Argument Relevance as the Right Kind of Epistemic Reason

A defense of the view that there is a central purpose in presenting an argument: to establish its conclusion, and so to secure belief in it. Relevance is then relevance to that purpose. To deem a statement relevant to an argument is to claim that it functions as a kind of epistemic reason pertaining to the cogency of an argument to establish its conclusion. Criticism of Walton's dialogue-relative understanding of relevance, as well as the probabilistic criterion of relevance or evidence.