Tag Archives: contextualism

CONTEXTUAL SHIFTS AND GRADABLE KNOWLEDGE (pages 323-337)

Andreas STEPHENS ABSTRACT: Epistemological contextualism states that propositions about knowledge, expressed in sentences like “S knows that P,” are context-sensitive. Schaffer (2005) examines whether one of Lewis’ (1996), Cohen’s (1988) and DeRose’s (1995) influential contextualist accounts is preferable to the others. According to Schaffer, Lewis’ theory of relevant alternatives succeeds as a linguistic basis for contextualism and as an explanation …

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Epistemic standards and value: a puzzle (pages 265-272)

Jumbly GRINDROD ABSTRACT: In this paper, I present a puzzle that arises if we accept i) that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief and ii) that whether a person counts as knowing is dependent upon a context-sensitive epistemic standard. Roughly, the puzzle is that if both claims are true, then we should always seek to keep the epistemic …

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Why Fallibilistic Evidence is Insufficient for Propositional Knowledge (pages 143-150)

Elliott R. CROZAT ABSTRACT: In this article, I argue that fallibilistic justification is insufficient for propositional knowledge if veritic luck is involved. I provide a thought experiment to demonstrate that even very strong non-factive evidence is insufficient for knowledge if veritic luck is present. I then distinguish between precise justification (PJ), which I suggest is required for knowledge in cases …

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LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE AND SUBSTANTIVE EPISTEMIC CONTEXTUALISM (pages 53-76)

Ron WILBURN ABSTRACT: Epistemic contextualism (EC) is the thesis that the standards that must be met by a knowledge claimant vary with (especially conversational) contexts of utterance. Thus construed, EC may concern only knowledge claims (“Semantic EC”), or else the knowledge relation itself (“Substantive EC”). Herein, my concern is with “Substantive EC.” Let’s call the claim that the sorts of …

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ON CONTEXTS, HINGES, AND IMPOSSIBLE MISTAKES (pages 507-516)

Anna BONCOMPAGNI ABSTRACT: In this commentary on Nuno Venturinha’s Description of Situations, after highlighting what in my view are the most significant and innovative features of his work, I focus on Venturinha’s infallibilist approach to knowledge. This topic allows for a wider discussion concerning the pragmatist aspects of the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy. I discuss this in three steps: first, by …

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SOCIAL SITUATIONS AND WHICH DESCRIPTIONS: ON VENTURINHA’S DESCRIPTION OF SITUATIONS (pages 517-526)

Marcin LEWIŃSKI ABSTRACT: In this paper, I approach Venturinha’s ideas on contextual epistemology from the perspective of linguistic practices of argumentation. I point to the “thick” descriptions of social situations as a common context in which our epistemic language-games take place. In this way, I explore promising connections of Venturinha’s work to key concepts in recent speech act theory, social …

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STAKES-SHIFTING CASES RECONSIDERED—WHAT SHIFTS? EPISTEMIC STANDARDS OR POSITION? (pages 53-76)

Kok Yong LEE ABSTRACT: It is widely accepted that our initial intuitions regarding knowledge attributions in stakes-shifting cases (e.g., Cohen’s Airport) are best explained by standards variantism, the view that the standards for knowledge may vary with contexts in an epistemically interesting way. Against standards variantism, I argue that no prominent account of the standards for knowledge can explain our …

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THE AVAILABILITY HEURISTIC AND INFERENCE TO THE BEST EXPLANATION (pages 409-432)

Michael J. SHAFFER ABSTRACT: This paper shows how the availability heuristic can be used to justify inference to the best explanation in such a way that van Fraassen’s infamous “best of a bad lot” objection can be adroitly avoided. With this end in mind, a dynamic and contextual version of the erotetic model of explanation sufficient to ground this response …

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PRAGMATIC ENCROACHMENT AND CONTEXT EXTERNALISM (pages 165-174)

David COSS ABSTRACT: Pragmatic Encroachment (PE hereafter), sometimes called ‘anti-intellectualism,’ is a denial of epistemic purism. Purism is the view that only traditional, truth-relevant, epistemic factors determine whether a true belief is an instance of knowledge. According to anti-intellectualists, two subjects S and S*, could be in the same epistemic position with regards to puristic epistemic factors, but S might …

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CONTEXTUALISM AND CONTEXT VOLUNTARISM (pages 125-136)

David COSS ABSTRACT: Contextualism is the view that the word ‘knows’ is context sensitive. While contextualism developed as a response to skepticism, there’s concern that it’s too easy for skeptics to undermine ordinary knowledge attributions. Once skeptical hypotheses are made salient, the skeptic seems to win. I first outline contextualism and its response to skepticism. I then explicate the resources …

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