Assessing Premises

An argument is only as good as its premises. Therefore, if the conclusion is to be known on the basis of the argument, then premises must themselves be known to be true. However, arguments from premises that are not quite known, can still give us reason to believe their conclusions. This is because there is a continuum of states between fully knowing something and being wholly ignorant of it. We can call each state along this continuum an epistemic status. An argument cannot confer on its conclusion an epistemic status stronger than that of its weakest premise. Thus, the primary task in assessing the premises of an argument is to determine the epistemic status of each. We will discuss the different epistemic statuses shortly, after dealing with a few preliminary points.