Epistemic Contextualism and Recognising Knowledge across Cultures

Abstract

Epistemic contextualism is the view that our attributions of knowledge are sensitive to changes in conversational context. Since conversational contexts can vary radically across cultures, contextualism shows that recognising knowledge in other cultures is more complicated than we may have thought. This paper explores our practices of recognizing knowledge in light of contextualism.

Keywords:

• Knowledge
• knowledge attributions
• Know-how
• contextualism
• Epistemology

Notes

 [1] Clifford Geertz seems to have first discussed this topic in anthropology; see Geertz (1975). Geertz took the notion of know-how from Gilbert Ryle (1949).

 [2] Biagioli (this volume) argues that the relations between knowledge, know-how and intellectual property have been further complicated by recent decisions of the Supreme Court in the United States.

 [3] Safety is defended in Sosa (2000) and Williamson (2000). An alternative principle is Sensitivity: A subject S knows that p only if were it the case that not-p, then S would not believe that p. Sensitivity was introduced by Nozick (1981). For a discussion of some of the virtues and vices of Sensitivity versus Safety see Pritchard (2008).

 [4] A further version of anti-luck epistemology is the ‘relevant alternatives’ approach, according to which S knows that p only if S's evidence for p rules out (or eliminates) all relevant alternatives in which not-p. Safety appears to capture the core intuition behind the relevant alternatives approach, as Pritchard (2008, 454) points out.

 [5] The combination of anti-luck epistemology and contextualism is defended by Lewis (1996), DeRose (2009,) Heller (1999), Schaffer (2005), Ichikawa (2010).

 [6] See Kratzer (1977) for an influential account of the semantics of modal words.

 [7] For an account of adverbial modifiers see Berman (1987) and Kratzer (1989).

 [8] Stanley (2005) argues against the first two options in Chapter 2 and 3. Schaffer and Szabo Gendler (forthcoming) defend the third. It is important to note that MacFarlane (2005) also argues that knowledge attributions are context sensitive, where the context is that of assessment and not the context of use. I do not have the space to consider MacFarlane's view in detail, but I suspect the issues discussed below will remain the same.

 [9] For classic arguments for contextualism, see Cohen (1986), DeRose (1992), Lewis (1996).

[10] See, for example, Cohen (1998).

[11] For an argument for this claim, see Schaffer (2005).

[12] Compare the discussions of this issue in Leach and Hayden, both in this volume. In particular, note that Hayden's discussion of the slipperiness of ‘same’ and ‘similar’ may be related to the context sensitivity of those words, too. That is, the aspects in which two things must be similar for us to judge them same/similar depends on the conversational context..

[13] See Duncan Pritchard's contribution to Pritchard, Millar and Haddock (2010) The Nature and Value of Knowledge.

[14] There is an important question about whether know-how is in fact a form of knowledge-that (or vice versa) that I ignore here. Gilbert Ryle (1946, 1949) introduced both the topic of know-how and the terminology into analytic philosophy and argued that knowledge-how is not a form of knowledge-that. Others have argued the contrary. See Stanley and Williamson 2001.

[15] The style of example is due to Bengson, Moffett and Wright (2009). This paper also provides some empirical support for the existence of a widespread intuition that know-how is Gettierizable.

[16] Poston (2009) and Cath (2012) argue that know-how is not Gettierizable in the way suggested in the text. For a clear, and to my mind persuasive, response, see Stanley (2011, 177–81).

[17] For example, Stanley accepts that attributions of know-how are context sensitive (Stanley 2011, 119), but denies that know-that attributions are context sensitive (Stanley 2005): and yet he also holds that know-how is a type of know-that (Stanley 2011; Stanley and Williamson 2001).

[18] Schaffer (2007, 2009), Stanley (2011, 60–64).

[19] Schaffer (2007, 2009), Brogaard (2009, 2012), Stanley (2011), Stanley and Williamson (2001).