
On this point, note that the idea that true belief is an epistemic goal is typically embraced also by the
value pluralist, who simply denies that true belief is unique in this respect. See, e.g., Kvanvig (2005).
7
We might worry that (T) implies that belief in all kinds of trivial truths is epistemically valuable. If the
reader shares this worry, she may qualify (T) in terms of true belief that pertains to matters that we care
about. Such a qualification makes no difference to the arguments to be provided in what follows.
8
However, see Ahlstrom-Vij (2013) for a discussion of Lynch’s argument.
This is a good time to take stock. We started out by asking what epistemic facts the
epistemic realist might take there to be, and then went on to reconstruct some suggestions
by Cuneo and Lynch in terms of (T) and (CBP), where the former talks about true
belief as a central goal, and the latter ties epistemic goals to epistemic reasons. By com-
bining (T) and (CBP)—or (T + CBP) for short—we get the idea that beliefs produced by
processes conducive to true belief are beliefs held with reason. That is an epistemic fact,
on this reading of Cuneo and Lynch. This doesn’t presuppose that true belief is the
only epistemic goal. Still, if we follow Lynch in taking true belief to be a central goal
of inquiry, and also take epistemic merit terms to be understood in consequentialist
terms, then (T + CBP) will be at work in the great majority of epistemic cases, and
capture one central and important way to believe with reason.
5. The Problem of Non-Convergence

On the reading of the realist proposed in the previous section, to be responsive to the
categorical reasons there are in virtue of (T + CBP) is to be responsive to the truth.9
More specifically, someone is perfectly responsive to (T + CBP) if all of her beliefs are
formed in ways conducive to believing truly, and she thereby believes a great many true
things and all of her beliefs are at least likely to be true. By contrast, someone is imper-
fectly responsive to (T + CBP) if many of her beliefs are formed in ways conducive to
believing truly, and she thereby believes many true things and most of her beliefs are
at least likely to be true. Note that this is not to deny that you can have sufficient reason
to believe falsehoods. It’s simply to maintain that, if having (epistemic) reasons is to be
understood in terms of being at least imperfectly responsive to whatever categorical
reasons there are, and to be responsive thus is to be responsive to the truth, to have suffi-
cient reason is to believe many true things, and for one’s false beliefs to be likely to be true.
However, it might be thought that this is a mere artefact of (CBP) simplifying too
much what a consequentialist has to think about the relationship between reasons and
truth.10 By way of example, consider the following, alternative, bridge principles:
(CBPN) If one’s beliefs are formed by way of a belief-forming process conducive to
attaining the epistemic goal(s) under normal circumstances, then one has
reasons for those beliefs.
(CBPI) If one’s beliefs are formed by way of a belief-forming process conducive to
attaining the epistemic goal(s) given appropriate inputs, then one has reasons
for those beliefs.
If the relevant bridge principle is weakened along either of these lines, someone being
(imperfectly) responsive to (T) might be compatible with that person not forming her
9
For the sake of brevity, I will occasionally talk about being responsive to epistemic facts, instead of
being responsive to the epistemic reasons there are in virtue of the epistemic facts that there are.
10
Many thanks to an anonymous reviewer for raising this matter.
beliefs in ways conducive to believing truly. But note that a consequentialist looking to
invoke that possibility to suggest that epistemologists are responsive to reasons yet not
forming beliefs in ways conducive to believing truly will have to say more than this. In
particular, she will also have to say—on (CBPN)—that epistemologists are forming
beliefs under abnormal circumstances, or—on (CBPI)—that their belief-forming pro-
cesses are operating on inappropriate inputs. That’s not to say that anyone is necessarily
blameworthy, and, for what it’s worth, something like blameworthiness would seem to
be what the notions of ‘reason’ in (CBPN) and (CBPI) would be modelling. It’s also not
to say that the only appropriate attitude towards the conclusions of epistemologists
would be one of scepticism, as they may still have (good) reason to believe what they
do, so long we accept that (CBPN) and (CBPI) capture genuine notions of ‘reason’. But
just as in a case where such scepticism is warranted, it would still be right to ask why we
should pay any attention to what epistemologists are saying on the relevant matters.
Because if we hold on to (T), it would still be the case that something has gone wrong,
in that the epistemologists involved have failed (whether they’re blameworthy or not)
to get at the truth. Indeed, they have failed systematically to get at the truth, not just in
particular instances. Had they not, their beliefs would have been formed in ways con-
ducive to believing truly, in which case the implications for the present argument
would be no different than on (CBP).
That’s to say that, whether or not any consequentialist would prefer something
along the lines of (CBPN) or (CBPI) over (CBP) on independent grounds, there are
good reasons not to want to take on the additional commitment of also saying that
epistemologists in particular are responsive to the type of reasons mentioned in one of
these weakened principles, but not to those mentioned in (CBP). Because to say that is
to say that epistemologists are getting the relevant facts systematically wrong. I will
assume that the consequentialist is not going to want to say that. And if she is not going
to want to say that, then whether or not she takes (CBP) to be the correct bridge
principle, she will accept that, as far as the reason-responsiveness of epistemologists is
concerned, it’s such that she believes many true things, and her false beliefs are at least
likely to be true. But that’s of course to say that, in the case of epistemological inquiry,
things are exactly as they would be, were (CBP) the correct bridge principle.
With that in mind, let’s pull together all of the commitments we have now uncovered:
the realist believes there to be epistemic facts, giving rise to categorical epistemic
reasons, as per (ER), and that to engage in a theoretical inquiry into epistemic norma-
tivity is to engage in the business of assembling and exchanging epistemic reasons, as
per (P). Moreover, to be engaged thus is to be responsive to the categorical epistemic
reasons there are in virtue of such facts, as per (R), and being responsive thus is to be
responsive to the truth in the manner just outlined in relation to (T + CBP). If we
assume at least imperfect responsiveness, we can thereby expect those inquiring in this
manner to believe many true things about epistemic normativity, and for most of their
theories about such normativity to be (at least) likely to be true.
But if so, we should expect to see a convergence among theories of epistemic

