Interest Relative Invariantism

Overview and Core Idea

Interest Relative Invariantism (IRI) is a position in contemporary epistemology that combines a traditional, invariant semantics for the verb “knows” with the claim that a subject’s practical interests help determine whether they have knowledge. According to IRI, the truth-conditions for knowledge ascriptions do not shift with the conversational context (as contextualists claim), but they do depend on facts about what is at stake for the subject whose knowledge is in question.

On this view, whether S knows that p is not fixed solely by S’s evidence, reliability, or belief-forming processes, but also by what S stands to gain or lose if p is true or false. Changing what is practically at stake can change whether S counts as knowing, even if S’s evidence remains constant.

Motivations and Key Examples

A central motivation for IRI is to account for intuitive patterns in knowledge ascriptions across cases with different stakes. Proponents draw on examples where it seems natural to retract or withhold knowledge attributions when the practical consequences of being wrong become more serious.

A well-known family of cases involves low-stakes vs. high-stakes bank scenarios:

• In a low-stakes case, a person believes the bank will be open on Saturday based on ordinary evidence (e.g., having been there recently on a Saturday). Little depends on being right—going tomorrow would be mildly inconvenient but not disastrous. In such a case, many judge that the person does know the bank will be open.

• In a high-stakes counterpart, the same person has the same evidence, but now missing the bank’s Saturday opening would result in serious financial penalties. Under these conditions, many are inclined to say the person does not know the bank will be open, and should check further before acting.

IRI explains this pattern by claiming that as the stakes rise, stronger epistemic position is required for knowledge. The evidential situation is unchanged, but the subject’s interests alter what is required of them epistemically—how much doubt they must rule out, or how attentive they must be to possible error—for their belief to constitute knowledge.

IRI is sometimes connected to the broader notion of pragmatic encroachment, the idea that practical considerations can “encroach” on purely epistemic evaluations such as knowledge, justification, or rational belief. However, IRI is more specific: it targets knowledge and preserves a single, context-invariant meaning for “knows,” while allowing extra-epistemic features (interests, stakes) to figure in the truth-conditions.

Relations to Rival Views

IRI occupies a distinctive position among theories of knowledge and knowledge ascriptions, particularly in contrast with classical invariantism, contextualism, and other forms of pragmatic encroachment.

1. Classical invariantism
   Classical (or “traditional”) invariantism holds that whether someone knows that p depends solely on epistemic factors such as evidence, reliability, and absence of defeating conditions, and not on practical interests. On this view, the subject in the low-stakes and high-stakes bank cases has the same epistemic position and therefore either knows in both cases or in neither.

   IRI departs from this by treating practical interests as partially constitutive of knowledge, not merely as external or action-guiding considerations.

2. Contextualism
   Epistemic contextualism agrees with classical invariantism about knowledge itself but claims that the standards expressed by “knows” shift with conversational context. In everyday conversations with low stakes, “knows” expresses a relatively weak standard; in philosophical or skeptical contexts, it may express a much more demanding one.

   IRI instead keeps the semantic standards fixed and locates variability in the subject’s situation, not in the attributor’s conversational context. The word “knows” always picks out the same property, but which subjects possess that property depends on their practical interests.

3. Other pragmatic encroachment theories
   Some philosophers argue more broadly that practical factors influence justification or rational belief, and that the connection to knowledge arises indirectly (since knowledge requires justified or rational belief). IRI is typically formulated more narrowly as a thesis directly about knowledge conditions rather than about justification in general, though particular authors may connect it to a wider encroachment program.

Objections and Ongoing Debates

Critics raise several concerns about IRI, leading to an active debate in epistemology.

1. Purity of epistemic evaluation
   One objection is that IRI “impurifies” knowledge by allowing practical interests—seemingly non-epistemic factors—to determine whether someone knows. Opponents argue that knowledge should be assessed purely by epistemic standards; stakes may be relevant to what one should do, but not to what one knows. IRI defenders respond that our practices of knowledge ascription and retraction across high- and low-stakes cases are best explained if interests partially shape knowledge.

2. Asymmetry and moral encroachment worries
   Some critics question why practical interests should matter but not other non-evidential factors (such as moral considerations or social roles). This has led to discussions of moral encroachment, where morally salient factors are also thought to affect knowledge or justified belief. Debates continue over whether IRI can be distinguished cleanly from, or must accommodate, these broader forms of encroachment.

3. Action-guidance and knowledge
   Supporters of IRI often emphasize that knowledge is intimately tied to rational action: what it is rational to do depends on what one knows, and conversely, some argue that if acting on p would be irrational given the stakes, then one does not know p. Critics counter that this tight connection risks collapsing epistemology into practical rationality, blurring important distinctions between what one should believe and what one should do.

4. Explaining intuitions without interests in knowledge
   Alternative explanations of the bank-style cases attempt to preserve a purely evidential conception of knowledge. For instance, some contextualists argue that our shifting judgments reflect changing conversational standards rather than interests built into knowledge itself. Others claim that high stakes prompt us to recognize additional relevant possibilities of error, thereby changing the subject’s epistemic position (e.g., requiring further checking), rather than changing knowledge requirements via interests.

The status of Interest Relative Invariantism remains contested. It has become an important reference point in discussions of pragmatic encroachment, the semantics of “knows”, and the relationship between knowledge and action, shaping contemporary debates about how tightly epistemic and practical domains are intertwined.