Suspension of judgment, hinge style.

In hinge epistemologies, epistemic justification for doxastic attitudes is possible only if a set of assumptions, called hinges, is taken for granted in our inquiries. While hinge epistemologists have focused on how hinges enable the justification of belief, they have not examined whether or how justified suspension of judgment fits within their framework. We argue that any attempt to account for justified suspension encounters two problems, both suggesting that suspension may depend on a hinge of its own. In the positive part of the paper, we show that suspending judgment, like believing and disbelieving, rests on a hinge that renders it both intelligible and justified. We develop the idea that justified suspension about ordinary propositions is explained by taking for granted that one is fallible. This view resolves the identified problems and clarifies how suspension constitutes a legitimate part of hinged epistemic rationality. It also connects hinge epistemology with debates on higher-order evidence and on reasons for suspension of judgment.