ormativity. After all, if epistemic reasons are categorical, everyone theorizing about
n
epistemic normativity is bound by the same reasons, simply in virtue of engaging in a
form of inquiry. Moreover, if (T + CBP) is an epistemic fact, then to be responsive to the
relevant reasons is to be responsive to the truth.11 The problem for the epistemic realist
is that convergence is not what we are seeing. What we are seeing is a great theoretical
diversity of mutually incompatible positions, ranging from epistemologically deonto-
logical theories spelled out in terms of moral duties (Clifford 1886) to epistemologic-
ally deontological theories spelled out in terms of epistemic duties (Feldman 2002);
from epistemologically consequentialist theories on which true belief is the only
epistemic goal (Ahlstrom-Vij and Dunn 2014; David 2005; Goldman 1999) to con-
sequentialist theories on which true belief is only one epistemic goal among many,
alongside understanding (Kvanvig 2005), wisdom (Whitcomb 2007), and know-
ledge (DePaul 1993); and on to pragmatist theories on which there are no epistemic
goals or norms at all (Stich 1990).12
Since arguments from non-convergence against realist views are nothing new, let us
be clear about what the above line of reasoning does not show. Consider J. L. Mackie’s
(1977) well-known ‘argument from relativity’ against moral realism. According to
Mackie, ‘the actual variations in the moral codes are more readily explained by the
hypothesis that they reflect ways of life than by the hypothesis that they express
perceptions, most of them seriously inadequate and badly distorted, of objective
values’ (37). Unlike Mackie’s, the present argument is not that epistemic anti-realism
provides a better explanation than does realism for the absence of convergence. That is,
the argument does not take the following form: there is diversity, hence (by abductive
inference) anti-realism is true.13 It is simply that the combination of (ER), (P), (R), and
(T + CBP) generates the prediction that we should see far more convergence among
theories about epistemic normativity than we are in fact seeing. That puts pressure on
11
This is also why the problem developed in this section is not a problem about epistemic reasons as
such but specifically about the kind of categorical epistemic and moreover alethic reasons postulated by the
epistemic realist, if having such reasons is a matter of truth-conduciveness. If reasons are either not cat-
egorical or not necessarily truth-conducive, then a set of inquirers may all be responsive to reasons without
necessarily converging on the same belief, either because they are not bound by the same reasons, or
because the relevant reasons are not truth-conducive.
12
This claim about theoretical diversity is an empirical claim, of course. There has not been a lot of
empirical investigation into the distribution of views of philosophers. The only exception is Bourget and
Chalmers (2014), who find that, while philosophers do not have very accurate views about the views of
other philosophers, there is certainly a great diversity of views in philosophy, including in epistemology.
The one outlier in epistemology is non-scepticism, which 81.6 per cent of respondents indicated they
either ‘accept’ or ‘lean toward’.
13
Consequently, the present argument does not overgeneralize in the manner that a straightforward
argument from diversity to anti-realism might do. After all, diversity crops up in a great many places—not
the least within philosophy—and any straightforward argument from diversity to anti-realism runs the
risk of counting against more kinds of facts than most of us would be comfortable rejecting.
the realist to relinquish one of these claims, but—unlike in the case of Mackie’s
argument—not necessarily to accept anti-realism.14
Moreover, there is a familiar rejoinder to Mackie’s argument: variations in moral
codes—i.e., patterns of moral judgments about particular cases—do not imply variations
in fundamental moral principles, since even people who agree on fundamental principles
may arrive at different codes on account of applying shared principles under different
circumstances.15 That’s to say that Mackie’s argument fails to show that there is non-
convergence where it matters, i.e., at the level of fundamental, moral principles. But it
is clear that an analogous rejoinder does not work in response to the above problem of
non-convergence, which highlights another respect in which the present argument
differs from Mackie’s. In the case of theories about epistemic normativity, where we see a
lack of convergence is exactly at the level of fundamental epistemic principles. Whether or
not there is any diversity in epistemologists’ patterns of judgments about particular cases,
it is clear that they disagree over the principles supposed to account for those patterns.
In light of this, the epistemic realist might instead follow some moral realists in
appealing to the indeterminacy of the relevant facts (Shafer-Landau 1994), or to the
relevant theories being underdetermined by the data (Tersman 2006). However, any
attempt to accommodate non-convergence in this manner is ipso facto an attempt to
postulate an ‘epistemic roadblock’ between the relevant facts and us. It is open to the
epistemic realist to account for an absence of theoretical convergence by identifying
such roadblocks. But doing so will raise the question whether the account is still com-
patible with our being sufficiently responsive to the relevant facts for (R) to hold and
scepticism concerning claims about epistemic normativity to be kept at bay.
Indeed, this question gets to a general problem for any epistemic realist who wants
to accept (T + CBP), while steering clear of the scepticism that looms if she rejects (R).
The problem is best illustrated by considering a potential rejoinder to the above argument
from non-convergence. The objection is that we so far have talked about responsive-
ness as an all-or-nothing affair, despite the fact that there might very well be degrees of
responsiveness. Moreover, if we leave room for degrees of responsiveness, we might be
able to identify a particular degree of responsiveness that is high enough to avoid the
aforementioned type of scepticism, yet low enough not to imply convergence—or so
the objection goes. In visual terms, we get the following:
Scepticism Convergence
Dr
Dm …increasing degree of responsiveness
14
This is also what sets the problem of non-convergence for the epistemic realist that concerns us here
apart from the variety of arguments from moral disagreement that have been provided since (and before)
