The Ockham Society (Thursday - Week 7, MT24)

Abstract: Epistemic contextualism is the thesis that the truth-conditions of knowledge attributions, such as “S knows p,” are dependent on the context of expression (EC). According to contextualists, EC offers a uniquely appealing explanation of seemingly contradictory epistemic intuitions. Ernest Sosa, however, suggests that philosophical applications of EC commit the contextualist fallacy, “the fallacious inference of an answer to a question from information about the correct use of words in the formulation of the question,” and therefore that EC is limited in its ability to answer philosophical questions about knowledge.

In this talk, I argue that epistemic contextualism can answer distinctly philosophical questions about knowledge. I contend that this position follows from reasonable metaphilosophical theses about the aims of epistemological inquiry – that is, what epistemologists are, and should be, interested in. I defend this view from objections aiming to “cut contextualism out of the equation” by introducing a revision – no standards for standards – to traditional presentations of epistemic contextualism. In particular, I contend that the epistemic contextualist must abandon any context-independent hierarchy of contexts. Finally, I defend no standards for standards against the objection that it engenders metaepistemological antirealism.