ABSTRACT

Proponents of pragmatic encroachment in epistemology claim that a variety of epistemic matters, such as knowledge and epistemic virtue, are sensitive to practical factors, and so the pragmatic encroaches on the epistemic. After surveying pragmatist views that have been presented in the literature, we find that while these pragmatist views are superficially relativistic, they reject a central tenet of epistemic relativism, that competing epistemic frameworks are incommensurable and cannot be compared from a neutral standpoint. Thus, I conclude the discussion by exploring a novel pragmatist view about measures of epistemic strength and propose that this radical position may be attractive to both anti-skeptical infallibists and epistemic relativists.