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This paper identifies a problem for any view that overcomes or “solves” the so-called value problem in epistemology. On the standard view of value problem, any plausible account of knowledge must satisfy a certain constraint: it must entail that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. This amounts to the claim that, for any plausible set of conditions for knowledge, a belief which satisfies all of these conditions must be valuable in a way that it would not be if it had satisfied only the true belief condition for knowledge. Many epistemologists accept the further claim that not all true beliefs are valuable, and more specifically, that relative to certain matters (e.g. the number of names in the phone book, blades of grass on one’s lawn, etc.), the possession of true beliefs is cognitively worthless. It is plausible to think that if having a true belief that p is cognitively worthless, then knowing that p will not amount to a more valuable cognitive state. (And if having a true belief that p were cognitively disvaluable, then knowing that p might even be a less valuable cognitive state.) This presents a problem for any account of knowledge that satisfies the constraint noted above. For, on any such account, knowing that p is always more valuable than having a mere true belief that p. It appears, then, that any account of knowledge which “overcomes” the so-called value problem is immediately confronted with a different problem: namely, that it entails, in cases of the sort just mentioned, that knowledge has a certain value which in fact it lacks. In addition to developing the foregoing line of reasoning in considerably more detail, I shall examine whether an account of knowledge can overcome this problem while still “solving” or overcoming the value problem. Two Problems for Pragmatic Encroachment in Epistemology (and a Solution) Dr. Stephen Grimm Fordham University [email protected] Abstract. According to “orthodox” epistemology, it has recently been said, whether or not a true belief amounts to knowledge depends exclusively on truth-related factors: for example, on whether the true According to “orthodox” epistemology, it has recently been said, whether or not a true belief amounts to knowledge depends exclusively on truth-related factors: for example, on whether the true belief was formed in a reliable way, or was supported by good evidence, and so on.[19] Jason Stanley (2005) refers to this as the “intellectualist” component of orthodox epistemology, and Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath (2007; cf. 2002) describe it as orthodox epistemology’s commitment to a “purely epistemic” account of knowledge—that is, an account of knowledge where only truth-related factors figure in whether or not a person knows.[20] If Stanley, Fantl, and McGrath are correct, however, this “intellectualist” component of orthodox epistemology can no longer be sustained; indeed, given its apparent centrality to orthodox epistemology, it seems unlikely that orthodox or traditional epistemology as a whole can be sustained. Why? Because on their view whether or not a true belief amounts to knowledge essentially depends on certain non-truth related factors. In particular, on their view whether or not a given true belief amounts to knowledge depends on the practical cost of being wrong about the subject at issue, where (in Stanley’s words) “Someone’s practical investment in the truth or falsity of her belief is completely irrelevant to truth-conduciveness in any sense” (Stanley 2005, p. 2). Page 1 of 11 3/9/2009 mhtml:file://C:\Documents and Settings\Rusty\My Documents\Epistemology Conference\pa... Borrowing Stanley’s label and basic idea, and in keeping with similar thoughts by Fantl and McGrath, we can think of intellectualism in the following terms: Intellectualism: whether a true belief amounts to knowledge depends exclusively on truth-related factors.[21] If intellectualism is an acceptable name for the thesis they are criticizing, for convenience I will refer to the position that they want to defend under the name practicalism.[22] So understood, practicalism is the view that whether a given true belief amounts to knowledge depends on the satisfaction of certain non-truth related factors—in particular (it seems), it depends on whether or not the belief is appropriately responsive to the practical costs of being wrong. After looking at some evidence in favor of the view, in this paper I will argue that practicalism faces two main challenges. First: if we reject Intellectualism and suppose instead that whether a true belief amounts to knowledge depends, at least in part, on our practical goals and concerns, then it seems like knowledge might come and go quite easily—in particular, that it might come and go along with our variable practical interests. But knowledge does not seem to come and go in this way. Instead, the thresholds relevant to knowledge seem remarkably stable and robust; even with respect to questions that we could care less about, knowledge still requires a high degree of reliability, etc. In short, and as several people have recently pointed out, it decidedly does not seem to be the case that one can know more by caring less. And yet this is what the idea that knowledge is tied to practical interests seems to predict.[23] Second: there seems to be no fully satisfying way of explaining whose practical interests matter. To say, in a vague way, that knowledge is tied to “our” practical concerns and interests is one thing, but recent attempts to be more precise about the extent of this “our” have all met with serious problems.[24] Thus Hawthorne and Stanley, for example, are quite clear that their “subject-sensitive” view needs to adopt an error-theoretic explanation of at least some of the recalcitrant cases, and they are quick to say that “attributor-sensitive” views are in the same boat. [25] But if all of the familiar ways of sharpening the basic practicalist idea are forced to turn errortheoretic at some point, why not turn error-theoretic at the beginning and deny that practical stakes can affect the thresholds relevant to knowledge? We can think of the first of these problems associated with rejecting Intellectualism, and more particularly with accepting some form of practicalism, as the stability problem and the second as the whose stakes? problem. In my paper I will argue that in fact both problems can be addressed in roughly the same terms. More exactly, I will suggest that by first clarifying the whose stakes? problem an answer to the stability problem naturally falls out. In a nutshell, what I will argue is that neither of the usual ways of sharpening the basic practicalist idea is quite right: in particular, that neither the subject’s practical interests and concerns nor the attributor’s uniquely determine the thresholds relevant to knowledge. Instead, what I will argue is that the thresholds relevant to knowledge are sensitive both to the interests of the subject as well as to the interests of the attributor. What’s more, I will argue that the thresholds are sensitive to the practical stakes of relevant third parties as well: in particular, they are relevant to third parties who, by our lights, might be in need of information about the topic in question.[26] With some qualifications to be introduced later, I will therefore defend what I will call a rising tide account of the sorts of practical costs that matter to knowledge: that is, an account on which identified rising costs either for the subject or for the attributor or for some relevant third party has a legitimate tendency to raise the thresholds for all parties. Whatever one might think of “rising tide” views as accounts of economic welfare, as a view about the sorts of practical factors that help to determine the various thresholds relevant to knowledge, it seems just right.