Abstract
Epistemic contextualism was originally motivated and supported by the response it provides to skeptical paradox. Although there has been much discussion of the contextualist response to skeptical paradox, not much attention has been paid to the argument from skepticism for contextualism. Contextualists argue that contextualism accounts for the plausibility and apparent inconsistency of a set of paradoxical claims better than any classical invariantist theory. In this paper I focus on and carefully examine the argument from skepticism for contextualism. I argue not only that the prima facie advantage of contextualism is specious, but also that contextualism is in fact at a competitive disadvantage with respect to two classical invariantist views. I also argue that contextualism takes an arbitrary and unsatisfying strategy in its response to skepticism. That contextualism is alone in taking this arbitrary strategy marks a second competitive disadvantage for it. In addition, I argue that the contextualist response to skeptical paradox regenerates a skeptical paradox which contextualism is powerless to solve. Consequently, the argument from skepticism for contextualism fails. Furthermore, this feature of the contextualist response to skeptical paradox completely undermines the motivation and support for contextualism deriving from its treatment of skeptical paradox. I conclude that the argument from skepticism for contextualism fails, and that the contextualist response to skeptical paradox fails to motivate contextualism, pending the success of another argument for the contextualist thesis.
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Notes
It is potentially misleading to formulate the contextualist thesis as the claim that the knowledge predicate is a context-sensitive expression, since a contextualist may hold that it is an unarticulated constituent semantically associated with the knowledge predicate, but not the semantic content of the knowledge predicate itself, which is context-dependent. Thus, contrastivism is a species of contextualism, even though according to contrastivism the knowledge predicate is not a context-sensitive expression. For various versions of the contextualist thesis, see Schaffer (2004) p 73; Stanley (2005) p 16; Fantl and McGrath (2009) p 30; and Rysiew (2009).
What follows is the explanation given by contextualists who hold that knowledge sentences are sensitive to the epistemic standards of the context. Contrastivism offers a different explanation of the plausibility of K1–K3, but it, too, is one according to which there is no single context in which all three of K1–K3 are true. According to contrastivism, there are contexts in which each of K1–K3 is true, and the latter feature accounts for their plausibility. See Schaffer (2004). Other versions of contextualism have been proposed according to which the epistemic standards are determined at least in part by the speaker’s intentions (Montminy (2007) and Montminy, “The Role Of Context In Contextualism” (forthcoming)), pragmatic presuppositions (Blome-Tillman (2009)), and ascriber interests and purposes (McKenna (2011)). These three views gives the same explanation as in the main text.
DeRose (1995) p 39. DeRose is commenting on his premise “2. If I don’t know that not-H, then I don’t know that O.” where H is a skeptical hypothesis, and O is an ordinary proposition about the external world. The full sentence is: “Our verdict regarding (2) is that it’s true regardless of what epistemic standard it’s evaluated at, so its plausibility is easily accounted for.”
A case where two speakers disagree as to whether a subject has knowledge may be regarded as taking place within a single context. It may seem that a skeptical paradox could arise in such a context due to the presence of both sets of epistemic standards in this context. However, there are various conversational mechanisms available to a contextualist for handling cases of disagreement among conversational participants which prevent such a conversation leading to paradox. For a discussion of these options, see DeRose (2009) chapter 4.
According to a standard definition of a paradox, “a paradox arises when a set of individually plausible propositions is collectively inconsistent.” (Rescher (2001) p 6; his italics) Strictly speaking, the definition of ‘paradox’ must restrict membership in the set of paradoxical propositions to all and only those propositions which are required to generate the inconsistency.
It should be emphasized that K4 is not the weaker proposition that K1–K3 seem paradoxical, but that they are paradoxical. The weaker proposition, that K1–K3 seem paradoxical, is compatible with contextualism, and need not be rejected by a contextualist. Observing that K4 is strong and highly plausible does not beg the question against contextualism, since a contextualist may argue that K4 should be rejected, or may attempt to explain it away.
Although contextualism is committed to rejecting K4, contextualism may account for the high plausibility of K4 as follows. Regarding K1 and K2, there are contexts with respect to which the propositions they express in those contexts are true. This accounts for their plausibility. K3 is true with respect to any context, which accounts for its plausibility. The propositions expressed by K1–K3 in a single context are jointly inconsistent. Thus, contextualism can account for the plausibility of K4, but must reject it.
