 Now the beliefs that we do come to hold can then be subject to rational scrutiny; this notion is at the core of the sceptical approach that Cotta, and of course Cicero himself, espouse. But to make sense even of this it seems that we have to take some beliefs as given in order to find a perspective from which to rationally assess others. A project in which all one’s beliefs are simultaneously subject to the test of rational justification is incoherent. And from a practical point of view, if we only acted on the basis of those beliefs that had been subject to, and survived, rational scrutiny, we would scarcely act at all.