Skepticism and Contextualism

Modeling and Using Context, 2005

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2015

In epistemology, contextualism is the view that the truth-conditions of knowledge claims vary with the contexts in which those claims are made. This article surveys the main arguments for contextualism, describes a variety of different approaches to developing the view, and discusses how contextualism has been used to treat the problem of radical skepticism. It then presents and responds to a range of objections to contextualism arising from aspects of the linguistic behavior of the word `know' and its cognates. Finally, several alternatives to contextualism are presented, including traditional invariantism, subject-sensitive invariantism, and relativism.

Synthese, 2007

Contextualism, in its standard form, is the view that the truth conditions of sentences of the form ‘S knows that P’ vary according to the context in which they are uttered. One possible objection to contextualism appeals to what Keith DeRose calls a warranted assertability maneuver (or WAM), according to which it is not our knowledge sentences themselves that have

2007

Epistemic contextualism (EC) is primarily a semantic view, viz. the view that ‘knowledge’-ascriptions can change their contents with the conversational context. To be more precise, EC is the view that the predicate ‘know’ has an unstable Kaplan character, i.e. a character that does not map all contexts on the same content. According to EC, ‘know’ is thus an indexical expression. Notwithstanding this purely linguistic characterisation of EC, contextualists have traditionally argued that their views have considerable philosophical impact, this being due to the alleged fact that their linguistic views about ‘know’ provide the resources for a resolution of sceptical puzzles. In this paper I will address an objection to EC claiming that, as a linguistic view about the term ‘know’, EC cannot be of any epistemological significance.

Any contextualist approach to knowledge has to provide a plausible definition of the concept of context and spell out the mechanisms of context changes. Since it is the dynamics of context change that carry the main weight of the contextualist position, not every mechanism will be capable of filling that role. In particular, I argue that one class of mechanisms that is most popularly held to account for context changes, namely those that arise out of shifts of conversational parameters in discourses involving knowledge claims, are not suited to the job because they cannot account for the genuinely epistemic nature of the context shift. A form of epistemic contextualism that defines the context through the structure of our epistemic projects is suggested. Context changes in this account are linked to changes in the background assumptions operative in our epistemic projects and the methods used to carry out our inquiries.

2005

Contextualists with regard to knowledge argue that the truth of the claim 'x knows that P' is contextually dependent. In doing so, they attempt to articulate the nature of the contextual dependence. Since part of making knowledge claims involves the adequate justification of beliefs, I shall explore whether any epistemic contextualist theories can be modified or adapted to provide an account of the context-dependence of justificatory strength for arguments. I shall conclude that the prospects are not promising.

2011

The contextualistic account for the semantic behaviour of the term "know" -a position labelled as "epistemic contextualism" -combined with the widely accepted idea that "know" is a factive verb seems to lead to a very unpleasant conclusion: epistemic contextualism is inconsistent. In section 1 we first examine some aspects of the epistemological meaning of the contextualist semantics of "know", then in section 2 we sketch the problem which leads to the supposed inconsistency of epistemic contextualism and in section 3 we analyse some solutions that have been proposed to solve the problem which are, in our view, unsatisfactory. In section 4 we present our attempt of solution. 32 On this point Brendel seems to agree with Baumann, see pp. 45-47. 33 Baumann (2008) pag. 583.

2014

According to a popular objection against epistemic contextualism, contextualists who endorse the factivity of knowledge, the principle of epistemic closure and the knowledge norm of assertion cannot coherently defend their theory without abandoning their response to skepticism. After examining and criticizing three responses to this objection, we offer our own solution. First, we question the assumption that contextualists ought to be interpreted as asserting the content of their theory. Second, we argue that contextualists need not hold that high epistemic standards govern contexts in which they defend their theory. In recent works, several authors have challenged the coherence of epistemic contextualism. 1 They hold that assuming the factivity of knowledge and epistemic closure, the contextualist cannot coherently assert, or know, the content of her theory. After presenting the objection in section 1, we will examine three responses we deem unsatisfactory in section 2, and then put forward our own solution in sections 3 and 4. In a nutshell, our solution rejects the idea that the contextualist should be construed as asserting that her theory is true. We also argue that the contextualist framework does not entail that high epistemic standards are in place in a context in which contextualism is presented. Let 'K(S, h)' stand for 'S knows that h,' where S is a contextualist and 'h' denotes the proposition that S has hands. According to contextualism, there are ordinary, low-standards, contexts (hereafter C L ) in which 'K(S, h)' is true. Now, contextualism holds that there is no such thing as knowing that p, simpliciter. On this view, in uttering 'K(S, h)' in C L , S asserts that she knows that h relative to low epistemic standards. 2 In other words, we have (1) K L (S, h), 1 See, among others, Brueckner (2004), Brendel (2005), Wright (2005), and Jäger (2012). 2 This notation is meant to be neutral between two linguistic accounts, one according to which the predicate 'know' is context-sensitive and designates a binary relation (between a person and a proposition) corresponding to different epistemic standards in different contexts, and another that holds that 'know' designates a ternary relation between a subject, a proposition and (context-dependent) epistemic standards.