Nothing at Stake in Knowledge [forthcoming in Noûs] David Rose Rutgers University drose@philosophy.rutgers.edu Edouard Machery University of Pittsburgh machery@pitt.edu Stephen Stich Rutgers University stich.steve@gmail.com Mario Alai University of Urbino mario.alai@libero.it Adriano Angelucci University of Urbino adrian.angelucci@gmail.com Renatas Berniūnas Vilnius University renatasberniunas@gmail.com Emma E. Buchtel The Education University of Hong Kong  This paper is dedicated to Richard Nisbett, who helped create the field of experimental philosophy, on the occasion of his retirement. 2 buchtel@eduhk.hk Amita Chatterjee Jadavpur University chatterjeeamita@gmail.com Hyundeuk Cheon Seoul National University hdcheon@gmail.com In-Rae Cho Seoul National University ircho@snu.ac.kr Daniel Cohnitz Utrecht University d.cohnitz@uu.nl Florian Cova University of Geneva florian.cova@gmail.com Vilius Dranseika Vilnius University, Lithuania vilius.dranseika@fsf.vu.lt Ángeles Eraña Lagos Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, UNAM mael@filosoficas.unam.mx Laleh Ghadakpour 3 Iran laleh@ghadakpour.net Maurice Grinberg New Bulgarian University mgrinberg@ngu.bg Ivar Hannikainen Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro ivar.hannikainen@gmail.com Takaaki Hashimoto University of Tokyo hshmt@l.u-tokyo.ac.jp Amir Horowitz Open University of Israel amirho@openu.ac.il Evgeniya Hristova New Bulgarian University ehristova@cogs.nbu.bg Yasmina Jraissati American University of Beirut yasmina.jraissati@gmail.com Veselina Kadreva New Bulgarian University vkadreva@nbu.bg 4 Kaori Karasawa University of Tokyo karasawa@l.u-tokyo.ac.jp Hackjin Kim Korea University hackjinkim@korea.ac.kr Yeonjeong Kim Carnegie Mellon University yeonjeongkim@cmu.edu Minwoo Lee Korea University, Seoul redooly86@gmail.com Carlos Mauro Católica Porto Business School cmauro72@gmail.com Masaharu Mizumoto Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology mizumoto@jaist.ac.jp Sebastiano Moruzzi University of Bologna sebastiano.moruzzi@unibo.it Christopher Y. Olivola Carnegie Mellon University olivola@cmu.edu 5 Jorge Ornelas Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí jornelass@gmail.com Barbara Osimani Ludwig-Maximilians Univesität, München – MCMP B.Osimani@lmu.de Carlos Romero UNAM ckronosz@hotmail.com Alejandro Rosas Lopez National University of Colombia arosasl@unal.edu.co Massimo Sangoi University of Urbino massimosangoi@hotmail.com Andrea Sereni Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS Pavia andrea.sereni@iusspavia.it Sarah Songhorian Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele Milano songhorian.sarah@unisr.it Paulo Sousa Institute of Cognition and Culture, Queen's University Belfast 6 paulo.sousa@qub.ac.uk Noel Struchiner Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro struchiner@gmail.com Vera Tripodi University of Turin vera.tripodi@unito.it Naoki Usui Mie University nusui@nna.so-net.ne.jp Alejandro Vázquez del Mercado UNAM vazquezdelmercado@gmail.com Giorgio Volpe University of Bologna giorgio.volpe@unibo.it Hrag Abraham Vosgerichian American University of Beirut hav00@aub.edu.lb Xueyi Zhang Southeast University, P. R. China zxynj0928@126.com Jing Zhu 7 Sun Yat-Sen University zhujing6@mail.sysu.edu.cn Many philosophers hold that stakes affect ordinary knowledge ascriptions. Here's a version of a pair of cases aimed at supporting this: Bob and his wife are driving home on Friday and considering whether to stop at the bank to deposit a check. The lines at the bank are very long and so Bob considers coming back on Saturday. In the low stakes version, nothing of importance hinges on whether the check is deposited; in the high stakes version, it is very important that the check be deposited. Bob's wife asks whether the bank will be open on Saturday. Bob says he drove past the bank last Saturday, and it was open. However, his wife points out that banks sometimes change their hours. Bob says "I know the bank will be open tomorrow". In the low stakes case, many philosophers maintain that Bob does indeed know that the bank will be open; in the high stakes case, these philosophers maintain that Bob is ignorant – his statement that he knows the bank will be open tomorrow is false. These philosophers also maintain that this pattern of judgments is what we would expect from competent speakers confronted with this and similar cases (e.g., Cohen, 1999, 2013; DeRose, 1992, 2009; Fantl and McGrath, 2002; Nagel, 2008; Rysiew, 2001; Stanley, 2005). Though many philosophers agree that stakes play a role in ordinary knowledge ascriptions, there is disagreement about what explains this. One view, epistemic contextualism, holds that "to know" is a context sensitive verb and that the truth conditions for knowledge ascriptions can vary across conversational contexts (e.g., DeRose, 2009). For instance, Bob's statement "I know the bank will be open tomorrow" can be true in low stakes contexts and false in high stakes contexts. Another view, interest-relative invariantism, denies that "to know" is a context sensitive verb and that the truth