Assertoric Quality

Abstract

The practice of assertion is said to be governed by an epistemic norm, with one of the leading candidates being the Knowledge Norm of Assertion (KNA). In this paper, I focus on the sufficiency condition of this norm, according to which one is properly positioned to assert that p if one knows that p. I show that this condition is false, and that the arguments to this end reveal something very important about the nature of epistemically proper assertion: the assertoric quality of the epistemic support, such as whether the belief in question has firsthand or secondhand grounding, is just as important as the quantity of epistemic support.