Practicality, Inquiry, Epistemology: A Pretty Picture

What is the relationship between our inner and outer lives? This kind of question has worried many an adolescent who saw phonies all around them, many a poet who sought to express the depth of their feelings, and many a keen-eyed moralist who lacked the courage of their convictions. This thesis is concerned with this question too, from a perspective which is at once more general and more specific: the connection between belief and action. I sketch a “pretty picture” on which beliefs are governed by epistemic norms relative to epistemic reasons and actions are governed by practical norms relative to practical reasons and actual beliefs, then respond to a slew of challenges both classic and recent: that normativity does not separate out into “flavors” like the epistemic and the practical; that there are practical reasons for belief; and that there are epistemic reasons for action.