Our second "anti-Pyrrhonian" principle is this: (A4) If anything is probable for S, then something is certain for S - Roderick Chisholm

What we have been saying, of course, is not likely to convince the skeptics and we can hardly claim to have "refuted" them. But our question was not, "Can we refute the skeptics?" Our question was: "Are there positive reasons for being skeptical about the possibility of succeeding in the epistemic enterprise?" The answer seems to be that there are no such reasons. And therefore it is not unreasonable for us to continue.

It is true, of course, that most of us have very little knowledge of our psychological makeup and that we are likely to accept oversimplified and false accounts of why it is we think and act as we do. But this fact is quite consistent with what we have said about self-presenting properties. For, although these properties may mislead us about other things, they are not a source of error about themselves.

In making their assumptions, epistemologists presuppose that they are rational, beings. This means, in part, that they have certain properties which are such that, if they ask themselves, with respect to any one of these properties, whether or not they have that property, then it will be evident to them that they have it. It means further that they are able to know what they think and believe and that they can recognize inconsistencies.