A solution to knowledge’s threshold problem

Hannon, Michael

doi:10.1007/s11098-016-0700-9

Cited by 19 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Recently, some theories of the effects of changing stakes on knowledge have been proposed that do not clearly fit into the standard contextualism/SSI debate. For instance, both Grimm () and Hannon () have argued that whether a subject knows something is sensitive to the interests of third parties other than the subject. That would put their views at odds with subject‐sensitive invariantism.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…That would put their views at odds with subject‐sensitive invariantism. It might be possible, on these views, to explain the results of our third‐person knowledge ascriptions in terms of the fact that non‐subject or communal stakes vary between the low and high contexts, but this will depend on how the community of inquiry is understood (see the discussion of bank cases in Hannon, , p. 616, for example).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Third‐person knowledge ascriptions: A crucial experiment for contextualism

2018

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Previous experimental studies on epistemic contextualism have, for the most part, not been designed to distinguish between contextualism and one of its main competing theories, subject‐sensitive invariantism (SSI). In this paper, we present a “third‐person” experimental design that is needed to provide evidence that would support contextualism over SSI, and we then present our results using this design. Our results not only provide crucial support for contextualism over SSI, but also buck the general trend of failing to detect the kind of contextual effect that the epistemic contextualism relies upon.

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Third‐person knowledge ascriptions: A crucial experiment for contextualism

2018

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“…Most invariantists agree anyway and aim at a more moderate standard. Yet pending an account of where exactly to set the invariant standard, this looks like a rather dogmatic (or desperate) move-a problem that goes by the name 'threshold problem' (cf., e.g., Hannon 2017). The question lurking in the background here is not what it takes to count as a knower (i.e., which epistemic property has to be instantiated) but how much it takes to thus count (Grimm 2015;Kompa 2016).…”

Section: The Threshold Problemmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Proponents of Communal Impurism such as Michael Hannon (2017) or of Craigian Contextualism such as Robin McKenna (2013), on the other hand, hold that there is an invariant, communally determined threshold or standard for knowledge. Individual thresholds, although they can never drop below, can override the communal threshold; if much is at stake, for example.…”

Section: The Threshold Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epistemic evaluation and the need for ‘impure’ epistemic standards

Kompa

2021

Synthese

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That knowledge ascriptions exhibit some form of sensitivity to context is uncontroversial. How best to account for the context-sensitivity at issue, however, is the topic of heated debates. A certain version of nonindexical contextualism seems to be a promising option. Even so, it is incumbent upon any contextualist account to explain in what way and to what extent the epistemic standard operative in a particular context of epistemic evaluation is affected by non-epistemic factors (such as practical interests). In this paper, I investigate how non-epistemic factors come into play when knowledge is ascribed. I argue that knowledge ascriptions often serve the purpose of providing actionable information. This, in turn, requires that epistemic interests be balanced against non-epistemic interests. Moreover, it raises the question of whose interests matter, those of the ascriber, the addressee (of the knowledge ascription), or the subject of ascription. Eventually, an answer to the question is suggested.

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“…Hawthorne and Stanley (), Fantl and McGrath, (), Grimm, () offer pragmatic solutions to the threshold problem. Brown () criticizes this approach, and Hannon (forthcoming) offers a non‐pragmatic solution to the problem.…”

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confidence: 99%

Pragmatic encroachment in epistemology

Kim

2017

Philosophy Compass

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Epistemology orthodoxy is a purist one in the sense that it separates out the epistemic from the practical. What counts as evidence is independent of what we care about. Which beliefs count as justified and which count as knowledge are independent of our practical concerns. In recent years, many epistemologists have abandoned such purist views and embraced varying degrees of pragmatic encroachment on the epistemic. I survey a variety of these views and explore the main arguments that proponents of pragmatic encroachment have offered in addition to the main criticisms of the pragmatic approach. | INTRODUCTIONAccording to philosophical lore, epistemological orthodoxy is a purist epistemology in which epistemic concepts are characterized to be pure and free from practical concerns. On this purist view, what counts as knowledge, for example, is independent of what we care about, and what is good or bad for us is independent of what we have evidence to believe or accept. So one is a purist to the extent that one believes that the epistemic realm is independent of the practical realm and that our epistemic concepts are independent from our practical ones. 1In recent years, a number of challenges have been posed against purism from proponents of pragmatic encroachment, who adhere to the slogan that the practical encroaches on the epistemic. 2 Let us call any view that adheres to this slogan pragmatic. Since proponents of pragmatic encroachment represent a variety of philosophical approaches and views, the slogan is purposely ambiguous, open to a variety of interpretations and applications. I shall, however, begin our discussion by focusing on one specific interpretation. Once we have done so, we can then raise questions about how we have interpreted the slogan and explore alternatives that widen and/or change the scope of the slogan's application. I will do so by offering a taxonomy of pragmatic views in section 4.We start by specifying what we mean by "the practical" by appealing to a demarcation of practical from nonpractical factors that corresponds with the demarcation between non-truth-relevant and truth-relevant factors.Relative to some proposition p, a factor is truth-relevant just in case it affects the likelihood that p is true or false.So anything that raises or lowers the objective or subjective probability that p counts as truth-relevant. 3 For example, relative to the proposition that it will rain today, any proposition q (e.g., that there are clouds in the sky) such that the conditional probability that it will rain today given q is not equal to the unconditional probability that it will rain today will count as truth-relevant. On this initial interpretation, practical factors are just nontruthrelevant factors. 4Next, since knowledge is often taken as the central object of theoretical concern for epistemology, the most widely discussed question about pragmatic encroachment is the question of whether or not practical factors are

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A solution to knowledge’s threshold problem

Cited by 19 publications

References 33 publications

Third‐person knowledge ascriptions: A crucial experiment for contextualism

Third‐person knowledge ascriptions: A crucial experiment for contextualism

Epistemic evaluation and the need for ‘impure’ epistemic standards

Pragmatic encroachment in epistemology

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