Mackie—all of which terminate in the conclusion that realism is false. See, e.g., Enoch’s (2009) comprehen-
sive overview.
15
See, e.g., Rachels (1999: 23).
What the epistemic realist needs is for there to be some degree, DR, that is high
enough to avoid scepticism but low enough not to imply convergence. As for avoiding
scepticism, this means that, if there is such a degree as DR, it needs to fall on the right
side of the point designated ‘DM’ in the above graph, pin-pointing the minimal degree
of responsiveness needed to steer clear of scepticism. But DR also needs to fall to the left
side of whatever point at which we can expect to see convergence. Is there such a point
as DR? I will argue that there is not.
When setting up the argument, we need to remember that we have talked about
being imperfectly responsive to (T + CBP) in terms of believing many true things, and of
most of the things that one believes being at least likely to be true. Let us refer to this
imperfect degree of responsiveness as DI. Given that degree of responsiveness, we might
believe several things falsely, but for most of the things that we believe, we will have the
probabilities on our side. As such, scepticism concerning claims about normativity
does not seem an immediate threat. Any lower degree of responsiveness, however,
would be one on which we do not believe many true things, and it is not the case that
most of the things that we believe are at least likely to be true. At that point, scepticism
vis-à-vis the relevant domain would seem called for. What this means is that, in the
above graph, DI is identical to DM, i.e., the point designating the minimal degree of
responsiveness needed to steer clear of the aforementioned type of scepticism.
However, we also saw above that no more than responsiveness to degree DI is needed
to generate the problem of non-convergence. If those theorizing about epistemic
normativity believe many true things about epistemic normativity, and most of their
theories about epistemic normativity are at least likely to be true, then we should expect
far greater convergence upon a single theory of epistemic normativity than we are in
fact seeing. In other words, DI is not only identical to DM, but also constitutes a degree
of responsiveness on which we can already expect convergence. This means that there
is no point in between DM and the point at which we can expect to see convergence, and
that we may revise the above graph as follows:
Scepticism Convergence
Dm =Di …increasing degree of responsiveness
As illustrated by the fact that DR has dropped out of the picture, there being no point
in between DM and DI means that there is no degree of responsiveness high enough to
avoid scepticism concerning claims about normativity, yet low enough not to imply
convergence—contrary to the rejoinder under consideration.
In response to this, the realist may tinker, not with the degree of responsiveness, but
with the proportion of theorists satisfying the relevant degree of responsiveness.16
16
This was suggested to me by Matthew Chrisman.
More specifically, she may object that the above argument seems to be assuming
that every theorist is responsive to degree DI, and suggest that we may explain non-
convergence with reference to how only a proportion of theorists are responsive to
degree DI. But how big a proportion? If a sizable proportion, then we should expect
convergence. If less than a sizable proportion, then the realist runs into the following
dialectical problem.
There being less than a sizable proportion of people responsive to the relevant
degree amounts to there being some particular subset of elite theorists about norma-
tivity who, unlike all the others, are likely to be right about what epistemic facts
there are. But it would not be enough for the realist to argue that there exists such a
subset, whoever happens to be in it. Her reason to postulate the existence of such a subset
would be that, unless there is such a subset, then she has a hard time explaining non-
convergence without falling prey to scepticism concerning claims about epistemic
normativity. That reason would in no way impress her anti-realist interlocutors. So,
the realist would need to argue for the existence of some particular subset, populated
by some particular brand of theorists that have got the epistemic facts right. But to
argue for that claim is simply to get involved in the object-level theorizing about
normativity with respect to which we find great theoretical diversity—and no clear
signs of a resolution.
One final way that the realist might try to get around the above challenges is as
follows: those theorizing about epistemic normativity have knowledge-how about how
to conduct inquiry in an epistemically appropriate manner and, as such, steer clear of
scepticism. But they do not have knowledge-that about the epistemic facts that they are,
thereby, responsive to, which is why they are not converging on a single theory.17 This
response fails, however. If those theorizing about epistemic normativity have know-how
about how to conduct inquiry in an epistemically responsible manner, and a central
(indeed, according to Lynch, a constitutive) part of so doing is to conduct inquiry in a
manner that is responsive to (T + CBP), their beliefs about what they are inquiring into
should at least be likely to be true. But in that case, we should (again) expect to see far
more convergence than we are in fact seeing.
Consequently, the argument from non-convergence puts pressure on the epistemic
realist to surrender either (ER), (P), (R), or (T + CBP). Assuming that the epistemic realist
wants to remain a realist, she cannot surrender (ER). Assuming that she does not want
to deny that theorizing about epistemic normativity involves assembling and exchan-
ging epistemic reasons, she cannot deny (P). Assuming that she does not want to
embrace scepticism about normativity claims, she cannot surrender (R)—nor can she
reduce the degree of responsiveness at work in (R), or tinker with the proportion of
theorists responsive to that degree, if what has just been argued is correct. Which
brings us to the first implication of epistemic realism: (T + CBP) needs to be rejected.
This should worry at least those who, like Lynch, take the truth-goal to be a constitutive
17
Thanks to Joëlle Proust for suggesting this response to me.
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Title: Christmas in Chicago
Author: Fanny Butcher
Illustrator: Theresa Garrett Eliot
Release date: November 1, 2023 [eBook #72002]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1926
Credits: Bob Taylor, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS

