Scepticism, relativism, and the structure of epistemic frameworks

•The role of the problem of the criterion in the principal argument for epistemic relativism is explained.•Methodist and particularist responses to the principal argument for epistemic relativism are criticized.•A new strategy for resisting epistemic relativism that targets the doctrine of epistemic pluralism is outlined.•A new way of understanding the structure of epistemic frameworks is proposed.

This paper has four aims: first, to outline the role of the sceptical problem of the criterion in the principal argument for epistemic relativism; second, to establish that methodist and particularist responses to the problem of the criterion do not, by themselves, constitute successful strategies for resisting epistemic relativism; third, to argue that a more fruitful strategy is to attempt to evaluate epistemic frameworks on the basis of the epistemic resources that they have in common; and finally, to make the case that finding this common ground will necessarily involve determining how it is that a framework’s constituent epistemic methods depend on one another for not only their warrant, but for their application.