Episteme

Table of Contents - March 2012 - Volume 9, Issue 01  

Symposium on Pragmatic Encroachment

PRAGMATIC ENCROACHMENT: IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT KNOWLEDGE

Jeremy Fantl c1 and Matthew McGrath c2

Abstract

There 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.

Correspondence:

c1 jfantl@ucalgary.ca

c2 mcgrathma@missouri.edu

JEREMY FANTL is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Calgary. Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Calgary, Canada.

MATTHEW MCGRATH is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Missouri. They are the authors of Knowledge in an Uncertain World (Oxford, 2009). Department of Philosophy, 419 Strickland Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211-4160, USA