Abstract
The basic idea of conversational contextualism is that knowledge attributions are context sensitive in that a given knowledge attribution may be true if made in one context but false if made in another, owing to differences in the attributors’ conversational contexts. Moreover, the context sensitivity involved is traced back to the context sensitivity of the word “know,” which, in turn, is commonly modelled on the case either of genuine indexicals such as “I” or “here” or of comparative adjectives such as “tall” or “rich.” But contextualism faces various problems. I argue that in order to solve these problems we need to look for another account of the context sensitivity involved in knowledge attributions and I sketch an alternative proposal.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Cohen, S. 2000: “Contextualism and Skepticism”, Philosophical Issues 10, 94–107.
DeRose, K. 1992: “Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52, 913–929.
DeRose, K. 1995: “Solving the Skeptical Problem”, The Philosophical Review 104, 1–52.
DeRose, K. 2000: “Now you know it, now you don’t”, Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Bowling Green, Ohio, Volume 5.
DeRose, K. ms: “The Ordinary Language Basis for Contextualism and the New Invariantism”, available online: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~kd47/OLP.htm.
Feldman, R. 2001: “Skeptical Problems, Contextualist Solutions”, Philosophical Studies 103, 61–85.
Hawthorne, J. 2004: Knowledge and Lotteries, Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York.
Hofweber, T. 1999: “Contextualism and the Meaning-Intention Problem”, in K. Korta, E. Sosa and J. Arrozola (eds.) Cognition, Agency and Rationality, Dorderecht, Kluwer.
Kompa, N. 2002: “The Context Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions”, Grazer Philosophische Studien 64, 1–18.
Lewis, D. 1996: “Elusive Knowledge”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74, 549–67.
Pritchard, D. 2002: “Two Forms of Epistemological Contextualism”, Grazer Philosophische Studien 64, 19–55.
Schiffer, S. 1992: “Belief Ascription”, The Journal of Philosophy 89, 499–521.
Schiffer, S. 1996: “Contextualist Solutions to Scepticism”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 96, 317–333.
Stalnaker, R. 1998: “On the Representation of Context”, Journal of Logic, Language, and Information 7, reprinted in Stalnaker 1999: Context and Content, New York & Oxford, 96–113, quotations are from Stalnaker 1999.
Stanley, J. ms: “On the Case for Contextualism”, www.umass.edu.
Travis, C. 1996: “Meaning’s Role in Truth”, Mind 105, 451–466.
Travis, C. 1997: “Pragmatics”, in (eds.) Bob Hale & Crispin Wright: A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, Blackwell, Oxford: 87–107.
Williamson, T. 2001: “Comments on Michael Williams’ Contextualism, Externalism and Epistemic Standards”, Philosophical Studies 103, 25–33.
Yourgrau, P. 1983: “Knowledge and Relevant Alternatives”, Synthese 55, 175–190; reprinted in M. Williams (ed.) 1993: Scepticism, Dartmouth, Aldershot, 251–266, quotations are from Williams 1993.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kompa, N. The semantics of knowledge attributions. Acta Anal 20, 16–28 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-005-1001-7
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-005-1001-7