How to Be a Pragmatic Infallibilist

Southwest Philosophy Review 39 (1):145-153 (2023)
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Abstract

Infallibilism leads to skepticism and fallibilism is plagued by the threshold problem. In this narrative setting, the pragmatic turn in epistemology has been marketed as a way for fallibilists to address one of their central problems. While pragmatic versions of infallibilism have been left unexplored, I propose that going pragmatic also offers the infallibilist a way to address its main problem, the skeptical problem. Pragmatic infallibilism, however, is committed to a radical pragmatic view of epistemic certainty, where the strength of a subject’s epistemic state can vary depending upon the practical context. To make room for the plausibility of such a view, I discuss the role that the framing of decision problems can play in the evaluation of choices and evidence. And based on this discussion, I offer some suggestions about how we might develop a pragmatic version of infallibilism.

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Disingenuous Infallibilism.Jeremy Fantl - 2023 - The Monist 106 (4):446-460.

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