What anti-realism about hinges could possibly be?

The paper addresses the issue of what epistemic anti-realism could possibly be, in the context of “hinge epistemology.” According to this new epistemological trend, justification depends on evidence together with general background assumptions—for example, that there is an external world, that our sense organs are mostly reliable, that we are not the victims of persistent and lucid dreams what has regularly happened in the past will happen in the future, that people are generally reliable informants, and so on. The paper then addresses two issues. First, whether these assumptions are arbitrary, as relativists would claim. Second, how we should conceive of their metaphysical status. It responds negatively to the first question and puts forward an anti-realist conception of hinges to respond to the latter. Central to the proposal is that the kind of truth that can be predicated of hinges is of a minimalist kind. The paper also explores the compatibility of minimalism about hinges' truth and alethic pluralism .