conditions for knowledge ascriptions vary according to conversational contexts. Instead, cases like the Bank cases show that practical factors-i.e., stakes-play a distinctive role in determining whether the knowledge relation obtains (e.g., Stanley, 2005). Yet another alternative, which we'll call classical invariantism, denies that "to know" is a context sensitive verb and that practical factors, such as stakes, play a direct role in determining whether the knowledge relation obtains. Instead, stakes affect knowledge ascriptions only by affecting our assessment of factors that have traditionally been taken to constitute or be necessary for knowledge, such as e.g., belief, quality of evidence, etc. (e.g., Bach, 2005; Weatherson, 2005; Ganson, 2007; Nagel, 2008). If this is right, then the role of stakes in knowledge ascriptions fails to motivate such surprising views as epistemic contextualism or interest-relative invariantism. Naturally, epistemic contextualists and interest-relative invariantists deny this, claiming that even when the factors that have traditionally been taken to constitute or be necessary for knowledge are held fixed, stakes continue to play a role in ordinary knowledge ascriptions (e.g., DeRose, 2009; Lawlor, 2013). So we see a dispute over what best explains the role of stakes in ordinary knowledge ascriptions. It is thus extremely surprising that a wide range of empirical evidence suggests that ordinary knowledge ascriptions fail to display any sensitivity to stakes (e.g., Buckwalter, 2010; Buckwalter and Schaffer, 2015; Feltz and Zarpentine, 2010; May, Sinnott-Armstrong, Hull, and Zimmerman, 2010; Turri, 2017; though see e.g., Pinillos, 2012; Pinillos and Simpson, 2014; Sripada and Stanley, 2012). If stakes really do not play any role in ordinary knowledge ascriptions, one of the main motivations for epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism would be undermined. Perhaps these different explanations of the role of stakes in ordinary knowledge ascription are born out of nothing more than a 8 myth (Schaffer and Knobe, 2009). If so, classical invariantism about knowledge might be best supported-not because it provides the best explanation of the role of stakes in ordinary knowledge ascriptions, but rather because the failure of stakes to play a role in ordinary knowledge ascription would undercut an important motivation for its two competitors, epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. These radical alternatives to classical invariantism, lacking evidence in support of one of their important motivations, should perhaps then fall. Classical invariantism would stand. In the remainder of this article, we will disarm an important motivation for epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. We will accomplish this by presenting a stringent test of whether there is a stakes effect on ordinary knowledge ascription. Having shown that, even on a stringent way of testing, stakes fail to impact ordinary knowledge ascription, we will conclude that we should take another look at classical invariantism. Here is how we will proceed. Section 1 lays out some limitations of previous research on stakes. Section 2 presents our study and concludes that there is little evidence for a substantial stakes effect. Section 3 responds to objections. The conclusion clears the way for classical invariantism. 1. Strengthening the Case for Stakes The role of stakes in ordinary knowledge ascriptions is taken to be illustrated by patterns of judgments allegedly made by competent speakers. While a number of philosophers have taken for granted the sensitivity to stakes of knowledge ascription among competent speakers, empirical evidence has suggested otherwise. A wide range of empirical research has failed to uncover evidence that stakes play a role in ordinary knowledge ascriptions (see below for discussion of evidence seemingly supporting such role). In light of this evidence, it would be tempting to conclude that perhaps stakes do not, after all, play a role in ordinary knowledge ascription. As tempting as this may be, however, it seems to us that there are a number of issues that have yet to be addressed. First, virtually every study exploring the role of stakes in knowledge ascription has failed to ask participants whether they view the situation as a high or low stakes situation. This is especially surprising given that the main finding is a null result i.e., that knowledge ascriptions do not differ between high and low stakes cases. It may well be that the manipulation-i.e., high vs. low stakes-was ineffective, perhaps because participants failed to pay sufficient attention to key details varying between the cases. For instance, in the Bank cases, it may be that participants fail to appreciate that in one case it is "very important" that a check be deposited, while in the other it is "not very important." If so, then the fact that no stakes effect was found wouldn't show that competent speakers fail to display a sensitivity to stakes. So, in the study reported below, the first question examined whether