Abstract

According to Gupta, there is a difficulty facing any attempt to answer this question. The difficulty has to do with the following phenomenon. The impact that any particular experience has on what the experiencing subject is entitled to believe will depend upon the concepts, conceptions, and beliefs – in short, upon the view – that the experiencing subject is entitled to hold when she has that experience.1 But what view she was entitled to hold when she had that experience depends in turn upon what experiences she had before then. And what view those experiences made her entitled in holding depended, in turn, upon what view she was entitled to hold when she had those experiences, which depended in turn upon what experiences she had had before that, and so on. Given this interdependence, what could make it the case that a creature’s experience makes her entitled simpliciter to hold a view, and not simply entitled to hold a view conditional on having some other entitlements? And, just as puzzling, what could make it the case that a creature’s experience makes her obligated simpliciter to hold a view? It is this latter question that Gupta attempts to answer.