Introduction
Epistemic contextualism is a recent and controversial position, according to which what is expressed by a knowledge attribution – a statement to the effect that someone “knows that p” – depends partly on facts about the speaker’s context. After clarifying just what the position involves, this entry describes the major theoretical motivations for contextualism and some main objections and alternatives to it.
Clarification
Suppose a friend says, “Mary knows that the bank is open until 5 pm.” One question that occupies epistemologists concerns the conditions under which a statement like that – a knowledge attribution – is true. According to most epistemologists, for Mary to know that the bank is open until 5 pm, she needs to believe that it is, and that belief needs to be true. But there are true beliefs that don’t amount as knowledge, as when the hopelessly optimistic lottery player happens this...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Bach, K. (2005). The Emperor’s new ‘knows’. In G. Preyer & G. Peter (Eds.), Contextualism in philosophy (pp. 51–89). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Cohen, S. (1999). Contextualism, skepticism, and the structure of reasons. Philosophical Perspectives, 13, 57–89.
Conee, E., & Cohen, S. (2014). “Contextualism contested” and “Contextualism defended,” with replies. In M. Steup, J. Turri, & E. Sosa (Eds.), Contemporary debates in epistemology (2nd ed., pp. 60–83). Malden: Blackwell.
DeRose, K. (1992). Contextualism and knowledge attributions. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 52(4), 913–929.
DeRose, K. (1999). Contextualism: An explanation and defense. In J. Greco & E. Sosa (Eds.), The Blackwell guide to epistemology (pp. 185–203). Malden: Blackwell.
Rysiew, P. (2016). Epistemic contextualism. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2016 ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/contextualism-epistemology/
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Rysiew, P. (2020). Epistemic Contextualism. In: Peters, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_694-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_694-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-287-532-7
Online ISBN: 978-981-287-532-7
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education