Afterword

A typical university classroom tells students: leave your commitments at the door. We at the university are interested in objectively and dispassionately assessing evidence for and against various claims. It doesn't matter what beliefs you came in with-the ones you exit with must survive the scrutiny of reason. Anyone who has been through a university education could be forgiven, then, for concluding that the process of developing knowledge is broadly Cartesian or Lockean: students are meant to suspend judgment about the beliefs they came in with and accept only what they can objectively prove or what enjoins objectively high probability. Through this process, they will end up with beliefs that are better grounded, more rational, and more justified. And as for scientific beliefs, so too-or maybe even especially-religious beliefs. Call this the knower-drops-out picture: it is synchronic, objective, and impersonal.