Metaepistemology

Metaepistemology is the study of the underlying assumptions of epistemology. As the "theory of knowledge", epistemology is concerned with questions about what knowledge is and how much people can know. Metaepistemology, by contrast, investigates what the aims and methods of epistemology should be, whether there are objective facts about what people know, and related issues.

Epistemology is typically viewed as a normative field focused on reflective thought rather than empirical evidence. It is usually seen as methodologically distinct from the sciences, with methods including the use of intuitions, thought experiments, conceptual analysis, and explication. Other views include naturalism, which holds that epistemology should be scientifically-informed; experimental philosophy, which argues against intuitions and for the use of empirical studies; pragmatism, which argues for the reconstruction of epistemic concepts to achieve practical goals; and feminism, which criticises gendered bias in epistemology.

Metaepistemology investigates epistemic facts, for example, facts about what people know. According to epistemic realists, facts about knowledge are objective and depend on the way the world is rather than subjective opinion. Anti-realists deny the existence of such facts. Error theorists deny the existence of epistemic facts altogether while instrumentalists and relativists simply deny that they are objective. Expressivism argues that statements about knowledge do not aim to represent facts in the first place, but instead express attitudes like "this belief is good enough". Views such as quasi-realism and constitutivism attempt to derive some of the benefits of realism without accepting the existence of objective epistemic facts. Constitutivism, for example, explains epistemic facts in terms of the nature of belief. Within the epistemology of epistemology, views include epistemic internalism and externalism as well as metaepistemological scepticism.

A number of questions arise from the normativity of epistemology. For example, metaepistemologists investigate whether people have obligations to hold the right beliefs and if this implies that they have voluntary control over what they believe. Other questions include what the source of epistemic normativity is or how to characterise epistemic value. The connection between normative judgements and epistemic motivation is another line of investigation. As a twin metanormative discipline, metaepistemology's relationship with metaethics is a matter of debate. Some theorists view the disciplines as strictly analogous whilst others see important distinctions between the two.