IN CHICAGO ***
CHRISTMAS IN
CHICAGO
BY FANNY BUTCHER
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
THERESA GARRETT ELIOT
BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1926
COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY FANNY BUTCHER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Riverside Press

CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
CHRISTMAS IN CHICAGO
A FLARE of lights. A giant tree tapering up and up until it seems to
melt into the sky, except that the glittering star which crowns it
puts to shame the gentle glimmerings in the background of the blue-
black heavens. Spangles, like a circus-rider’s dress, flutter in the
swish of air, blaze out in the footlight glare of the barrage of lights
which are turned on the tree. The family Christmas tree giganticized
to a tree for the family of the great city.
And underneath, thousands upon thousands of human beings
tramping about in the snow, listening to a band, watching the
fluttering bangles of the spectacular tree. A river of motors slowly
flowing past the picture–slowly, whether they will or no, for there is
no hurrying in the mass that drives down to see the tree.
In the mêlée that worms about beneath the tree there are men and
women from the four corners of the earth. There are faces moulded
in such fantastically different casts that you cannot but wonder how
mankind can be all one mankind. There are voices thick with the
gutturals of Middle Europe, soft with the sunshine of the South, and
heavy with the interminable consonants of the North.
There is a medley of sound, human voices of all the tones of the
earth’s surface doing that peculiarly unmusical feat of all talking at
once, and being heightened rather than subdued by the din of the
band trying to be heard in a bellowing of that gentle lullaby ‘Heilige
Nacht.’ And the overtone is always the honking of impatient
motorists or gayly inclined ones who feel that the best way to
express approval in modern life is to make as loud and raucous a
noise as possible.
And all over the city, in its endless miles of boulevards and parks,
little brothers of the great tree are glittering against the sky. And
underneath those others, as underneath the great tree itself,
mankind swishes and huddles and gazes and talks. Miles and miles
apart they are, from the steel mills on the south painting the sky a
flame red to the fastnesses of suburban sobriety and sedateness on
the north, from the vast new bungalow-studded southwest to the
factory-dotted northwest merging into two-flat buildings and inter-
urbaned real estate plots.
The municipal tree of Chicago–whether it be the great tree on the
lake front or the offspring which each local community rears as a
pledge of its own Christmas joys–is a triumph of civic ideals. It is a
symbol to the thousands, who are strangers–if not in fact, at least in
that pitifully intense way in which mankind can be alone in the
millions that make a great city–that the city is human. And it has
been such a short time that the city has been human–that it has had
time to be anything but a growing, hungry, physically developing
giant of a child. Out of its rompers, Chicago is now, and present at
the great moment of decorating the Christmas tree of the ‘children.’
There is something adolescent and very charming and very naïve
about this Christmasy Chicago. It has just reached the time when it
feels that the world is taking some notice of it, when it feels its first
thrills of conquest, when it cleans out its pockets, throws away the
broken knife blades and the slightly worn wads of gum and the
marbles and substitutes the picture of the chorus girl and the pocket
comb. It is washing behind its ears. And it can blush with gorgeous
naïveté at the thought of making a social faux-pas. It is terribly self-
conscious, and like all growing youth it still has its cosmic dreams.
Chicago’s delight in its Christmas tree is at the same time the
delight of the child in any glittering gaudily lighted scene, and the
delight of the youth who remembers his baby days and his
passionate belief in Santa Claus and sees in the great tree a
monument to the few years that have intervened.
There is romance in that thought. Within the memory of many men
and women who walk beneath the great tree, within the lifetime of
one of the thousands of trees that have been brought to the making
of the great tree and its lesser relatives, the spot did not exist at all
where now the gigantic realization of a dream of a Christmas tree
stands. It was a wave on its way to lap a sandy shore, or caught in
the fastnesses of ice. And the shore when it was reached was a spot
where children picnicked in summer, where horses were brought to
the water’s edge for a drink, where wagons were washed, where the
water itself was dipped up in buckets and carried into the little
houses of the village. It was a spot where bemuffled children slid
back and forth in winter, cautiously keeping inshore. The spot where
