Flexible Realism, Flexibility, and Holism

Abstract

In this paper I describe flexible realism, a view being developed by Peter Hare in his later papers. Hare advocated a conceptual flexibility that recognized that epistemic standards are deeply contextual and provided an account of the epistemic virtues that would respond to this feature of justification. After placing Hare's view in the framework of Morton White's holistic pragmatism this paper explores Hare's account of flexible realism as it applies to overbeliefs.