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It is essential to De George's analysis of legitimate epistemic authority to argue that "[a]s a way of knowing," it is "secondary," because it depends on "alternate ways of knowing that are prior to and presupposed by legitimate epistemic authority." In this connection, he allows that "[t]hough it is not common usage, one might speak of the authority of facts or the authority of reason, meaning that in some sense, human beings, in order to attain knowledge, must submit to or conform to reality, to facts, to the rules of logic, or to the power of reason. If we choose to describe such cases as instances of submitting to authority, we might describe such conformity as submission to 'ontological' or 'logical' authority. Submission to such 'authorities' constitute[s] some of the alternate ways of knowing that are prior to and presupposed by legitimate epistemic authority" (The Nature and Limits of Authority: 36).

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