Epistemic Posture

Every claim comes with an implicit confidence level. The reader is always asking: how much should I update my beliefs based on this? Your epistemic posture — how you signal certainty and uncertainty — determines whether they can answer that question.

Bad epistemic posture makes everything sound equally certain. Good epistemic posture lets the reader calibrate.

Sagan separates what we know from what we suspect from what would change our minds. The reader isn’t just receiving claims. They’re receiving a map of claim-space with confidence contours.

Feynman goes further. He treats epistemic honesty as the foundation of science. In “Cargo Cult Science,” the core ethic is that you must not fool yourself — and you’re the easiest person to fool. He points to what would falsify the claim, shows the moving parts, refuses to hide unknowns.

The opposite is epistemic cosplay. Using the language of certainty or uncertainty without the underlying calibration. Hedging everything to avoid commitment. Or asserting everything with false confidence to seem authoritative.

Posture operates at multiple levels:

Claim-level. Is this specific statement established, probable, speculative, or contested? “We know that…” vs. “Evidence suggests…” vs. “One possibility is…”

Source-level. Where does this come from? Direct observation, inference, expert consensus, a single study, speculation? Naming sources isn’t just citation. It’s calibration.

Model-level. Is this a description of reality or a useful simplification? Kahneman’s two systems aren’t neuroscience. They’re a framework.

Meta-level. What’s your overall relationship to uncertainty? Readers develop priors about authors.

Scott Alexander often states opposing views better than their proponents. This isn’t just fairness. It signals: I’ve engaged with the counterargument and still believe my position. Surviving objections have genuinely been considered.

The opposite — strawmanning or ignoring objections — signals ignorance or bad faith. The reader can’t tell if confidence is earned or naive.

Failure modes:

Uniform confidence. Everything stated with the same certainty. The reader can’t distinguish facts from speculation. Academic writing does this — hedged phrases become verbal tics.

Defensive hedging. “Perhaps,” “arguably,” “it could be said” on every sentence. This isn’t humility. It’s avoiding commitment.

False expertise. Speaking authoritatively outside your competence. Sometimes revealed by getting easy parts wrong.

Overconfident uncertainty. “No one knows” when there’s reasonable consensus. Feigned humility can mislead as much as false confidence.

The goal isn’t maximum hedging. It’s accurate signaling.

Some things are known. State them cleanly. Some things are uncertain. Say how uncertain and why. Some things are contested. Represent the disagreement honestly.

The reader should finish knowing not just what you believe, but how confident they should be in your confidence.