participants have understood what was at stake. Another, perhaps more serious issue is that some of the results suggesting that stakes fail to play a role in knowledge ascriptions might be due to protagonist projection. Protagonist projection occurs when a subject takes up a protagonist's perspective and imagines what seems true from the protagonist's point of view (Holton, 1997). Importantly, protagonist projection looks to be at least partly responsible in producing otherwise surprising findings. For instance, Weinberg, Nichols, and Stich (2001) present evidence that Westerners and East Asians view Gettier cases differently: Westerners judge that protagonists in Gettier cases do not know the relevant proposition while East Asians judge that protagonists in Gettier cases do know the relevant proposition. But recent research suggests that the differences uncovered by Weinberg, Nichols, and Stich disappear when taking into account participants' tendency to engage in protagonist projection. Indeed, recent work by Machery et al. (2015) found that, across four cultures-USA, India, Japan, and Brazil-rates of knowledge denial when confronted with 9 Gettier cases were both high and similar across each of the four cultures sampled when a question targeting protagonist projection was introduced. While some participants attributed knowledge to a Gettierized protagonist when asked whether that protagonist "knows" or "does not know," when given a question aimed at probing for protagonist projection-i.e., being asked whether the Gettierized protagonist "really knew" or "didn't really know but only thought she knew"-rates of knowledge denial increased with the vast majority of participants indicating that the Gettierized subject "didn't really know" but "only thought that she knew." Similarly, protagonist projection also looks to be behind apparently non-factive knowledge ascriptions such as "Everyone knew that stress caused ulcers, before two Australian doctors in the early 1980s proved that ulcers are actually caused by bacterial infection" (Buckwalter, 2014, p. 396). It is not the case that people accept statements like this because they think that knowledge is non-factive. Instead, they accept statements like this because they are engaging in protagonist projection by imagining what seems true from the perspective of individuals prior to the discovery that ulcers are caused by bacterial infection. Recent work by Turri (2017) suggests that something like protagonist projection-what he calls "deferral"-may play a crucial role in some of the cases aimed at showing that stakes play a role in knowledge ascriptions. Instead of people's knowledge ascriptions shifting along with variations in stakes, people may simply defer to others' mental-state reports. For instance, in one version of the Bank cases (but not in the version we used), the protagonist in the high-stakes case says, "I don't know it will be open tomorrow," while the protagonist in the low stakes case says, "I know the bank will be open tomorrow" (see, e.g., DeRose, 2009, 2011). In this version of the Bank cases, agreement with both statements might have nothing to do with a shift in stakes. Instead, people may naturally defer to the mental state reports of others. In addition to producing the misleading appearance of a stakes effect, protagonist projection can also mask a genuine stakes effect. This can happen when the protagonist says in both conditions, "I know the bank will be open tomorrow," as is the case in the vignettes we used. To ensure that protagonist projection does not mask any genuine effect of stakes, we introduced a probe aimed at capturing whether participants are making genuine knowledge ascriptions or merely projecting: It contrasts "knows" and "thinks he knows, but doesn't actually know." By comparing participants' answer to this probe to their answers to a "know/does not know" probe, we will also be able to examine the role of protagonist projection in knowledge ascription in a context where stakes are manipulated. Finally, the failure of stakes to play a role in knowledge ascription may only reflect something peculiar about the practice of knowledge ascription within a narrow linguistic community. Indeed, all of the empirical work done thus far has been conducted with participants drawn from the USA. Perhaps a wide range of other linguistic communities display a sensitivity to stakes. So we would like to know whether the effect of stakes (or lack thereof) in knowledge ascription is cross-culturally robust. Putting all of this together, our questions are:  Is the difference in stakes appreciated by participants?  Is the lack of a stakes effect due to protagonist projection?  Is the effect of stakes (or lack thereof) in knowledge ascriptions cross-culturally robust? In taking these up, our strategy was to undertake a cross-cultural study, introducing a number of measures aimed at addressing the questions under consideration in order to determine whether stakes sensitivity (or the lack thereof) reflects a core aspect of folk epistemology. 