Article/Publication Details

Epistemic Contextualism and Its Motivation

(Original title: Epistemický kontextualizmus a jeho motivácia)
Organon F, 2013, vol. 20, Supplementary Issue 2, pp. 171-186.
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Abstract

According to Keith DeRose, the best argument for epistemic contextualism is supplied by communication intuitions ordinary speakers have when evaluating utterances of sentences of the form “S knows that p” and “S does not know that p”. It is claimed that utterances of “S knows that p” and “S does not know that p” can both be true with respect to the same S and p because the speakers of the utterances employ different epistemic standards. The aim of the paper is to show that one can accept this claim as true while denying epistemic contextualism. A handful of possible contenders to epistemic contextualism are given. Thus, the alleged best argument for contextualism has to be supplemented by other arguments to show that epistemic contextualism should be given preference to the other approaches.

Keywords

Context of utterance vs. circumstances of evaluation, epistemic contextualism, epistemic standards, Keith DeRose, variable truth conditions (propositions) vs. stable truth conditions (propositions)

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