Abstract

The objectivity of some area of thought can often be acknowledged without postulating an exotic metaphysics. Statements that may seem to be the merest truisms may have previously hidden metaphysical or epistemological significance. No conclusions about the mind‐dependence of some subject matter can be drawn from the fact that in certain circumstances, it is a priori that a thinker will be right about that subject matter. The notion of an implicit conception with a certain content looms large in an account of understanding. We can learn more about metaphysics and epistemology by considering them not in isolation, but in the light of the relations they must bear to one another.