2. A Study in Folk Epistemology 10 2.1. Method We collected data from 4504 people across nineteen sites, spanning fifteen countries. Each participant was randomly assigned to one of two conditions, a low or high stakes version of a Bank case. Here is the low Stakes version: Bob and his wife are driving home on a Friday afternoon. They both received some money earlier in the day, and so they plan to stop at the bank on the way home to deposit it. But as they drive past the bank, they notice that the lines inside are very long, as they often are on Friday afternoons. Although they generally like to deposit any money they receive at the bank as soon as possible, it is not especially important in this case that it be deposited right away, and so Bob suggests that they drive straight home and deposit their money on Saturday morning. His wife says, "Maybe the bank won't be open tomorrow. Lots of banks are closed on Saturdays." Bob replies, "No, I know the bank will be open. I was just there two weeks ago on Saturday. It was open until noon." As a matter of fact, the bank will be open on Saturday morning. And here is the high Stakes version: Bob and his wife are driving home on a Friday afternoon. They both received some money earlier in the day and so they plan to stop at the bank on the way home to deposit it. But as they drive past the bank, they notice that the lines inside are very long, as they often are on Friday afternoons. They have recently written a very large and very important check. If the money is not deposited into their bank account before Monday morning, the important check they wrote will not be accepted by the bank, leaving them in a very bad situation. Bob suggests that they drive straight home and deposit their money on Saturday morning. His wife says, "Maybe the bank won't be open tomorrow. Lots of banks are closed on Saturdays." Bob replies, "No, I know it'll be open. I was just there two weeks ago on Saturday. It was open until noon." As a matter of fact, the bank will be open on Saturday morning. To see whether stakes are appreciated, participants were first asked: Comprehension: According to the story, which of the following statements is correct? [It is not very important that Bob and his wife deposit their money/It is very important that Bob and his wife deposit their money.] They were then asked: Knowledge Attribution: In your personal opinion, when Bob says "I know the bank will be open" is his statement true? [Yes, Bob's statement is true./No, Bob's statement is not true.] And finally to see if responses to Knowledge Attribution are due to protagonist projection, we asked: Strict Knowledge Attribution: In your personal opinion, which of the following sentences better describes Bob's situation? [Bob knows the bank will be open on Saturday./Bob thinks he knows the bank will be open on Saturday, but he doesn't actually know it will be open.]1 The cases were translated into fourteen languages by competent native speakers and presented in the respective native language for each group. 1 There was a slight difference in the translation of this question in the low and high stakes cases for the Japanese version. The low stakes version read as reported above but the high stakes version used, "Of the following two sentences, which do you think better describes Takeshi's situation?". 11 2.2. Results First, do participants appreciate the difference in stakes? It turns out that they do. Overall, 78% of participants passed Comprehension (see Table 1 for Demographics). So we take our first concern-that participants may not be appreciating a difference in stakes-to be resolved. Table 1. Demographic information about the study's participants who passed Comprehension including countries in which data were collected, nature of the sample (students vs. non-students) and mode of survey administrations (paper-pencil vs web-based, volunteers vs. in exchange for compensation, language of the survey). Sample Students Method Payment Language N Europe Bulgaria N Webbased Volunteers Bulgarian 327 France N Webbased Compensation & volunteers French 367 Germany N Webbased Compensation German 153 Italy Y Paperpencil Volunteers Italian 139 Portugal Y Paperpencil Volunteers Portuguese 139 Spain N Webbased Compensation Spanish 239 Switzerland N Paperpencil & webbased Volunteers French 54 Switzerland Y Paperpencil & webbased Compensation & volunteers French 30 UK N Webbased Compensation English 255 Middle East Iran N Paperpencil Volunteers Persian 164 Central & North America Mexico N Paperpencil Volunteers Spanish 133 USA N Webbased Compensation English 225 South America 12 Brazil Y Paperpencil Volunteers Portuguese 135 East Asia China Y Paperpencil NA NA 128 Guangzhou China Y Paperpencil Volunteers Chinese, Simplified 109 Mainland China N Webbased Compensation Chinese, Simplified 180 Hong Kong Y Webbased Compensation Chinese, Traditional 146 Japan N Webbased Compensation Japanese 151 Japan Y Paperpencil Volunteers Japanese 165 Mongolia N Paperpencil Volunteers Mongolian 115 South Asia India Y Paperpencil Volunteers Bengali 162 Next, do stakes affect Knowledge Attribution? Removing participants