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TIME CONSTRAINTS AND PRAGMATIC ENCROACHMENT ON KNOWLEDGE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2014

Joseph Shin
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Abstract

Citing some recent experimental findings, I argue for the surprising claim that in some cases the less time you have the more you know. More specifically, I present some evidence to suggest that our ordinary knowledge ascriptions are sometimes sensitive to facts about an epistemic subject's truth-irrelevant time constraints such that less (time) is more (knowledge). If knowledge ascriptions are sensitive in this manner, then this is some evidence of pragmatic encroachment. Along the way, I consider comments made by Jonathan Schaffer (2006) and Jennifer Nagel (2008, 2010) to construe a purist contextualist and a strict invariantist explanation of the data respectively, before giving reasons to resist them in favor of an account that indicates pragmatic encroachment. If successful, this may suggest a new way to argue for the controversial thesis that there is pragmatic encroachment on knowledge.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 2014 , pp. 157 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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