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.

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.

Entitlement and the Epistemic Status of Cornerstone Beliefs

2017 ◽  
Vol 94 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 126-137
Author(s):  
Hamid Vahid
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Epistemic Status ◽  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
Crispin Wright ◽  
The Way

In a series of papers, Crispin Wright has proposed a number of arguments to show that what makes one’s perceptual experience confer justification on the beliefs it gives rise to includes having independent, non-evidential warrant (entitlement) to believe the kind of presuppositions (or ‘cornerstones’) that the skeptic highlights. It has been objected that such arguments at most show that entitlement has a pragmatic character. While sympathizing with this objection, I will argue in this paper that the kind of considerations that Wright adduces in support of the entitlement thesis can nevertheless bear on the epistemic status of cornerstone beliefs, though not in the way envisaged by Wright himself. To show this, I shall make use of the thesis of pragmatic encroachment arguing that, in addition to its practical stakes, the epistemic stakes of a belief are also relevant to its epistemic status. The consequences of the claim will then be explored for the question of the epistemic status of cornerstone beliefs which seem to show that, pace Wright, such beliefs can, after all, be evidentially warranted.

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.

Cognitive Penetration, Expertise, and Background Information

2020 ◽  
pp. 128-156
Author(s):  
Elijah Chudnoff
Keyword(s):  
Background Information ◽  
Cognitive Penetration ◽  
Epistemic Position ◽  
The Way

Can the way that an experience is caused make a difference to what that experience justifies believing? Presentational Conservatism implies that the answer to this question is no. It thereby incurs two explanatory burdens. One is to explain the apparent epistemic downgrade in cases such as Susanna Siegel’s example of Jack looking angry to Jill because of her unjustified fear. Another explanatory burden is to explain the superior epistemic position of expert perceivers such as bird watchers and radiologists whose trained eyes allow them to see more than those with untrained eyes. This chapter argues that Presentational Conservatism has adequate resources to discharge both explanatory burdens.

Doxastic Wrongs

Reasons First ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 183-198
Author(s):  
Mark Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Tamar Gendler ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Way

Chapter 9 extends the arguments of Chapter 8 by defending the view that we can wrong each other in virtue of what we believe about one another, and arguing that this is best and most conservatively explained by Pragmatic Intellectualism. It is argued that cases from Rima Basu, Simon Keller, Sarah Stroud, Tamar Gendler, and Berislav Marušić all involve doxastic wrongs. Though there are two prominent objections to the idea that beliefs can wrong, it is shown that Pragmatic Intellectualism offers answers to each of these objections. And finally it is argued that we have independent grounds to think that the best cases of doxastic wrongs are also among the very best cases for pragmatic encroachment, because of the way that the wrongs they involve are stable over time.

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.

Self-sacrifice for in-group's history: A diachronic perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Babińska ◽  
Michal Bilewicz
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Psychology ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Emotional Events ◽  
Reciprocal Process ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe problem of extended fusion and identification can be approached from a diachronic perspective. Based on our own research, as well as findings from the fields of social, political, and clinical psychology, we argue that the way contemporary emotional events shape local fusion is similar to the way in which historical experiences shape extended fusion. We propose a reciprocal process in which historical events shape contemporary identities, whereas contemporary identities shape interpretations of past traumas.

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