On the epistemic significance of practical reasons to inquire
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On the epistemic significance of practical reasons to inquire Sanford C. Goldberg1 Received: 19 December 2018 / Accepted: 8 August 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract In this paper I explore the epistemic significance of practical reasons to inquire. I have in mind the range of practical reasons one might have to do such things as collect (additional) evidence, consult with various sources, employ certain methods or techniques, double-check one’s answer to a question, etc. After expanding the diet of examples in which subjects have such reasons, I appeal to features of these sorts of reason in order to question the motivation for pragmatic encroachment in epistemology. Once we reject pragmatic encroachment, it can seem that we are forced to treat practical reasons to inquire as having no distinctly epistemic significance. This is not so; I conclude by sketching an alternative account of what the epistemic significance of such reasons might be. Keywords Pragmatic encroachment · Practical reasons · Inquiry · Defeater · Normative defeat
For helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper, I thank Peter Baumann, Katharina Bernhard, John Beverley, Michael Blome-Tillmann, Jessica Brown, Adam Carter, Alexander Dinges, Catarina Dutilh Novaes, Amy Flowerree, Michael Hannon, Katherine Hawley, David Henderson, Regina Hurley, Chris Kelp, Markus Kneer, Igal Kvart, Jennifer Lackey, Nate Lauffer, Krista Lawlor, Jesse Munton, Carry Osborne, Baron Reed, Andrea Robitzsch, Gillian Russell, Justin Snedegar, Mona Simion, Roy Sorensen, Emilia Wilson, and Julia Zakkou. I also want to express my gratitude to various audiences at which I have given this paper as a talk: St Andrews, Northwestern, the University of Glasgow, Texas Tech University, and the University of Osnabrück at the conference “The Epistemic Significance of Non-epistemic Factors”. Finally, I want to thank three anonymous referees for this journal for their extensive and very helpful feedback on several earlier drafts.
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Sanford C. Goldberg [email protected] Department of Philosophy, Northwestern University, Kresge 3-512, 1880 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208-2214, USA
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1 Sometimes we have practical reasons to engage in inquiry. For example, I might wonder whether a candidate’s views on the environment square with mine; this gives me a reason to go find out. To be sure, this isn’t a decisive reason—perhaps I am busy with other things that take priority, or perhaps I don’t really care enough to expend the time and energy that would be needed to find out, etc. Still, I have a practical reason to inquire. Sometimes we have such reasons to inquire even when we already have a currently well-grounded belief on the matter. I currently believe on good evidence that a particular candidate’s views on the environment square with mine: I heard as much from a person I trust. But as I reflect on my responsibilities as a citizen, I come to think that I should really check for myself what the candidate’s views are. (This is especially so, I think to
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