Robbery, Pragmatic Encroachment, and the Knowledge Norm of Action

There is reason to believe that there is a tension between Timothy Williamson's argument for the knowledge norm of action and his account of knowledge as a non-luminous mental state. Even Williamson's own robbery case, which he uses to support knowledge norms, may only be explained by luminous knowledge. This raises the question of whether and how one should supplement the Williamsonian picture to salvage his knowledge norm of action. This work argues that pragmatic encroachment can resolve the apparent tension in Williamson's view, especially as it arises in high stakes cases, and this should count as a (clearly non-dispositive) reason to recognize pragmatic encroachment as an aspect of knowledge. While Williamson would not add pragmatic encroachment to his version of knowledge-first epistemology, my proposed revision is the least radical one that will resolve the tension and so should be adopted by knowledge-first proponents.