Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Epistemic Contextualism: An Inconsistent Account for the Semantics of “Know”?

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Modeling and Using Context (CONTEXT 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 9405))

Abstract

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 Sect. 1 we first examine some aspects of the epistemological meaning of the contextualist semantics of “know”, then in Sect. 2 we sketch the problem which leads to the supposed inconsistency of epistemic contextualism and in Sect. 3 we analyse some solutions that have been proposed to solve the problem which are, in our view, unsatisfactory. In Sect. 4 we present our attempt of solution.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    DeRose (2009) pp. 166–174, Davis (2013), Kompa (2014).

  2. 2.

    This is an adaptation of Cohen’s airport example. Cfr. Cohen (1999).

  3. 3.

    DeRose (2009) pp. 47–79.

  4. 4.

    Ivi. p. 21.

  5. 5.

    Ivi. p. 187.

  6. 6.

    Cohen (1987).

  7. 7.

    Ivi. p. 15.

  8. 8.

    Ibid.

  9. 9.

    Cohen (1999), (2005).

  10. 10.

    Unger (1984). According to invariantism there is only one epistemic standard for knowledge.

  11. 11.

    Lewis (1996), Cohen (1998), DeRose (1995).

  12. 12.

    For a specific analysis of FP and its variations see Williamson (2001), Brendel (2005), (2014), Wright (2005), Kallestrup (2005), Steup (2005) and Baumann (2008).

  13. 13.

    Brendel (2005), p. 47.

  14. 14.

    Luper (2006)“The Epistemic Closure Principle” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2006 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

  15. 15.

    Freitag (2011, 2013), Dinges (2014).

  16. 16.

    Freitag suggests that we could formulate EC reducing it to just its anti-skeptical form:

    (ECS). ¬∀x, y ϵ X, ∀S ϵ G, ∀t ϵ T, ∀p ϵ B: ˄[KX(S, t, p) ⟷ Ky(S, t, p)] which wouldn’t suffer of KP. However this solution looks unattractive to Freitag because contextualist should aims to a more complex and articulate theory. Freitag (2011) p. 281.

  17. 17.

    Ibid.

  18. 18.

    See footnote 11.

  19. 19.

    Baumann (2008).

  20. 20.

    For EC reply to skepticism: DeRose (1995), Rysiew (2011) “Epistemic Contextualism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

  21. 21.

    Dinges (2014) p. 3550, footnote 20.

  22. 22.

    According to KNA an utterance of p is appropriate only if the speaker knows that p.

  23. 23.

    Brueckner and Buford (2009,2010).

  24. 24.

    Ivi. pp. 434–435. This quote has been adapted to our exposition of the FP.

  25. 25.

    Ivi. pp. 436, 437.

  26. 26.

    Baumann (2010), p. 88.

  27. 27.

    Montminy and Skolits (2014).

  28. 28.

    Baumann (2008).

  29. 29.

    Ivi. p. 589.

  30. 30.

    Montminy and Skolits (2014), p. 325.

  31. 31.

    Ibid.

  32. 32.

    On this point Brendel seems to agree with Baumann, see Brendel (2005) pp. 45–47.

  33. 33.

    Baumann (2008) p. 583.

  34. 34.

    This concept is ought to Elgin (2004).

  35. 35.

    Cohen (1987) p. 15, Greco (2008), Tarasov (2013).

  36. 36.

    Tarasov (2013), pp. 574, 575.

References

  • Baumann, P.: Contextualism and the factivity problem. Philos. Phenomenological Res. 76(3), 580–602 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baumann, P.: Factivity and contextualism. Analysis 70(1), 82–89 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brendel, E.: Why contextualists cannot know they are right: self-refuting implications of contextualism. Acta Anal. 20(2), 38–55 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brendel, E.: Contextualism, relativism, and the semantics of knowledge ascriptions. Philos. Stud. 168(1), 101–117 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brueckner, A., Buford, C.T.: Contextualism, SSI and the factivity problem. Analysis 69(3), 431–438 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brueckner, A., Buford, C.T.: Reply to Baumann on factivity and contextualism. Analysis 70(3), 486–489 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, S.: Knowledge, context, and social standards. Synthese 73(1), 3–26 (1987)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, S.: Contextualist solutions to epistemological problems: scepticism, gettier, and the lottery. Australas. J. Philos. 76(2), 289–306 (1998)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, S.: Contextualism, skepticism, and the structure of reasons. Philos. Perspect. 13(s13), 57–89 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, S.: Knowledge, speaker and subject. Philos. Q. 55(219), 199–212 (2005)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Davis, W.A.: On non indexical contextualism. Philos. Stud. 163, 561–574 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DeRose, K.: Solving the skeptical problem. Philos. Rev. 104(1), 1–52 (1995)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • DeRose, K.: The case for contextualism. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2009)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dinges, A.: Epistemic contextualism can be stated properly. Synthese 191(15), 3541–3556 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elgin, C.Z.: True enough. Philos. Issues 14(1), 113–131 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freitag, W.: Epistemic contextualism and the knowability problem. Acta Anal. 26(3), 273–284 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freitag, W.: In defence of a minimal conception of epistemic contextualism: a reply to M. D. Ashfield’s response. Acta Anal. 28(1), 127–137 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greco, J.: What’s wrong with contextualism? Philos. Q. 58(232), 416–436 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kallestrup, J.: Contextualism between scepticism and common-sense. Grazer Philosophische Studien 69(1), 247–266 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, D.: Elusive knowledge. Australas. J. Philos. 74, 549–567 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luper, S.: The epistemic closure principle. In: Zalta, E.N. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2006). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2006/entries/closure-epistemic/

  • Kompa, N.: Knowledge in context. Rivista Internazionale di filosofia e psicologia 5(1), 58–71 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  • Montminy, M., Skolits, W.: Defending the coherence of contextualism. Episteme 11(3), 319–333 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rysiew, P.: Epistemic contextualism. In: Zalta, E.N. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2011). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2011/entries/contextualism-epistemology/

  • Steup, M.: Contextualism and conceptual disambiguation. Acta Anal. 20(1), 3–15 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tarasov, L.: Contextualism and weird knowledge. Philos. Q. 63(252), 565–575 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Unger, P.: Philosophical Relativity. University of Minnesota Press, Minnesota (1984)

    Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, T.: Comments on Michael Williams’ contextualism, externalism and epistemic standards. Philos. Stud. 103(1), 25–33 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wright, C.: Contextualism and scepticism: even-handedness, factivity and surreptitiously raising standards. Philos. Q. 55(219), 236–262 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. DAFIST, School of Humanities, University of Genova, Via Balbi 4, 16126, Genoa, Italy

    Stefano Leardi & Nicla Vassallo

Authors
  1. Stefano Leardi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Nicla Vassallo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stefano Leardi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

    Henning Christiansen

  2. ENS-Pavillon Jardin, CNRS-Institut Jean-Nicod, Paris, France

    Isidora Stojanovic

  3. Department of Computer Science, University of Cyprus, Aglantzia, Cyprus

    George A. Papadopoulos

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this paper

Cite this paper

Leardi, S., Vassallo, N. (2015). Epistemic Contextualism: An Inconsistent Account for the Semantics of “Know”?. In: Christiansen, H., Stojanovic, I., Papadopoulos, G. (eds) Modeling and Using Context. CONTEXT 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9405. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25591-0_22

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25591-0_22

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-25590-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-25591-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation