KK Compatibilism

According to KK Compatibilism, the unassertability in the high-stakes contextualist cases can be explained in terms of the subjects lack of higher-order knowledge: although, strictly speaking, all that is needed for proper action—assertion included—is first-order knowledge, when the stakes are high, we tend to find people who act without knowing that they meet the condition for proper action blameworthy for so doing. This chapter argues that (1) the view misidentifies the epistemic deficit that is explanatorily salient in contextualist cases, in that the absence of second-order knowledge is not a difference maker, and (2) on closer look, the account requires normative finessing for extensional adequacy.

The Epistemic Normativity of Conjecture

This chapter looks more closely into the epistemic normativity of a particular constative—conjecture—and examines and accounts for the contextual variation of its propriety. The chapter has two aims: (1) it breaks new ground in that it develops the first fully fledged account of the epistemic normativity of conjecture in the literature; (2) it goes sharply against orthodoxy, in arguing that the epistemic requirements placed on us by conjecture are stronger than those governing assertion. According to the view developed here, one’s conjecture that p is permissible only if one knows that one has warrant, but not sufficient warrant, to believe that p.

No Special Treatment for the Epistemic Normativity of Telling

While recent years have featured a vast amount of literature concerned with the epistemic norm for assertion, comparatively little attention has been paid to the corresponding norm governing acts of telling. One plausible explanation of this is that people have generally taken assertion and telling to fall under the same normative constraints. Recent work, however, ventures to show (i) that this assumption is false and (ii) that the epistemic propriety of instances of telling partly depends on what’s at stake for the hearer. This chapter argues that the case against normative commonality for assertion and telling fails due to speech act-theoretic and value-theoretic inaccuracies. In a nutshell, the chapter argues that there’s nothing special about the epistemic normativity of telling.

The Context Shiftiness Dilemma Generalized

Most actors in the debate assume that the intuitive variability of proper assertion with practical stakes (the Shiftiness Intuition) motivates the following dilemma: either 1) we embrace a knowledge norm of assertion, and are forced into a view that takes knowledge, or ‘knowledge’, to be sensitive to practical stakes, or 2) we stick to our Classical Invariantist guns, but then the knowledge norm goes out the window and we get practical sensitivity in the normativity of assertion (the Shiftiness Dilemma). This chapter brings this dilemma to centre stage and argues that it threatens to generalize in three ways: to all context-invariant norms of proper assertoric speech, to all constative speech acts, and to all epistemic normative constraints. If this is right, we should be more worried about this dilemma than we’ve been so far.

Epistemic WAMs

This chapter looks into the feasibility of preserving the independence of epistemically proper thought from practical considerations via the second horn of the Shiftiness Dilemma. For people who like Classical Invariantism about knowledge attributions, the jump from variation in assertability with stakes to contextualism or pragmatic encroachment seemed rushed. As such, these authors venture to account for the Shiftiness Intuition under a Classical Invariantist umbrella by arguing for context sensitivity of proper assertability. This chapter argues that the view fails on prior plausibility due to being incompatible with the following highly uncontroversial value-theoretic claim: norms of type X are associated with values of type X.

A Special Case

This chapter is concerned with moral assertion. In recent years, much attention has been given to the epistemic credentials of belief based on moral testimony. Some people think pure moral deference is wrong, others disagree. It comes as a surprise, however, that while the epistemic responsibilities of the receiver of moral testimony have been closely scrutinized, little discussion has focused on the epistemic duties of the speaker. This chapter defends a functionalist account of the normativity of moral assertion. According to this view, in virtue of its function of reliably generating moral understanding in the audience, a moral assertion that p needs be knowledgeable and accompanied by a contextually appropriate explanation why p.

Conclusion

Many philosophers think that practical stakes affect epistemic standards for proper thought and speech. From the get-go, my gut feeling was that this must be incorrect: it can’t possibly be that whether you or I care more or less about a subject matter affects how much epistemic support we need in order to think or speak about it. After many years of research, I remain convinced that my initial gut reaction was correct. Indeed, the epistemic modifies the practical, not the other way around. This book has outlined the argumentative roadmap that got me from the initial reaction to my evidenced confidence in the independence of epistemically proper thought and speech from practical stakes....

Assertion Functionalism and Context

This chapter shows how to reconcile Classical Invariantism with the Knowledge Norm of Assertion. My basic proposal is that we can combine invariantism with a functionalist account of assertion: according to the account I favour, assertion is governed by a knowledge norm in virtue of its epistemic function of generating testimonial knowledge. Requirements generated by other functions of assertion, though, such as its prudential function, can override the constraints imposed by the epistemic function, and render the knowledge requirement either too strong or too weak for all-things-considered permissible assertion. All-things-considered permissible assertion can vary with practical stakes; epistemically permissible assertion does not.

Knowledge Norms for Constative Speech Acts

This chapter is up to an ambitious task: it develops the first integrated account of the epistemic normativity of constatives. In order to do that, it argues for a generalized knowledge-based account of the epistemic normativity of constative speech, and it develops the corresponding accounts for, respectively, assertives, predictives, retrodictives, descriptives, ascriptives, informatives, confirmatives, concessives, retractives, assentives, dissentives, disputatives, responsives, suggestives, and suppositives. The chapter argues for a knowledge account from three different angles: (1) the nature of communicative speech acts, (2) the relation between assertion and other constatives, and (3) the normativity of belief together with constatives’ epistemic function.

Pragmatic WAMs

In light of embracing the Shiftiness Dilemma, the vast majority of philosophers accept Assertion Incompatibilism: given intuitive variability of proper assertion with practical stakes, Classical Invariantism is incompatible with a biconditional knowledge norm of assertion. There are also a few dissenting voices, however: some invariantists venture to preserve both Classical Invariantism and the Knowledge Norm of Assertion (Assertion Compatibilism). There are two varieties of Compatibilism available on the market. This chapter discusses the first of the two: Pragmatic Compatibilism employs a pragmatic warranted assertability manoeuvre to explain away the shiftiness data. The chapter argues that the view has difficulties with delivering epistemic normative independence for cases of shiftiness of assertions that do not involve knowledge attributions or explicitly tabled error possibilities.