DeRose (2004) p 37. Elsewhere, DeRose writes: “Insofar as we do have this belief, that the conditions for truly saying that someone knows do not depend on the sorts of contextual factors we have been discussing, then contextualism goes against at least one of our beliefs.” (DeRose (1992) p 927; his italics)
In what follows, I abbreviate “skeptical classical invariantist” to “skeptical invariantist” since the invariantist views being discussed are restricted to varieties of classical invariantism. Similarly, I abbreviate “non-skeptical classical invariantist” to “non-skeptical invariantist.” I give the name “non-skeptical invariantist” to a philosopher who rejects K2, without wishing to imply that the only way for an invariantist to resist skepticism is to deny K2. I also do not wish to suggest that a non-skeptical invariantist must admit that the only justification available for her belief that no skeptical scenarios obtain is that conferred by inference from K1 and K3.
A classical invariantist inclined to deny the closure principle might marshal her argument for rejecting closure in order to argue that K3 should be rejected. Some, though not all, of the standard arguments against the closure principle are independent of skeptical paradox. (Cf. Luper (2010)) If these arguments are given to support rejecting K3, then the points made regarding skeptical and non-skeptical invariantism apply to closure-denying invariantism as well. Since the competitive advantages of classical invariantism are not augmented by considering closure-denying invariantism, I do not discuss it in the text.
Cf. footnote 11: there are contexts with respect to which the propositions expressed by K1 and K2 are true, which accounts for their plausibility. K3 is true with respect to any context, which accounts for its plausibility. The propositions expressed by K1–K3 in a single context are jointly inconsistent. Although there are no three contexts (not necessarily different) with respect to which K1–K3 are highly plausible and jointly inconsistent, these features may be adduced to explain why K4 is highly plausible yet false.
The non-skeptical invariantist adduces one independent consideration and one uncontroversial consideration to meet her burden of proof. Should the uncontroversial consideration be viewed as controversial, non-skeptical invariantism would be at a competitive disadvantage with respect to skeptical invariantism to the extent of the controversy.
Cf. footnote 12 and the quoted sentence it is appended to.
I am grateful to an anonymous referee for pressing this point.
The knowledge predicate’s failure of all three tests indicates the intuitive strength of K5, and, consequently, that contextualism incurs a burden to argue for the contextualist thesis. Nevertheless, it should be noted that there are grounds for disputing the legitimacy of the tests, including that they beg the question. For a critical discussion of the three tests, see Montminy (2006) especially §§ 5–7; Hawthorne (2006); and Stanley (2005) pp 49–51.
According to a standard definition of a paradox, “a paradox arises when a set of individually plausible propositions is collectively inconsistent.” (Rescher (2001) p 6; his italics) Strictly speaking, the definition of ‘paradox’ must restrict membership in the set of paradoxical propositions to all and only those propositions which are required to generate the inconsistency.
Some other claims which might be included concern how epistemic standards are determined for a given context, and how contexts and standards change during discourse. These issues may be set to the side for the purpose of evaluating the argument from skepticism for contextualism.
Cohen comes close to making this explicit when he argues that “Because each proposition has independent plausibility, it looks arbitrary and therefore unsatisfying to appeal to any two against the third.” (Cohen (1999) p 63) Although he writes that each proposition has “independent plausibility”, it is only arbitrary and unsatisfying if the three propositions are equally plausible.
It may also be difficult for a contextualist to defend the claim that K1–K3 are equally highly plausible if K3 is taken to be more plausible than K1 or K2, since it is highly plausible in every context.
A contextualist might try to maintain that K4 and K5 are less plausible than any of K1–K3, and should be rejected, whether or not K1–K3 are equally highly plausible. There are two problems with this response. First, it is simply not very plausible, even by the contextualist’s own lights, to claim that K4 and K5 are less plausible than any of K1–K3; otherwise, this solution to the skeptical paradox would have gained currency long ago. Second, to claim that K5, which is the negation of the contextualist thesis, is less plausible than any of K1–K3, begs the question in the argument from skepticism.
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Acknowledgements
My thanks to Ray Elugardo, Steve Ellis, Harry Gensler, Nicholas Georgalis, Steven Hales, Robert Howell, Matthew McGrath, Martin Montminy, Wayne Riggs, Chris Swoyer, and Mike Veber for helpful comments, discussion, and suggestions.
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Newhard, J. The Argument from Skepticism for Contextualism. Philosophia 40, 563–575 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-011-9338-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-011-9338-1