the great tree stood the first time it was made, before the outlying
communities had their separate celebrations, on the land just east of
Madison Street and north of the Art Institute, was in the very early
days a public burying-ground. Rude storms from the east frequently
gnawed at the earth until it had given up its hidden coffins, battered
them into fragments, and left scattered, gruesome remains on the
shore when the calm came. Within the lifetime of a man it has grown
from burying-ground to the waterfront park of one of the great cities
of the world.
On any Christmas Eve in those days–and some are still alive who
remember it–the smooth motor-filled boulevard which magnificently
borders the city was a country road, frozen in deep ruts, or, if the
weather had been mild, a sandy morass, thick and impassable. And
the streets just west of it, the streets which are filled with Christmas
shoppers, with ballyhooers for jumping bunnies and sparklers and
little rubber men who stick out their tongues and great tin lobsters
which waddle around on the sidewalk, the streets which are thick
with human beings and every known mechanical device to lure them
and give them comfort and excitement–these same streets were
frozen bogs of pathways barely worth the name of road, often with
an abandoned cart mutely crying their impassability. Signs
proclaiming ‘No bottom here’ told the tale which the rivers of mud
only hinted at. The very street, where an elevated whangs by
overhead, a street car clangs its warning to the holiday crowds, and
ceaselessly honking motors make a bedlam of the air, is the scene of
the classic story of the man who, in the early days, was up to his
ears in mud. From a spot identical with one which is being stepped
over by thousands, so the story goes, a pedestrian offered to throw
out a lifeline to the mud-imprisoned neighbor. ‘Don’t worry about me,’
he is said to have answered, ‘I’m on a good horse.’ That story
delighted our grandfathers.
The sidewalks, lined with gaudy windows wheedling dollars from
the passers-by and noisy with street hawkers, passionately supply
last-minute gew-gaws for the tired men and women who have had to
shop late because they had no money to shop early–sidewalks
smooth and wide and sturdy to the tramp of millions of feet–not over
a lifetime ago were narrow strips of wood, raised on stilts, with
enough room underneath for children to play and for rats to hold
continuous convention. Within the memory of its oldest inhabitants
those same planks which served as walks were the scene of many a
fiasco when an arrogant Indian would calmly push a child off into
mud which almost smothered it–an indignity which had to be borne
by the members of the community who still remembered the horrors
of the Fort Dearborn massacre. Those same lordly concrete ways
were the scene in the early days of many a romantic moment when
carriages and carts were drawn up to the very doors of the houses
and shops and whatever strong male arms that happened to be
present were offered to lift the ‘wimminfolks’ safely from one dry spot
to another. High hip boots, they all wore, those early Chicago
cavaliers, and of necessity.
Is it not a legitimate glitter of pride in the twinkling eyes of the great
tree when it looks upon the vast and teeming loop of the city and
remembers that, not so long ago but that men now living can
remember, the whole prairie south of the river was a great bog, dry
at times, but always at the mercy of every rainfall, and of the
seepage from the erratic river that flowed now into the lake and now
from it? Ten feet lower than the land to the north of the river it was–
this spectacular loop of Chicago, which is unlike the same space of
ground anywhere else in the world–and only the dreamers could see
that it could ever be made into a city. Is the pride out of place when
one remembers that the first civic accomplishment of the village was
the gigantic one of raising the level of the south bank and its
adjoining acres until it was no longer sick with sogginess? And may it
not also be a matter of pride that that river, so gayly going its own
unreasoning way, now north, now south, was tamed to the quiet
dignity of flowing in one direction?
Would it not give any city a Christmasy feeling of triumph to realize
that the land which looks out upon its harbor, land which to-day is
weighed in ounces of gold, where great hotels and shops harbor the
riches and fripperies of the world, was, within the memory of men
and women still actively a part of the city’s life, the pasture for the
whole town south of the river? It has been many a year since a cow
wore down the grass by the roadside of Michigan Avenue, or
munched its way about on the prairie, but no more than sixty years
ago all of the residents of the South Side took their cows out in the
morning and went for them at night. The community practically
ended at Wabash and Adams Streets, and the favorite grazing lands
were the spots where the Blackstone and Stevens Hotels now have
