Another recent response is to deny premise (3). This is a principle of closure. Since a belief entails the denial of every contrary hypothesis, this closure principle in effect says that I cannot be justified in believing p unless I am justified in denying every hypothesis contrary to p — that is, unless I can rule out all contrary hypotheses. This principle has been denied by relevant alternative theorists, who claim instead that only relevant hypotheses need to be ruled out. On this theory, if