Animal knowledge is metaphysically constituted by apt belief, by belief whose correctness manifests the believer's epistemic competence, a relevant disposition to get it right on the matter at hand when one tries to do so.

We can pursue the Cartesian project without restricting ourselves to theology and a priori faculties. A better, broader perspective is properly sought if we pursue the project with reliance on science broadly and on our full span of epistemic competences, including the empirical as well as the a priori.

Any defense of common sense must allow that it is revisable.

When the risk of failure is too high, the right choice is to forbear.

When you dream, your perceptual (and other) competence is affected. You are then unable to get it right competently with the beliefs in your dream.

The correctness of much testimonially based belief is no more than minimally creditable to the believer.

One does not avoid incompetence if one makes an attempt whose likelihood of success is too low. This seems little more than analytic: when the performance is in a domain that imposes standards of risk, attempts may or may not meet such standards. And the relevant competence of agents then includes reliably enough meeting those standards.