  Taking this line might be one way of resisting an epistemic assumption made in the “tempting” line of argument that McDowell considers, namely the assumption that matters external to how things are with you subjectively cannot intelligibly contribute, even in part, to your epistemic standing on some question. An alternative way of resisting this epistemic assumption is to accept a view according to which matters external to how things are with you subjectively can contribute to the justificatory status of your beliefs. (For an example of this approach to justification, see Goldman 1979).