 It is important to emphasize, against a simplistic pragmatic interpretation of Dharmakīrti’s position, that a reliable cognition is not one that just happens to be right and works to enable one to obtain what one seeks. It must also be a cognition that came about via a reliable route, i.e., an appropriate causal pathway or a set of good reasons. Tibetan scholars will emphasize that to conceptually know P the knower must herself ascertain P (Tib. nges pa = Skt. niścaya, niścita) with a pramāṇa, and that this ascertainment must itself involve antecedent reliable cognitions (i.e., perceptual or conceptual pramāṇas) in order to be genuine. Thus, for example, one ascertains P on the basis of good reasons Q, R, etc., whose characteristics one has ascertained earlier. If, however, one rightly thinks P is the case, but did “not [first] ascertain with a pramāṇa” (tshad mas ma nges pa) the characteristics of Q, R, this is deemed to be, in Geluk (dge lugs) texts, a “true presumption where the [character of the] reason was not determined” (Tib. rgyu mtshan gtan la ma phab pa’i yid dpyod), or following the Sakya (sa skya) thinkers, a mere “doubt that is in accord with the real” (Tib. the tshom don mthun). For both these Tibetan schools, such an understanding of P is not itself a pramāṇa. This is a credible account of what Dharmakīrti held. In short, pramāṇas do work out as we wish, but only because they are cognitions that have followed the requisite reliable route.