who failed Comprehension, we analyzed responses from the remaining 3530 participants. Overall, we found a significant, but negligible effect of stakes on Knowledge Attribution (χ2(1, 3530)=9.040, p<.01). Ascription of knowledge in the low stakes condition (85%) is only 3% larger than in the high stakes condition (82%), and its conventional effect size is very small (Cramer's V=.051): On a standard interpretation of conventional effect sizes (see Ellis, 2010) it does not even count as small.2 More importantly, across sites we find virtually no evidence that stakes affect knowledge attribution (see Table 2 and Figure 1). Table 2: Effect of Stakes on Knowledge Attribution for Each Site (*=p<.05, **=p<.01, ***=p<.001) Sample N χ2 p-value Cramer's V Central and North America Mexico 133 .000 .990 .001 USA 225 3.661 .056 .128 2 We follow Ellis (2010) in interpreting the magnitude of the effect sizes. For Cramer's V we interpret values greater than or equal to .5 as large, greater than or equal to .3 but less than .5 as medium, and greater than or equal to .1 but less than .3 as small. 13 South America Brazil 135 .318 .573 .049 Europe Bulgaria 327 .084 .773 .016 France 367 2.990 .084 .090 Germany 153 .555 .456 .060 Italy 139 .117 .732 .029 Portugal 139 1.229 .268 .094 Spain 239 6.219 * .161 Switzerland 84 .841 .359 .100 UK 255 4.470 * .132 Middle East Iran 164 .020 .889 .011 East Asia China 128 .522 .470 .064 Hong Kong 146 .272 .602 .043 Guangzhou China 109 .690 .406 .080 Mainland China 180 1.345 .246 .086 Mongolia 115 .003 .959 .005 Japan 316 5.728 * .135 South Asia India 162 1.747 .186 .104 14 Figure 1: Rates of Knowledge Attribution for Highand Low-Stakes Cases for Each Site Out of the nineteen sites sampled, only three (16%)-Spain, UK, and Japan-displayed a significant, small-sized effect of stakes on knowledge ascriptions (the data from the USA is also near significant; see Figures 2 and 3). Despite this, a logistic regression model revealed that there was no interaction between stakes and site on Knowledge Attribution, which suggests that there is surprising stability in the lack of a stakes effect across sites (see Table 3).3 Table 3: Difference in Stakes on Knowledge Attribution with France as Contrast Class (*=p<.05, **=p<.01, ***=p<.001) Sample B(SE) Wald χ2 p-value Exp(B) Central and North America USA .231(.641) .130 .718 1.260 Mexico -.686(.579) 1.405 .236 .503 South America Brazil -.942(.602) 2.445 .118 .390 Europe 3 A logistic regression model with stakes, site, and an interaction between stakes and site on Knowledge Attribution was run. Stakes did not predict Knowledge Attribution, Wald χ2 =2.897, p=.089; site significantly predicted Knowledge Attribution, Wald χ2 =65.376, p=.000; and, using France as the contrast class, there was no significant interaction between stakes and site on Knowledge Attribution, Wald χ2 =22.314, p=.218. 15 Bulgaria -.614(.486) 1,601 .206 .541 France (Contrast) --- --- --- --Germany -4.12(.553) .556 .456 .662 Italy -.872(.666) 1.716 .190 .418 Portugal -1.237(.641) 3.723 .054 .290 Spain .162(.535) .091 .762 1.176 Switzerland -1.314(.798) 2.713 .100 .269 UK .142(.571) .061 .804 1.152 Middle East Iran -.740(.535) 1.914 .166 .477 East Asia China -1.041(.633) 2.706 .100 .353 Hong Kong -.360(.756) .227 .633 .697 Guangzhou China -1.110(.649) 2.924 .087 .329 Mainland China .564(.331) .000 .996 .000 Mongolia -.669(.589) 1.289 .256 .512 Japan .027(.507) .003 .957 1.027 South Asia India -.077(.621) .015 .901 .926 16 Figure 2: Difference Between Low and High Stakes Cases for Those Who Attributed Knowledge on Knowledge Attribution Figure 3: Effect Size (Using Cramer's V) of Stakes on Knowledge Attribution for Each Site Moreover, these three linguistic communities, along with every other linguistic community sampled, displayed overall high rates of knowledge attribution regardless of whether the case was low or high stakes (Figure 1). These results fit with a range of similar findings4 and extend the finding that stakes fail to play a role in knowledge ascription to a range of linguistic communities across the globe. Given that we find virtually no evidence of a stakes effect on Knowledge Attribution, we want to know whether this may be due in part to protagonist projection. We look at this in two ways, first, using our second measure ("Strict Knowledge Attribution"). Overall, we again find a significant, but negligible effect of stakes on Strict Knowledge Attribution χ2(1, 3522)=10.451, p<.01. Ascription of knowledge in the low stakes condition (63%) is only 5% larger than in the high stakes condition (58%), and its conventional effect size is tiny (Cramer's V=.054): Again, on a standard interpretation of conventional effect sizes (see Ellis, 2010) it does not even count as small. Moreover, across sites, we continue to fail to find evidence of a stakes effect on Strict Knowledge Attribution (see Table 4 and Figure 4). 4 See e.g., Buckwalter, 2010; Buckwalter and Schaffer, 2015; Feltz and Zarpentine, 2010; May, Sinnott-Armstrong, Hull and Zimmerman, 2010; Turri, 2017. 