their roots. Even as late as 1871, the year when the world was
shocked by the news of the great Chicago fire, cows were still
wandering about contentedly in the prairies.
Mayn’t the city well wear a mammoth Christmas tree as an
adornment this Christmas morning when it looks upon its vastness,
when it remembers that, from a mere handful of settlers less than
ninety years ago, it has become the home of over three millions? In
hundreds of thousands of homes in the vast miles that make
Chicago as large and populous as many a monarchy, there are small
replicas of the great tree, jeweled with many colored electric bulbs
sheltering gifts, each single one of which would have dowered a
bride in the older days. A diamond bracelet, dangling to the delight of
some eager daughter or wife, is a bauble which, in those days,
would have bought the entire loop. A house and an adjacent block of
ground could have been purchased with the money that has been
spent for one of the many shiny new motor cars that stand in front of
hundreds of shiny little brick houses for the first time this Christmas
morning.
In the old days, a pair of shoes, woolen underwear, warm mittens,
or a highly extravagant ‘fascinator’ knitted by skillful fingers were the
gifts which elicited shrieks of joy from the recipients. An orange was
the height of luxury for a child; and he had one orange, not a basket
full of them. One wealthy old settler tells with heart-breaking candor
of his envy at the sight of a playmate who owned and devoured one
large orange before his yearning eyes, and how the memory lasted
for years. The highly humanized modern doll, that does everything
but think, now walks under the adoring eyes of its ‘mama’ and says
‘Papa’ and ‘Mama’ with equal tenderness to-day. In the early days a
little girl was being pampered by her mother when she found among
her useful Christmas gifts a creature made of rags and which had to
have all of its talking and walking done for it.
Parties all over the city as big as a country are gay with boys and
girls home from preparatory schools and colleges and fathers and
mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers, all apparently the
same age, all living lives made easy by modernity. In the great hotels
that face the tree, there are numberless Christmas celebrations,
where the guests are all handsomely dinner-jacketed and gowned,
all very sophisticated, all having eaten just a little too much and
perhaps tippled less wisely than well, dancing something that in the
early days of Chicago would have shocked the city fathers. And
there is much conversation about the small high-powered roadster
that this one found in his Christmas stocking, and the jaunt to Palm
Beach as soon as the Christmas gayeties are past, and the new
bridge rules, and there is more rich food and bubbly drink.
Cosmopolitan, typically modern American they all are, with yearly
trips to Europe to furbish up a wardrobe or to buy knick-knacks for
the new house. There is as much wealth in the persons of the guests
as in the old days the whole territory west of the Hudson would have
boasted.
In the memory of one of the grandmothers who is lending, for an
hour or so, the dignity of her presence to the party, Christmas was
the homiest of the home festivals. The whole season was a simple
preparation for the only really passionately anticipated event of the
year–New Year’s Day. On Christmas there were family gatherings,
with long dinners of prairie chicken and whatever frivolities the clever
housewife could concoct, with no fresh fruit, no nuts, no out-of-
season vegetables, and no skilled French cooks. The ‘hired girl’ was
a blessing (or the curse) of only the few wealthy homes. The caterer
had never been heard of, and when he finally did make his
appearance fifty or sixty years ago he supplied nothing except ice-
cream. In the wealthiest households a fiddler might be had in, but not
guests outside the family. Usually some member of the family had
enough talent to play the simple music which the dances required.
And such dances! Square, sedate, but hilariously thrilling to
grandmother as well as granddaughter.
There would be no extravagantly glittering Christmas trees. Very
few families except the Germans had a tree at all. Boughs of
evergreen were tacked over the doors and the windows, gathered
from the great woods north and west of the city, the woods which are
now a part of the most populous miles in Chicago.
If the family happened to live on the north shore of the river and
was bid to a family Christmas on the south shore, it dragged itself, of
necessity, across the Chicago River on a hand ferry at Rush Street,
or crossed at Dearborn Street on a bridge operated by hand cables.
And whether the party were joyously gay or not, as moral upright
villagers they must needs be at home and in bed by ten o’clock, or, if
distance and utter levity demanded, they might possibly sneak in at
midnight.
While the tree is still on the lake front, it will watch the mobs
