EN BG

Epistemic Autonomy

Nobody should own the process by which you decide what is true.

Epistemic autonomy means you have control over how you form your beliefs. Not that you know everything, not that you reject all experts — but that no single authority gets to be the final word on reality for you. You evaluate. You compare. You decide. And you remain free to change your mind when better evidence arrives.

This sounds obvious, but look at how most people actually operate. They pick a team — a political party, a news channel, an influencer, a scientific institution — and then let that team do their thinking for them. It feels efficient. It feels safe. But it means your entire understanding of the world has a single point of failure. If your chosen authority is wrong, captured, or lying, you have no backup system. You will defend their position as if it were your own, because functionally it is your own. You never built an independent one.

The antidote is not distrust of everyone. It is developing the habit of checking claims against multiple independent sources, understanding the incentives behind the information you consume, and being honest about what you actually know versus what you have been told. Epistemic autonomy is not a destination. It is a practice — one that requires humility and constant maintenance.

References