17 Table 4: Effect of Stakes on Strict Knowledge Attribution for Each Site (*=p<.05, **=p<.01, ***=p<.001) Sample N χ2 p-value Cramer's V Central and North America Mexico 131 1.740 .187 .115 USA 225 5.453 * .156 South America Brazil 135 2.603 .107 .139 Europe Bulgaria 327 .248 .618 .028 France 365 .505 .477 .037 Germany 151 3.860 * .160 Italy 139 .024 .878 .013 Portugal 139 .033 .856 .015 Spain 239 1.930 .165 .090 Switzerland 84 .350 .554 .065 UK 252 2.640 .104 .102 Middle East Iran 164 2.159 .142 .115 East Asia China 128 2.092 .148 .128 Hong Kong 146 2.776 .096 .138 Guangzhou China 109 .002 .969 .004 Mainland China 180 .479 .489 .052 Mongolia 116 .556 .456 .069 Japan 316 2.988 .084 .097 South Asia India 162 .144 .704 .030 18 Figure 4: Rates of Strict Knowledge Attribution for High and Low Stakes Cases for Each Site Indeed, only two linguistic communities (11%)-Germany and USA-out of the nineteen sampled displayed evidence of a significant, small-sized effect of stakes on Strict Knowledge Attribution (Figures 5 and 6). But despite this, there was no interaction between stakes and site on Strict Knowledge Attribution (see Table 5). 5 So, on our first way of looking at whether a stakes effect might be masked by projection, we find virtually no evidence that stakes affect knowledge attribution. Table 5: Difference in Stakes on Strict Knowledge Attribution with France as Contrast Class (*=p<.05, **=p<.01, ***=p<.001) Sample B(SE) Wald χ2 p-value Exp(B) Central and North America USA .477(.375) 1.621 .203 1.611 Mexico .330(.458) .519 .471 1.390 South America Brazil -.769(.445) 2.990 .084 .464 5 A logistic regression model with stakes, site, and an interaction between stakes and site on Strict Knowledge Attribution was run. Stakes did not predict Strict Knowledge Attribution, Wald χ2 =.505, p=.478; site significantly predicted Strict Knowledge Attribution, Wald χ2 =139.090, p=.000; and, using France as a contrast class, there was no significant interaction between stakes and site on Strict Knowledge Attribution, Wald χ2 =22.071, p=.223. 19 Europe Bulgaria -.061(.339) .032 .857 .941 France (Contrast) --- --- --- --Germany .539(.443) 1.483 .223 1.715 Italy -.122(.429) .081 .776 .885 Portugal -.111(.437) .064 .800 .895 Spain .187(.360) .269 .604 1.206 Switzerland .090(.514) .031 .861 1.094 UK .248(.360) .473 .492 1.281 Middle East Iran -.640(.402) 2.535 .111 .528 East Asia China .364(.449) .656 .418 1.438 Hong Kong .450(.452) .991 .320 1.568 Guangzhou China -.191(.459) .173 .677 .826 Mainland China -.504(.536) .884 .347 .604 Mongolia -.481(.480) 1.009 .315 .618 Japan .334(.387) .747 .387 1.397 South Asia India -.050(.415) .014 .905 .952 20 Figure 5: Difference Between Low and High Stakes Cases for Those Who Selected "Really Knows" on Strict Knowledge Attribution for Each Site 21 Figure 6: Effect Size (Using Cramer's V) of Stakes on Strict Knowledge Attribution for Each Site On the second way of looking at whether the lack of a stakes effect might be due to protagonist projection, we looked at whether there was an effect of stakes on Strict Knowledge Attribution among those who attributed knowledge on Knowledge Attribution. Here we find a marginally significant effect χ2(1, 2923)=3.567, p=.059, Cramer's V=.035: Of those who attributed knowledge on Knowledge Attribution in the high-stakes case, 68% selected "really knows" on Strict Knowledge Attribution; of those who attributed knowledge on Knowledge Attribution in the low-stakes case, 71% selected "really knows" on Strict Knowledge Attribution. This amounts to a mere 3% difference. Yet again, across sites, we continue to find virtually no evidence of a stakes effect on Strict Knowledge Attribution among those who attributed knowledge on Knowledge Attribution (Table 6 and Figure 7). Table 6: Effect of Stakes on Strict Knowledge Attribution Among Those Who Attributed Knowledge on Knowledge Attribution (*=p<.05, **=p<.01, ***=p<.001) Sample N χ2 p-value Cramer's V Central and North America Mexico 92 1.448 .229 .125 USA 202 3.182 .074 .126 22 South America Brazil 110 2.303 .129 .145 Europe Bulgaria 245 .056 .812 .015 France 333 .003 .995 .003 Germany 109 1.351 .245 .111 Italy 122 .095 .758 .028 Portugal 120 .650 .420 .074 Spain 190 .297 .586 .040 Switzerland 74 .724 .395 .099 UK 218 1.327 .249 .078 Middle East Iran 118 2.013 .156 .131 East Asia China 107 .613 .434 .076 Hong Kong 134 3.581 .058 .163 Guangzhou China 90 .356 .551 .063 Mainland China 179 .210 .617 .034 Mongolia 80 1.074 .300 .116 Japan 249 .034 .854 .012 South Asia India 139 .416 .519 .055 23 Figure 7: Rates of Strict Knowledge Attribution for High and Low Stakes Cases Among Those Who Attributed Knowledge on Knowledge Attribution for Each Site On this way of looking at whether a stakes effect might be masked by projection, we find that stakes had no significant effect in any site, and approached significance in only two sites: Hong Kong and USA (Figures 8 and 9). Yet again, a logistic regression model revealed that there was no interaction between stakes and site (see Table 7). 