Abstract

Agrippa’s trilemma and the Problem of the Criterion persist in contemporary formal epistemology. This paper relocates the pressure from the structure of reasons to the applicability conditions of epistemic criteria under misspecification. Accuracy-first epistemology (epistemic utility theory) is the test case: within a fixed representational scheme, proper-score optimization gives strong level-1 guidance for credence, updating, and inquiry. It does not certify the level-2 adequacy conditions required for global truth-conduciveness. Reversal results show that the same scalar criterion can rank an inquiry as better internally while it is worse at the true data-generating process; these reversals function as witnesses, not foundations, of the closure diagnosis. The diagnosis is architectural: once closure is demanded—one internal norm must both guide inquiry and vindicate its own applicability—the familiar options of regress, circularity, or stipulation reappear. Agrippan pressure survives formalization because it targets closure demands, not only regress-of-reasons disputes. We also analyze benign-convergence replies, distinguishing pragmatic adoption from epistemic licensing, and argue that the former coherently declines closure while the latter reactivates trilemma pressure. The concluding Quinean resonance situates this as a minimal anti-closure posture rather than a new substantive theory of justificatory structure.