Ratio 34 (3):217-226 (
2021)
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Abstract
Recently, self-fulfilling cases, that is, ones in which an agent's believing a proposition guarantees its truth, have been offered as counterexamples to uniqueness. According to uniqueness, at most one doxastic attitude is epistemically rational given the evidence. I argue that self-fulfilling cases are not counterexamples to uniqueness because belief-formation is not governed by epistemic rationality in such cases. Specifically, this is because epistemic rationality is not just about forming true beliefs, but about tracking mind-independent truths. In support of the latter claim, I offer three arguments, namely that self-fulfilling and non-self-fulfilling cases differ in their phenomenology, in the norms that guide belief formation, and in the way they relate to the evidence.