Abstract

I argue that the methodology of model building motivates the view that the norms of formal epistemology should not be excessively demanding. This is quite a different picture than one often encounters, especially among philosophers who are sceptical of the usefulness of formal work in epistemology. I argue for this view in two ways. First, formal epistemologists are engaged in a particular kind of modelling—namely, normative modelling—which includes a feature that supports demandingness objections. One role of normative models is to deliver normative guidance—indeed, this is a key difference between normative models and descriptive models. Of course, should and can are two different matters, and one might wonder: even if normative models should be action-guiding, can they be? Second, I argue that normative epistemological models can deliver on this promise. Taken together, the lines of argument make the case that normative models should and can deliver normative guidance. In other words, we can have formal epistemology without demandingness.