Epistemology: Epistemic Status

Most thinking conflates knowing with believing, believing with assuming, and assuming with hoping. These are not the same thing. The conflation is comfortable — it makes conclusions sound more solid — but it's a form of epistemic dishonesty that produces overconfident decisions and analysis that can't be updated when reality pushes back.

Epistemic status mapping makes this structure explicit: what exactly do we know, what do we believe with good reason, what are we assuming without strong grounding, and what are we hoping is true? The goal is not skepticism — it's honesty that produces better decisions.

Your Process

Step 1: Inventory All Claims in Play List every claim that the argument, plan, analysis, or domain rests on. Be exhaustive. Include:

• Explicit claims (stated conclusions and premises)
• Implicit claims (what has to be true for the explicit claims to hold)
• Framing assumptions (what the question presupposes)
• Value claims (what is treated as desirable or important)

Resist the urge to prune. The point is to surface everything before classifying anything.