6 Table 7: Difference in Stakes on Strict Knowledge Attribution Among Those Who Attributed Knowledge on Knowledge Attribution with France as Contrast Class (*=p<.05, **=p<.01, ***=p<.001) Sample B(SE) Wald χ2 p-value Exp(B) Central and North America USA .523(.417) 1.572 .210 1.688 Mexico .570(.568) 1.009 .315 1.769 South America Brazil -.613(.488) 1.577 .209 .542 6 A logistic regression model with stakes, site, and an interaction between stakes and site was run. Among those who attributed knowledge on Knowledge Attribution, Stakes did not predict Strict Knowledge Attribution, Wald χ2 =.003, p=.955; site significantly predicted Strict Knowledge Attribution Wald χ2 =99.536, p=.000; and, using France as a contrast class, there was no significant interaction between stakes and site on Strict Knowledge Attribution Wald χ2 =17.307, p=.502. 24 Europe Bulgaria .048(.393) .015 .903 1.049 France (Contrast) --- --- --- --Germany .641(.640) 1.004 .316 1.899 Italy .102(.477) .046 .831 1.107 Portugal .329(.516) .407 .524 1.389 Spain .147(.413) .126 .723 1.158 Switzerland .415(.583) .506 .477 1.514 UK .317(.407) .606 .436 1.373 Middle East Iran -.544(.470) 1.337 .248 .580 East Asia China .309(.504) .374 .541 1.361 Hong Kong .776(.551) 2.301 .129 2.173 Guangzhou China .248(.528) .221 .638 1.282 Mainland China -.239(.565) .178 .673 .788 Mongolia -.500(.549) .829 .363 .607 Japan .058(.493) .014 .906 1.060 South Asia India -.274(.492) .310 .578 .760 25 Figure 8: Difference Between Low and High Stakes Cases for Those Who Selected "Really Knows" on Strict Knowledge Attribution Among Those Who Attributed Knowledge on Knowledge Attribution for Each Site Figure 9: Effect Size (Using Cramer's V) of Stakes on Strict Knowledge Attribution Among Those Who Attributed Knowledge on Knowledge Attribution for Each Site Even on our second way of looking at whether a stakes effect might be masked by projection, we continue to find virtually no evidence that stakes affect knowledge attribution. We conclude that the lack of a stakes effect on knowledge ascriptions cannot be dismissed by appealing to protagonist projection. 2.3 Discussion Given these results and the wide swath of research indicating that stakes do not play a role in ordinary knowledge ascription, the scales tilt against epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism, at least to the extent that they attempt to account for everyday knowledge ascription. One of the important motivations for these views-that stakes play a role in ordinary knowledge attributions-is undermined. These views are "idle hypotheses" (Turri, 2017). Interestingly, stakes had a marginally significant effect on both Knowledge Attribution and Strict Knowledge Attribution among those who attributed knowledge on Knowledge Attribution for the USA sample. Stakes also had a significant, but small effect for the Strict Knowledge Attribution question. Perhaps this explains why some epistemologists who have alleged there is a stakes effect, the most 26 influential of whom are Americans, thought there was a stakes effect. In any case, the small effect of stakes is a far cry from what we would expect if stakes played an important role in knowledge ascription. On the whole, we find that there is surprising stability in the lack of a stakes effect on knowledge ascriptions across cultures. 3. Objections and Responses 3.1 Evidence for Stakes Effect Some experimental studies claim to have found some evidence for a stakes effect (Pinillos, 2012; Sripada & Stanley, 2012). These results clearly conflict with our findings as well as a range of other research. So perhaps there really is a genuine stakes effect on ordinary knowledge ascription. We are skeptical that these studies provide genuine evidence that there is a stakes effect on ordinary knowledge ascription. Pinillos (2012) gave people a case about an individual, Peter, writing a paper for an English class. In the low stakes version, it is not very important whether the paper has typos; in the highstakes version, it is very important that the paper not have typos. Pinillos found that when participants were asked, "How many times do you think Peter has to proofread his paper before he knows that there are no typos?", the median response was 2 in the low-stakes version while the median response was 5 in the high-stakes version. Pinillos interprets this as evidence that stakes do indeed affect ordinary knowledge ascriptions. But Buckwalter (2014) and Buckwalter and Schaffer (2015) present compelling evidence that the effect Pinillos found has nothing to do with knowledge. The effect persists when "knows" in the probe Pinillos used is replaced with "believes," "guesses," and "hopes." Rather than being an effect on knowledge ascription, the stakes effect Pinillos has uncovered is instead an effect on the modal expression "has to" (Buckwalter and Schaffer, 2015). In Sripada and Stanley (2012), participants read about an individual Hannah who is allergic to Mongolian pine nuts. She is having dinner at a Mongolian restaurant, and the possibility is raised that there may be Mongolian pine nuts in her dish. They found an effect of stakes on knowledge ascription in two separate pairs of cases. However, the effect looks to