Subject-Sensitive Invariantism (SSI) and Epistemic Contextualism (EC) are rival theories in epistemology. Both involve shifting epistemic standards, but they differ in how they explain this shiftiness. SSI is primarily a metaphysical thesis about the knowledge relation, whereas EC is primarily a semantic thesis about knowledge attributions. This paper revisits some of the central problems faced by SSI, especially those concerning Dutch books and third-person knowledge ascriptions. The main aim is to show that existing responses that stay true to SSI do not succeed, leaving SSI in serious jeopardy. Some strategies put forward by, or on behalf of, SSI-friendly philosophers fare better. But these involve forsaking central features of SSI, ceding ground to EC, and falling back on a defense of impurism. I sketch what such an impurist fallback position might look like and argue that the more ground it cedes to EC, the more attractive it will be. It is shown that such an impurist, contextualist position can handle all the difficulties I discuss in relation to SSI. The paper concludes by briefly considering what new challenges this kind of position faces instead.

One famous debate in contemporary epistemology considers whether there is always one unique, epistemically rational way to respond to a given body of evidence. Generally speaking, answering “yes” to this question makes one a proponent of the Uniqueness thesis, while those who answer “no” are called “permissivists”. Another influential recent debate concerns whether non-truth-related factors can be the basis of epistemic justification, knowledge, or rational belief. Traditional theories answer “no”, and are therefore considered “purists”. However, more recently many theorists have argued to the contrary, claiming that impurist factors, such as practical stakes, can sometimes encroach or even override truth-related considerations. This paper bridges the two debates by presenting and defending what I call “Impurist Permissivism”. I support Impurist Permissivism by showing how it can resist Roger White's famous Argument from Arbitrariness (2005).

This paper introduces a novel form of pragmatic encroachment: one that makes a difference to the status of emotion rather than the status of belief. I begin by isolating a distinctive standard in terms of which we can evaluate emotion – one sometimes called “subjective fittingness,” “epistemic justification,” or “warrant.” I then show how this standard for emotion could face a kind of pragmatic encroachment importantly similar to the more familiar encroachment on epistemic standards for belief. Encroachment on warranted emotion is a striking proposal that deserves attention. In fact, there are good reasons to think that encroachment on warranted emotion deserves to be considered the default view for those who already accept pragmatic encroachment on the epistemic status of belief. I support this parity claim by arguing for a principle that establishes a limited coordination between the conditions that warrant emotion and the conditions that justify belief.

This essay provides a novel argument for impurism, the view that certain non-truth-relevant factors can make a difference to a belief's epistemic standing. I argue that purists, unlike impurists, are forced to claim that certain ‘high-stakes’ cases rationally require agents to be akratic. Akrasia is one of the paradigmatic forms of irrationality. So purists, in virtue of calling akrasia rationally mandatory in a range of cases with no obvious precedent, take on a serious theoretical cost. By focusing on akrasia, and on the nature of the normative judgments involved therein, impurists gain a powerful new way to frame a core challenge for purism. They also gain insight about the way in which impurism is true: my argument motivates the claim that there is moral encroachment in epistemology.