Frame-Relative Rationality: Reconstructing Epistemology Without Truth

Contemporary epistemology, including Bayesian approaches to rationality, operates within implicit frames that determine what counts as a proposition, a probability, or a rational belief. This paper argues that these frames are themselves arbitrary labels imposed by cognitive systems, with no frame-independent truth to adjudicate between them. Drawing on recent debates about awareness growth (de Canson 2024), I demonstrate that the entire apparatus of Boolean algebra, probability theory, and rational belief revision constitutes a language game played within a particular human-scale cognitive frame. I further show that sophisticated philosophical arguments defending such frameworks often exhibit classical fallacy structures—circular reasoning, question-begging, and straw man argumentation—disguised by technical sophistication. Crucially, I introduce the concept of dimensional asymmetry: agents who can modify their own axiomatic systems operate at a higher cognitive dimension than those bound to fixed frames, creating a fundamental asymmetry where lower-dimensional reasoners cannot even represent the moves available to higher-dimensional ones. Rather than seeking truth-correspondence, I propose evaluating epistemic frameworks by their practical effectiveness, measured through falsifiable performance in reality.