Abstract

This chapter examines the problem of skepticism about the past within Richard Fumerton’s acquaintance theory of non-inferential justification. Acts of acquaintance occur within the fleeting present. But if the data for non-inferential justification are limited to the fleeting present then the options for avoiding a far-reaching skepticism are quite limited. This chapter considers Fumerton’s responses to skepticism about the past and argues that his acquaintance theory is not able to stave off skepticism about the past. Furthermore, it is argued that the bounds of skepticism about the past overflow to the fleeting present by limiting the kind of content knowable within the present ‘now.’ Finally, this chapter defends an epistemic conservative response to this stark skeptical problem by arguing that it is a theoretically economical account of the justification for beliefs about the past.