rushing into the city on New Year’s Eve for the bacchanal which has
come to be the American custom of welcoming in the New Year. In
the old days, every one was so excited about New Year’s Day that
they hadn’t time to waste on its eve. In the rare households where
the ladies of the family were not receiving, a basket was hung on the
doorknob in which the callers left their cards. Otherwise, the ladies,
furbelowed in their most extravagant gowns, ‘received’ and kept an
accurate account of the number and names of the gentlemen who
honored them. The days after New Year’s were spent in comparing
notes and–for the beaux–in recovering from hot toddy and fried
oysters and chicken salad, which the fair hostesses had probably
spent half the night before preparing.
The nearest approach to the casual, large, group parties, which
the Christmas holidays see nowadays, was, in those days, the
Firemen’s Ball. Every one who was any one belonged to the fire
brigade. The young blades of the village rivaled one another in their
devotion to it. A fire was a social event of the first water. The town
was very wooden, and fires were frequent and thorough. Whenever
one started, the entire town dropped everything and rushed to see
the fun. The men dressed themselves up in their opéra-bouffe outfits
and pumped water–until Long John Wentworth gave them an engine
that didn’t need hand pumping–and the ladies arrived as soon
afterwards as possible with sandwiches and pots of coffee. One met
every one at a fire.
It was meet that the Firemen’s Ball should be the civic social event
of the year. It happened in January. The one in 1847 was a triumph
long remembered. There were ten hundred and fifty invitations, all
written and delivered by hand (no engravers or post for the
meticulous hostesses of those days). It was held in the firehouse and
the élite of the city attended.
For the Christmas festivities nowadays the long, luxurious trains
which roll into Chicago from the East bring many guests who stay a
day and dash on to another city in equally luxurious trains. They
don’t realize it, but the city which they are visiting so casually is the
railroad center of the United States. Mankind surges through its land
gates as it surges through one of the great ports of the world. But
things were far different in the early days. Any one who wanted to be
in the village of Chicago for Christmas couldn’t decide on December
24th at two o’clock in the afternoon and arrive on Christmas morning
from the East. Weeks were spent in the journey. Covered wagons
served for the ordinary travelers, but the élite came by boat. For a
week, if the winds were fair, they were uncomfortable and crowded
and badly fed and sick while the boat hurried toward Chicago from
Buffalo. And the days they had spent–or weeks–to get to Buffalo! It
was never considered much of a trip. They finally arrived and found
a town which well deserved its name of ‘garden city,’ and their
enthusiasm for its quiet and comfort after the long hard trip must
have had much to do with the increasing numbers which year after
year made the arduous trip.
The Christmas feast was not planned the day before Christmas,
either. Days of hunting the fowl which were its backbone preceded
the work of the housewife. The father and the boys did the shopping
for her with guns. There were no great slaughterhouses to supply
her with dressed fowl. The packing industry wasn’t even heard of.
For many years now Chicago has been known as the ‘pork-packing
town.’ Every visitor who comes from overseas insists upon being
shown through the ‘Yards.’ English poets have celebrated Chicago
for its stockyards odor, and missed the fresh spiritual fragrance of
youth and a zest for life that simply exudes from the city through its
smoke and its dirt and its city smells. But in the early days pigs were
just pigs, and not a world advertisement. They were a nuisance, not
even a luxury. The village had to pass an ordinance that ‘any pig or
hog running at large without a ring in its nose shall be fined $2.00
collected on conviction of such offense before a justice of peace.’
Pigs running around loose in the suavities of Michigan Avenue–isn’t
that enough to give the giant tree an extra glimmer of mirth and of
pride at what the years have done?
In the darkness of the nights between Christmas and New Year’s–
nights which are now hectic with sirens of motors and the scrape of
shifting gears and the continual swish of human voices and the blare
of lights–within the memory of men and women living, the quietness
of a town safely shut in by its own fireside was in the air, with the
occasional call of the town crier–‘Lost! Lost! Lost! Little girl seven
years old!’
Chicago has left those days behind it, but memories of them make
sweeter the complete security and comfort of the city in these days.
And the dazzling pyramid of jeweled green, a giant’s dream of a
Christmas tree, is a symbol of the child’s fairy-tale come true. It is a
Christmas boutonnière tucked into the proud buttonhole of Chicago.

