What if I am wrong?: A defence of encroachment
Over the past years, proponents of pragmatic encroachment have been challenged to provide a plausible demarcation of the kind of practical factors that are supposed to encroach on the epistemic assessment of one’s belief formation. In this paper, I provide a defence of pragmatic encroachment against...
Salvato in:
| Autore principale: | |
|---|---|
| Natura: | Article (Journal) |
| Lingua: | inglese |
| Pubblicazione: |
15 December 2025
|
| In: |
Erkenntnis
Year: 2025, Pages: 1-23 |
| ISSN: | 1572-8420 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10670-025-01052-1 |
| Accesso online: | Resolving-System, kostenfrei, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-025-01052-1 Verlag, kostenfrei, Volltext: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10670-025-01052-1 
|
| Note sull'autore: | Michael Vollmer |
| Riassunto: | Over the past years, proponents of pragmatic encroachment have been challenged to provide a plausible demarcation of the kind of practical factors that are supposed to encroach on the epistemic assessment of one’s belief formation. In this paper, I provide a defence of pragmatic encroachment against these challenges by relying on the following principle: the practical factors of a situation relevant for pragmatic encroachment are those which, on their own, rationalise the subject asking the question, ‘What if I am wrong in believing p?’. This principle follows from an independently motivated account of how the mechanism underlying the phenomenon of pragmatic encroachment might work. That is, the principle tracks the practical factors that enable epistemic reasons to suspend judgement on whether p rather than to believe p. While this question is rationalised by Pascalian factors, an extension of encroachment to direct threats and incentives to believe is unwarranted. Furthermore, I show that even if one assumes that not only the downsides of falsely believing but also the upsides of truly believing can be epistemically significant, one can retain a limited set of encroaching factors. |
|---|---|
| Descrizione del documento: | Gesehen am 23.07.2026 |
| Descrizione fisica: | Online Resource |
| ISSN: | 1572-8420 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10670-025-01052-1 |