The epistemic normativity of conjecture

Abstract

This paper has two aims: (1) it develops and defends a fully-fledged account of the epistemic normativity of conjecture (2) it goes sharply against orthodoxy, in arguing that conjecture is epistemically more demanding than assertion. According to the view defended here, one’s conjecture that p is permissible only if one knows that one has warrant, but not sufficient warrant to believe that p. I argue for my account on three independent grounds: (1) the Bach and Harnish account of the nature of communicative speech acts, (2) the plausible normative relation between assertion and other constatives, and (3) the normativity of belief in conjunction with constatives’ epistemic function.