be quite small in both cases (less than a 1 point scale difference on a 7 point scale).7 Moreover, when inspecting the graphs of their results (2012, 15), the mean responses in both the low and high stakes version for both pairs of cases do not seem to be significantly different from the midpoint of "neutral." That is, in the cases used by Sripada and Stanley, participants are actually neutral about whether to ascribe knowledge in both the high and low stakes versions of these cases. Stakes may have an effect, a small one at that, only when people are uncertain about ascribing knowledge. We doubt that these results are very encouraging to proponents of epistemic contextualism and interest relative invariantism since "[t]hey remain a far cry from the strong flip from "knowledge" to "ignorance" which DeRose, Stanley and many other epistemologists had predicted from the armchair..." (Buckwalter and Schaffer, 2015, 221). Moreover, there is good empirical reason for thinking that the "stakes effect" Sripada and Stanley claim to have uncovered is confounded with salience and that the effect is instead a salience effect and not a stakes effect (see Buckwalter and Schaffer, 2015). 3.2 The Role of Linguistic Evidence 7 We say it "looks" small because we can't actually calculate the effect size since Sripada and Stanley do not report means and standard deviations. 27 Proponents of contextualism or interest-relative invariantism may object that their theories are not meant to account for everyday knowledge ascriptions. They are, after all, theories of knowledge, rather than linguistic theories about "to know." We have two brief responses to this concern. To the extent that contextualism and interest-relative invariantism are not meant to account for knowledge ascriptions-perhaps they are theories of knowledge to be developed largely independently of how people talk about knowledge and what they think about it- then, we acknowledge, our findings have little to say about contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. They are only relevant for those philosophical views that aim at accounting for everyday knowledge ascription. We add that as a matter of fact, many contextualists and interest-relative invariantists propose to account for everyday knowledge ascription. DeRose (1992) formulates contextualism as a semantic theory and he engages with the early experimental philosophy literature on stakes effects in bank cases (2011). Moreover DeRose (2009) is explicit that "[t]he best grounds for accepting contextualism comes from how knowledge-attributing (and knowledge-denying) sentences are used in ordinary, non-philosophical talk: What ordinary speakers will count as 'knowledge' in some non-philosophical contexts they will deny is such in others" (p. 47). Ludlow (2005, 11) too explicitly formulates contextualism as a semantic thesis: "According to the thesis of contextualism in epistemology, many of our knowledge attributions (including self-attributions) are context sensitive." 3.3 A Negative Result Limited to the Bank Cases One might argue that our results merely show that the bank cases are inappropriate to elicit a stakes effect, not that there is no stakes effect. Other cases would elicit a stakes effect. However, the bank cases were put forward by some advocates of the view that stakes affect ordinary knowledge ascriptions as being the best cases for eliciting a stakes effect (Buckwalter and Schaffer, 2015, 222). Furthermore, even Sripada and Stanley, who think that their pine nut cases are the best cases for eliciting a stakes effect on ordinary knowledge ascription, find at best a very small effect of stakes, which shifts people from being slightly more to slightly less neutral about whether to ascribe knowledge. Finally, other studies have used a range of cases with each failing to uncover an effect of stakes on ordinary knowledge ascription (see e.g., Feltz and Zarpentine, 2010; Turri, 2017; Turri and Buckwalter, 2017). Indeed, in light of our findings and a range of research failing to uncover a stakes effect in ordinary knowledge ascriptions, we think that stakes fail to reflect a core aspect of folk epistemology. 4. Conclusion Epistemic contextualists hold that knowledge ascription shifts across conversational contexts; interestrelative invariantists recognize a distinctive epistemic role for practical factors such as stakes in knowledge ascription. If either of these is correct, serious pressure is put on classical invariantism since the classical invariantist rejects both claims. However, a wide range of empirical evidence now suggests that stakes do not play any role in ordinary knowledge ascription. We set out to provide what we take to be a stringent test of whether stakes play a role in ordinary knowledge ascriptions. In doing so we pursued three main questions:  Is the difference in stakes appreciated by participants? 28  Is the lack of a stakes effect due to protagonist projection?  Is the effect of stakes (or lack thereof) in knowledge ascriptions cross culturally robust? 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