Higher-order accounts of agnosticism: belief vs. endorsement

Thomas Raleigh’s Meta-Belief Account and Verena Wagner’s Endorsement Account are two competing higher-order accounts of agnosticism. In this paper, I do two tasks. Firstly, I defend the Meta-Belief account from two challenges: the Transition Challenge, which says that the Meta-Belief Account cannot explain how a rational agent can transition between mere indecision and agnosticism, and the Settledness Challenge, which says that the Meta-Belief Account cannot guarantee the incompatibility between agnosticism and inquiry. Secondly, I argue that there exist two cases against the Endorsement Account. On the basis of these discussions, I conclude that the Meta-Belief Account is better than the Endorsement Account.