Suboptimal knowledge

Abstract

I argue for the possibility of suboptimal knowledge: knowledge that’s defective given that the knower ought to inquire. I do this by uniting two independently plausible claims from the literature on inquiry that, at first glance, appear incompatible: there’s the Ignorance Norm, according to which one ought not know that p and inquire into whether p; and there’s the idea that, even if one knows that p, they may still be obligated to inquire into whether p. As I explain, these principles entail the possibility of suboptimal knowledge. Once this argument for suboptimal knowledge is in place, I go on to defend it. Along the way, I identify the relevance and utility of suboptimal knowledge for debates about the epistemic significance of unpossessed evidence, the relationship between knowledge and stakes, and zetetic normativity more generally.