 This contrast between beliefs based on hearsay and on rational justification invites us to consider what it would be like if the latter were given the unrestricted scope that it seems to demand. Cotta’s hiving off to the realm of the philosopher the task of giving rational explanations suggests that the role of reason might, in fact, have its limits. If, for example, rational justification were the only acceptable basis for holding a belief, it is difficult to imagine that one would hold many, or any, beliefs at all. Certainly, many if not most of our beliefs are ones that we simply find ourselves with – acquired on the authority of ‘hearsay’, whether that be parents, friends, books, teachers, religious leaders, public figures, or any other source that may not necessarily have offered a strict rational justification for claims that we come to believe.