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Pragmatic Encroachment and the Threshold Problem

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Abstract

The threshold problem for knowledge is the problem of saying where the threshold for knowledge lies in various cases and explaining why it lies there rather than elsewhere. Pragmatic encroachment is the idea that the knowledge-threshold is sensitive to practical factors. The latter idea seems to help us make progress on the former problem. However, Jessica Brown has argued that appearances are deceiving in this case: the threshold problem is still a thorny one even for those who accept pragmatic encroachment. This paper takes a look at Brown’s arguments and at Michael Hannon’s recent attempt to respond to them. Hannon’s response is shown to face serious difficulties and a novel alternative response to Brown is provided. The paper also takes up an issue Brown raises very briefly concerning cases in which a proposition is relevant to multiple stakes which a subject faces at a given time. It turns out that there is a good deal more to be said about how defenders of pragmatic encroachment should try to handle such cases than Brown permits.

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Notes

  1. The remainder of the paper considers various ways to make this idea more precise.

  2. Many would object to KPR on the grounds that one can appropriately treat p as a reason for action without knowing that p, e.g., if one’s belief is false but warranted or is warranted and true but Gettieried. For this kind of reason, Fantl and McGrath take having knowledge-level-justification for p to be necessary and sufficient for being able to appropriately treat p as a reason for action instead of knowing that p. [Consider their (BJKJ): You have knowledge-level justification for p iff p is warranted enough to justify you in φ-ing, for any φ. (2009)] “Knowledge-level justification” refers to the level of justification needed to know if other conditions for knowledge are met. I am sympathetic to this approach, but for simplicity I will stick with KPR. In what follows, nothing of substance will turn on this.

  3. Pragmatic encroachment faces myriad other difficulties besides the threshold problem which there isn’t space to address here. See Weatherson (2017) for an overview.

  4. Brown attributes these approaches to Fantl and McGrath (2009, Chap. 7) and Hawthorne and Stanley (2008) respectively.

  5. In response to the clinic example, one might try arguing that at any given time, S is only really in the one practical context which she happens to be focusing on. When focusing on her business-decision, she’s in the high-stakes context and the knowledge-threshold is high. When focusing on her appointment, she is in the low-stakes context and the threshold drops. Like Brown (2013, §4), I think one can be in decision contexts even when one stops thinking about them, hence I think S will be in both the high-stakes and the low-stakes context throughout the drive regardless of which one she happens to be thinking about at each moment. But denying this wouldn’t get the Unity Approach out of trouble. It still faces difficulties with dispositional knowledge. S’s dispositional belief about the clinic’s location, for instance, would flip-flop implausibly between counting as knowledge when she’s thinking about her appointment (and the knowledge-threshold is lower) and failing to count as knowledge whenever her focus shifts to the business-decision (and the knowledge-threshold is higher).

  6. It’s worth noting that Fantl and McGrath are not strongly committed to the Unity Approach and express some sympathy for the Relevance Approach (2009, Chap. 7).

  7. For current purposes, it isn’t necessary to get into Hannon’s account of the “epistemic community”. For details see his (2017).

  8. Inclusion of the phrase “reasonably” is important here to stop a slide into skepticism. It wouldn’t be reasonable to expect the Red Sox winning to be a life or death matter for anybody. So, knowing they won doesn’t require being reliable enough for really high-stakes purposes (Hannon 2017, 2019).

  9. He accepts that the knowledge-threshold and the practical-reasoning-threshold can come apart in some “abnormal” cases (Hannon points to Gerken 2011, 2015 for discussion of what makes cases abnormal). E.g., knowledge can fail to be necessary for treating p as a reason for action, he thinks, when one has a warranted false belief or a warranted true belief that is Gettiered (note that while these reasons tell against the idea that knowledge is necessary for being able to treat p as a reason for action, they don’t tell against the idea that knowledge-level-justification is necessary. See fn. 2). It can also fail to be sufficient, he thinks, in examples like Brown’s (2008) case of the surgeon who is said to know which kidney to remove but cannot reasonably go ahead and remove it without first checking the patient’s file (See Fantl and McGrath (2009, Chap. 3) for a response to Brown’s surgeon example.).

  10. See Kelly (2003) for discussion of the debate and a defense of epistemic reasons.

  11. One could object here that even if one can believe rationally without infallible warrant, it doesn’t follow that one can know without infallible warrant. There isn’t space to respond to this objection here. But I’m tempted to say that rational belief and knowledge require the same amount of warrant. Knowledge-first epistemologists (e.g., Williamson 2000; Hawthorne and Stanley 2008) might urge that the requirements for rational belief are the same as the requirements for knowledge. If there is a difference between them, however, I would suggest that it concerns not the strength of warrant required but other factors such as whether the belief is true and not Gettiered etc.

  12. Example adapted from Grimm (2015).

  13. Brown (2013, p. 187) gives an example in which a subject simultaneously faces low stakes and high stakes concerning the proposition that it’s 5 pm. The subject would like to listen to the news on the radio if it’s 5 pm (low stakes). But if it’s much later than 5 pm, she might miss her flight (high stakes). I find this example unhelpful because the subject cannot act as if it’s 5 pm in the low-stakes context (e.g., by pouring a cup of tea and sitting down to hear the news), without thereby taking undue risk with respect to her high-stakes context. I.e., the contexts are not practically separable. The cookies example aims to be one in which the low stakes and high stakes contexts are practically separable (S can eat the cookies herself without thereby being committed to sharing them with her friend).

  14. Of course, not all philosophers accept fallibilism. See Brown (2018) (as well as references therein) for in-depth discussion.

  15. Note, it wouldn’t be enough to argue that it is in fact difficult for us to form context-relative beliefs. That may reflect the fact that we aren’t accustomed to doing so. The stronger claim would be needed that we couldn’t easily have formed beliefs in this way and so couldn’t easily have adopted a context-relative knowledge-concept.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to audiences at NYU AD research seminar series, at Middle East and North Africa Society for Analytic Philosophy at the American University of Cairo, and at the Analytic Philosophy Workshop in Seoul. Thanks also to colleagues at UAEU for feedback at a work in progress meeting and to anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments. Special thanks to Peter Graham, Masashi Kasaki, Phil Meadows, Adam Murray, Nikolaj Pedersen, Chris Peacocke, Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath for discussion.

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Langford, S. Pragmatic Encroachment and the Threshold Problem. Erkenn 88, 173–188 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00344-y

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