Tracking the Real: Through Thick and Thin

Azzouni (2004) invites us to consider the way we ought to form beliefs about what we take to be real. Beliefs are the products of epistemic processes (e.g., observation or inference) but the processes Azzouni recommends should meet his ‘tracking requirement’: they should be ‘sensitive to the objects about which we claim to be establishing (the truths we are committed to)’ (Azzouni 2004, 371–2). Azzouni (2004; 1997) claims that the tracking requirement is met by what he calls ‘thick epistemic access’ and, in particular, observation. Thick epistemic access is defined as follows: Any form of epistemic access which is robust, can be refined, enables us to track the object (...), and which (certain) properties of the object itself play a role in how we come to know (possibly other) properties of the object is a thick form of epistemic access. (Azzouni 1997, 477)