Ideal and Non-Ideal Epistemology

Abstract In chapter eight I consider how the perspective developed in the previous chapters bears on the distinction between “ideal theory” and “non-ideal theory” in epistemology. While the distinction is familiar from political philosophy, recently many philosophers have argued that epistemology needs to take a non-ideal turn. I argue that idealizations play a very different role in epistemology and political philosophy, and that “de-idealizing” epistemology is far more fraught than eschewing the sorts of idealizations in the Rawslian tradition that have recently been subject to critique.