Pragmatism’s Evaluation Problem: A Skeptical Challenge to Post hoc Justification

This paper challenges the viability of pragmatism as a response to skepticism, with particular focus on the epistemic regress problem. Pragmatist epistemology is characterized by three commitments: radical fallibilism, optimism about inquiry, and a method of post hoc belief evaluation. These tenets jointly aim to resist skepticism without lapsing into dogmatism, but I argue they are not mutually sustainable when subject to scrutiny. The post hoc method of generating warrant requires stable evaluative standards to avoid arbitrariness, but these standards themselves become vulnerable to regress if fallibilism is applied consistently. Furthermore, even if such criteria are granted, determining whether a belief satisfies them invites a new target for regress. I call this the evaluation problem, and I argue that it undermines the pragmatist’s anti-skeptical ambitions. Ultimately, I suggest that embracing a form of Pyrrhonian meta-epistemic skepticism may be more consistent with the pragmatist’s fallibilist commitments.