Abstract/Summary

This paper is concerned with identifying and accounting for cases where the epistemic standard is raised inappropriately. The first section is concerned with identifying a notion of a variable epistemic standard that is neutral regarding a range of theoretical issues. The second section draws upon Evelyn Brister’s work on contextualism and scepticism as well as more recent work on conceptual engineering to argue that the possibility that our knowledge discourse could be manipulated by nefarious actors warrants further investigation. The third section outlines and provides a partial explanation of such a case: one in which a climate change denier attempts to raise the epistemic standard in order to shut down inquiry.