Grammatical Failure – Why Liberal Epistemology Cannot Diagnose Indoctrination

Liberal epistemology typically treats indoctrination as a defect in agency: a failure of openness, critical reflection, or responsiveness to reasons. This paper argues that such diagnoses presuppose a framework-neutral conception of reason and evidence that cannot be sustained. Drawing on Wittgenstein, Sellars, Quine, Davidson, and Bernard Williams’ account of thick concepts, I develop a model of semantic frameworks in which what counts as a reason, an alternative, or relevant evidence is itself grammar-dependent. Where frameworks diverge at this level, deliberative agency cannot function as the primary mechanism of revision. The result is not irrationality but incommensurability. I distinguish between thin, execution-level agency and robust, authorship-level agency, arguing that liberal accounts of remediation tacitly rely on the latter. While frameworks can change, such change is unlikely to be deliberative or self-directed. Empirical work in political psychology is reinterpreted as documenting surface divergence rather than agent-level failure. The education–indoctrination distinction, I conclude, is not structurally grounded but normatively indexed to framework commitments. Liberal epistemology therefore, misdiagnoses thick concept non-transferability as epistemic vice.