Episteme

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

Symposium on Pragmatic Encroachment

PRACTICAL REASONING, DECISION THEORY AND ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

Jessica Brown c1

Abstract

In this paper, I focus on the most important form of argument for anti-intellectualism, one that exploits alleged connections between knowledge and practical reasoning. I first focus on a form of this argument which exploits a universal principle, Sufficiency, connecting knowledge and practical reasoning. In the face of putative counterexamples to Sufficiency, a number of authors have attempted to reformulate the argument with a weaker principle. However, I argue that the weaker principles suggested are also problematic. I conclude that, so far, there is no good argument for anti-intellectualism that rests on connections between knowledge and practical reasoning.

Correspondence:

c1 jab30@st-andrews.ac.uk

JESSICA BROWN is currently Director of, and Professor in, the Arché Philosophical Research Centre at the University of St Andrews. She works primarily in epistemology on topics including contextualism, invariantism, epistemic norms of practical reasoning and assertion, scepticism and the transmission of warrant. She is currently directing a major research project on philosophical methodology. Arché Research Centre, Department of Philosophy, University of St Andrews, Edgecliffe, The Scores, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9AL, Scotland