Date of Award

6-26-2026

Date Published

August 2026

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Philosophy

Advisor(s)

Hille Paakkunainen

Keywords

evidentialism;impurism;ought implies can;pragmatic encroachment;reasons for belief;the truth norm

Subject Categories

Arts and Humanities | Philosophy

Abstract

The four papers of my dissertation provide a new defense of Impure Evidentialism. The combination of evidentialism about normative reasons for belief with pragmatic encroachment (i.e. impurism) about epistemic justification is a familiar and intuitive view. However, many of the combo view’s finer points, unique advantages, and objections have not been addressed. My dissertation fills this gap by offering a new defense and in-depth look of what I take to be the most plausible version of the combo view. My version of Impure Evidentialism offers an improved and comprehensive account of the norms that govern our beliefs, explains why these norms are authoritative, and aims to guide us in how we ought to form beliefs and hold others accountable for their beliefs. At its core, the motivation behind my dissertation and the version of Impure Evidentialism I defend is to harmoniously vindicate two strong and widespread intuitions. First, the evidentialist intuition that only truth-conducive considerations—roughly evidence and considerations about the availability and strength of evidence—can be normative reasons for belief. Second, the pragmatic encroachment intuition that pragmatic considerations can shift the standard for what counts as sufficient evidence and inquiry for us to form a belief. The end goal is to clarify, reconcile, and synthesize the roles of evidence, truth, and pragmatic considerations in the norms governing how we ought to form beliefs. The four papers making up my dissertation follow: 1. “The Truth Norm’s Time-Indexed Obligations” (published in Synthese) defends the truth norm from influential objections by Bykvist and Hattiangadi (2007; 2013). 2. “The Explanatory Adequacy of Impure Evidentialism” defends Impure Evidentialism by offering a solution to a prominent puzzle offered by Alex Worsnip (2021a). 3. “Impure Evidentialism: A New Defense” introduces and defends an improved version of Impure Evidentialism, and argues that it is more plausible than competing views, especially traditional evidentialism and Mark Schroeder’s “Pragmatic Intellectualism” (2021). 4. “The Authority of Evidential Reasons” argues that normative evidential reasons are ‘considerations we ought to take to be evidence’ (the Normative Taking view). The paper defends a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for when we ought to weigh evidence in our deliberations about whether to believe, disbelieve, or withhold belief in a proposition. This, in a nutshell, is my version of Impure Evidentialism: whether you ought to take up a belief attitude (i.e. belief, withhold belief, or disbelief) is determined by whether you have sufficient normative evidential reasons (i.e. considerations that you ought to take to be evidence) to do so, and whether you have sufficient normative evidential reasons is determined by how those reasons stack up against a standard of sufficient evidence set partly by pragmatic considerations about the cost and benefits of taking up a belief attitude.

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