Contextualism and fallibility: pragmatic encroachment, possibility, and strength of epistemic position

Synthese ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 188 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan E. Adler
Keyword(s):  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
Epistemic Position

Knowledge, Practical Adequacy, and Stakes

2019 ◽  
pp. 234-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charity Anderson ◽  
John Hawthorne
Keyword(s):  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
Epistemic Position ◽  
The Way

Defenses of pragmatic encroachment commonly rely on two thoughts: first, that the gap between one’s strength of epistemic position on p and perfect strength sometimes makes a difference to what one is justified in doing, and second, that the higher the stakes, the harder it is to know. It is often assumed that these ideas complement each other. This chapter shows that these ideas are far from complementary. Along the way, a variety of strategies for regimenting the somewhat inchoate notion of stakes are indicated, and some troubling cases for pragmatic encroachment raised.

Pragmatic Encroachment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew McGrath
Keyword(s):  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
Epistemic Position ◽  
General Kind

The thesis of pragmatic encroachment about knowledge holds that whether a subject knows that p can vary due to differences in practical stakes, holding fixed the strength of the subject’s epistemic position with respect to p. Accepting pragmatic encroachment about knowledge brings with it a significant explanatory burden: if knowledge varies with the stakes, why does knowledge show so many signs of staying fixed with variations in the stakes? This chapter argues that explanatory burdens of this general kind are harder to avoid than is commonly thought: even if you deny the stakes-sensitivity of knowledge, you will be stuck accepting the stakes-sensitivity of other statuses which, like knowledge, show the same signs of staying fixed with variations in the stakes. The chapter discusses two such statuses: reason-worthiness and emotion-worthiness. If the arguments succeed, then, the problems of pragmatic encroachment are everyone’s problems.

scholarly journals Pragmatic Encroachment and Context Externalism

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-174
Author(s):  
David Coss ◽  
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
Epistemic Position ◽  
Epistemic Context ◽  
Case Based

Pragmatic Encroachment (PE hereafter), sometimes called ‘antiintellectualism,’ is a denial of epistemic purism. Purism is the view that only traditional, truth-relevant, epistemic factors determine whether a true belief is an instance of knowledge. According to anti-intellectualists, two subjects S and S*, could be in the same epistemic position with regards to puristic epistemic factors, but S might know that p while S* doesn’t if less is at stake for S than for S*. Motivations for rejecting purism take two forms: case-based and principle-based arguments. In considering both approaches, I argue that PE is best viewed as externalist about epistemic contexts. That is to say, I claim that what determines a subject’s epistemic context is external to her mind.

PRAGMATIC ENCROACHMENT: IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT KNOWLEDGE

Episteme ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Fantl ◽  
Matthew McGrath
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Status ◽  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
Epistemic Position ◽  
The Status

AbstractThere is pragmatic encroachment on some epistemic status just in case whether a proposition has that status for a subject depends not only on the subject's epistemic position with respect to the proposition, but also on features of the subject's non-epistemic, practical environment. Discussions of pragmatic encroachment usually focus on knowledge. Here we argue that, barring infallibilism, there is pragmatic encroachment on what is arguably a more fundamental epistemic status – the status a proposition has when it is warranted enough to be a reason one has for believing other things.

Putting Fallibilism to Work

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charity Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
Epistemic Position ◽  
Reason For Action

The principle that when one knows p, one is in a good enough epistemic position to treat p as a reason for action is used to motivate pragmatic encroachment. When combined with fallibilism, this principle (Sufficiency) results in the rejection of purism, the view that pragmatic factors are irrelevant to knowledge. Fallibilism, purism, and Sufficiency each have substantial prima facie intuitive support; and yet the three seem to form an inconsistent triad. The author of this chapter challenges the account of reasons that underlies one prominent way of arguing for Sufficiency and then she delineates a position that manages to avoid the trilemma.

Scepticism about Inference to the Best Explanation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Weintraub
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Position ◽  
Important Challenge

Scepticism about inference to the best explanation is far less often discussed than scepticism about another ampliative form of inference, enumerative induction. Both of these inference forms are widely used, and scepticism about either can pose an important challenge. This chapter aims to redress the imbalance by giving scepticism about inference to the best explanation the attention it, too, deserves. The chapter’s conclusion is that inference to the best explanation, even to the observable, may be in a worse epistemic position than enumerative induction. The reason for this is that there are sceptical arguments that target inference to the best explanation which do not have inductive analogues, but the converse is not true.

Hedged Assertion

2019 ◽  
pp. 243-263
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Benton ◽  
Peter van Elswyk
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Epistemic Modals ◽  
Epistemic Position ◽  
Normative Issues

Surprisingly little has been written about hedged assertion. Linguists often focus on semantic or syntactic theorizing about, for example, grammatical evidentials or epistemic modals, but they pay far less attention to what hedging does at the level of action. By contrast, philosophers have focused extensively on normative issues regarding what epistemic position is required for proper assertion, yet they have almost exclusively considered unqualified declaratives. This article considers the linguistic and normative issues side by side. It aims to bring some order and clarity to thinking about hedging, so as to illuminate aspects of interest to both linguists and philosophers. In particular, it considers three broad questions. (1) The structural question: when one hedges, what is the speaker’s commitment weakened from? (2) The functional question: what is the best way to understand how a hedge weakens? And (3) the taxonomic question: are hedged assertions genuine assertions, another speech act, or what?

TIME CONSTRAINTS AND PRAGMATIC ENCROACHMENT ON KNOWLEDGE

Episteme ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Shin
Keyword(s):  
Time Constraints ◽  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Ordinary Knowledge ◽  
Experimental Findings ◽  
The Way

AbstractCiting some recent experimental findings, I argue for the surprising claim that in some cases the less time you have the more you know. More specifically, I present some evidence to suggest that our ordinary knowledge ascriptions are sometimes sensitive to facts about an epistemic subject's truth-irrelevant time constraints such that less (time) is more (knowledge). If knowledge ascriptions are sensitive in this manner, then this is some evidence of pragmatic encroachment. Along the way, I consider comments made by Jonathan Schaffer (2006) and Jennifer Nagel (2008, 2010) to construe a purist contextualist and a strict invariantist explanation of the data respectively, before giving reasons to resist them in favor of an account that indicates pragmatic encroachment. If successful, this may suggest a new way to argue for the controversial thesis that there is pragmatic encroachment on knowledge.

Pragmatic Encroachment and Belief-Desire Psychology

2012 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 327-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa ◽  
Benjamin Jarvis ◽  
Katherine Rubin
Keyword(s):  
Pragmatic Encroachment

RATIONAL STABILITY UNDER PRAGMATIC ENCROACHMENT

Episteme ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTIn this paper I will be concerned with the relationship between pragmatic encroachment and the rational instability of belief. I will be concerned to make five points: first, that some defenders of pragmatic encroachment are indeed committed to predictable rational instability of belief; second, that rational instability is indeed troublesome – particularly when it is predictable; third, that the bare thesis of pragmatic encroachment is not committed to rational instability of belief at all; fourth, that the view that Jake Ross and I have called the ‘reasoning disposition’ account of belief has the right structure to predict limited and stable pragmatic encroachment on the rationality of belief; and fifth and finally, that the very best cases for pragmatic encroachment are rationally stable in the right ways.

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