Can There Be an Epistemic Authority?

Linda Zazebskis’s famous account of epistemic authority has provoked a particular line of criticism that argues against the very possibility of an authority in the epistemic realm. In this paper, I would like to discuss the scope of the most common arguments in this debate and defend the conceptual possibility of epistemic authorities. To this end, I will argue for an account of epistemic authority that roughly follows Zagzebski’s but adds some further elements with reference to David Enoch’s theory of authority. As I will show, this account can be defended against the three most common arguments against the possibility of epistemic authorities.