Pragmatic Encroachment and Epistemic Value

Does knowledge matter ? There are actually at least two questions behind this broad one. The first is whether the value of knowledge is independent from other epistemic values, such as the value of truth, or the value of having true beliefs. The second is whether knowledge, as an epistemic value is independent from other values, such as the good or freedom, which are practical or ethical values. If we think in terms of a distinction between the theoretical and practical realm, and between epistemic values and practical values, there should be no special connexion between these questions. We have reasons to believe, and we have reasons to act, and they differ. Our justifications in the theoretical domain and in the practical domain are quite different matters, and there is no reason to expect that the structure of values in the two domains is similar. But if we hold that there specific links between the two domains, the matter becomes different. " Pragmatism " is a word which covers many views, but in general it is the view that there are substantial relations between our epistemic reasons to believe and our practical reasons to act. In its strongest forms it is the view that the latter can sometimes override the former, and in an even stronger form it is the view that epistemic reasons and values can be reduced to practical reasons and values. There are descriptive as well as normative arguments in favour of forms of pragmatism. On the descriptive side, one can invoke the close link between belief and action, which is encapsulated both in dispositional conceptions of belief and in the decision theoretic conception : to believe a proposition is to prefer as if it were true. Or one can emphasise connexions between theoretical and practical reasoning , or consider the practical effects that our epistemic dealings with the world make upon our practice in general, etc. On the normative side, there are arguments to the effect that it is sometimes rational to believe on the basis of insufficient evidence, such as Pascal's wager and James's will to believe doctrine, which all are meant to suggest that the evidentialist thesis that one ought to believe only on the basis of one's evidence can have exceptions. And there is the so-called pragmatic theory of truth, according to which truth itself can be defined in terms of practical value.