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THOMAS NAGEL has argued that 'true liberalism' excludes appeals to conceptions of the good in political argument. According to Nagel, liberalism's impartiality is grounded not in skepticism but, rather, in its commitment to 'epistemological restraint.' As he puts it, 'We accept a kind of epistemological division between the private and the public domains: in certain contexts I am constrained to consider my beliefs merely as beliefs rather than as truths, however convinced I may be that they are true, and that I know it.' Nagel's notion of epistemological restraint has been roundly criticized by perfectionist liberals and advocates of liberal neutrality alike. In fact, even Nagel has come to reject the epistemological argument—in part, because of the epistemological asymmetry that it presupposes. In this paper, I offer an answer to Nagel's critics, one that makes the notion of epistemological asymmetry coherent. In so doing, I show how to defend liberal neutrality without embracing skepticism. I structure the paper in the following way: Section II lays out the critique of epistemological restraint; Section III defends the coherence of this notion; and Section IV considers an objection to the analysis developed in Section III.

Thomas Nagel's (1987) assertion that liberalism's neutrality is contingent on the notion of "epistemological restraint" is defended. Joseph Raz's (1994) & Brian Barry's (1995) respective critiques of Nagel's notion of epistemological restraint are reviewed & subsequently challenged. A nonskeptical strategy that renders epistemological restrain viable is then presented. Although it is claimed that the problem of transferring positions should be attributed to the presence of background beliefs, it is contended that individuals draw on these background beliefs to maintain their positions when attempting to account for nonbelievers' rejections of these positions. A potential objection to the defense of epistemological asymmetry is addressed; specifically, it is argued that religious arguments against epistemological asymmetry can be handled by appealing to differences in background beliefs. J. W. Parker

Abstract
Sampada Aranke and Ayanah Moor dialogue on the myriad ways Moor intervenes upon art histories of abstraction in her studio practice. This conversation leads to threads and themes in her practice that open up avenues for rethinking liminality, suspension, and ongoingness that are central to this issue of liquid blackness. Moor calls her method "social abstraction," by reconsidering how abstraction, a practice mis-categorized as one that transcends identity, might be precisely the form for centering black subjectivity. Moor is invested in the racial and gendered aspects that might be latent in abstract practices; where, for example, collage does and does not serve as an operation for encountering black interior or romantic space. Throughout her work, there is a careful attention to restraint as a method of protection, precision, and engagement. Moor's enactment of the processual and suspended logics of form as an aesthetic and social process resonate in the worlds of her paintings as they also leap beyond the panel itself. It's almost as if Moor is allowing her viewer to relish in and embrace the unfixity of a shape, the emergence of a figure, the suspension of a line, as a way to embrace the ongoingness of their own becoming.