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Metaepistemology First Edition.

Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij, Birkbeck, University of London, UK

2 Conor M c Hugh, Jonathan Way, and Daniel Whiting

1. Epistemic Concepts and Properties:

the natural sciences).4 Many epistemologists have suggested analyses of normative

4 Conor M c Hugh, Jonathan Way, and Daniel Whiting

2. Epistemic Judgments: Cognitivism versus

3. Epistemic Facts: Realism versus Error Theory

6 Conor M c Hugh, Jonathan Way, and Daniel Whiting

be comprehensive—metaethics, metaepistemology, and the connections and parallels

8 Conor M c Hugh, Jonathan Way, and Daniel Whiting

The purpose of the present chapter is not to defend epistemic expressivism. In

2. The Perspective Objection

the costs of epistemic realism 11

3. Realism and Reason-Responsiveness

I will follow Cuneo in taking a commitment to (ER) to be necessary for being an

the costs of epistemic realism 13

4. True Belief as a Central Epistemic Goal

the costs of epistemic realism 15

5. The Problem of Non-Convergence

the costs of epistemic realism 17

But if so, we should expect to see a convergence among theories of epistemic

Dm …increasing degree of responsiveness

the costs of epistemic realism 19

Dm =Di …increasing degree of responsiveness

Title: Christmas in Chicago

Author: Fanny Butcher

Illustrator: Theresa Garrett Eliot

Release date: November 1, 2023 [eBook #72002]

Original publication: Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1926

Credits: Bob Taylor, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRISTMAS

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

The Riverside Press

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