Epistemological Contextualism Problems and Prospects Brady and Pritchard Philosophy Journal

7/27/2019 Epistemological Contextualism Problems and Prospects Brady and Pritchard Philosophy Journal

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EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONTEXTUALISM:PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

B M B D P

Epistemological contextualism has become one of the most important and widely discussed newproposals in the theory of knowledge. This special issue contributes to the debate by bringing togethersome of the main participants to provide a state-of-the-art discussion of the proposal. Here we offer abrief overview of the contextualist position, describe some of the main lines of criticism that have beenlevelled against the view, and present a summary of each of the contributions to this collection.

I. EPISTEMOLOGICAL ATTRIBUTOR CONTEXTUALISM:

THE FIRST WAVE

One of the most important movements in contemporary epistemology hasbeen that of epistemological attributor contextualism. Like all contextualisttheses in epistemology, this view holds that the epistemic status of a belief typically, whether the target belief is an instance of knowledge can depend

in a non-trivial way upon contextual factors. More specifically, attributorcontextualism (henceforth just contextualism) is primarily a linguistic thesis,in that it holds that knows is a context-sensitive term in the following sense:assertions of sentences involving this term will vary in their truth-value

depending upon the context of the person making the assertion. This is why theview is known as attributorcontextualism, in order to emphasize the fact thatit is the context of the person making the assertion that is important toepistemic status, rather than, where this is different, the context of the sub-

ject who is being ascribed knowledge. (For simplicity, we here focus onattributor contextualism about knows rather than on related contextualisttheses regarding other epistemic terms, such as justified or warranted.)Accordingly, two people could both simultaneously assert that, say, John

knows that Paris is the capital of France, and be in agreement on every

relevant epistemological fact about John, and yet one could be speakingtruly and the other falsely because their respective assertions are made in

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different contexts where knows is governed by different standards, and thuswhere the proposition asserted in each case is different.1

The historical basis for contextualism of this variety can be found in the

writings of a number of philosophers, such as Austin and Wittgenstein.2

Itwas not, however, until David Lewis work on how to keep the score in alanguage game that we have the beginnings of the first real account of what

a context-sensitive account of knows might look like and how it can beapplied to some of the perennial problems of epistemology.3 Lewis workgave impetus to a number of philosophers at the vanguard of the first waveof attributor contextualism, a group which included as central figures Keith

DeRose and Stewart Cohen; and Lewis himself also returned to the fray tospell out the details of his particular variant on this thesis.4 Although there

are important differences between the positions advocated by Lewis,DeRose and Cohen, what is common to these views is the general idea that

the contextualist thesis presents us with the best way of accommodating thelinguistic data regarding our use of epistemic terms, while also offering aneat and compelling resolution to various epistemological problems, such asthe problem of radical scepticism.

It is worth looking at this last claim in more detail, since much of the at-traction of the contextualist view has tended to lie in its response to thesceptic. Consider the following sceptical argument, where e is some para-

digm everyday proposition which we would all take ourselves to know(such as that one is presently seated), and sh is a sceptical hypothesis (suchas the brain in a vat hypothesis) which is inconsistent with e:

S. I dont know that not-shS. If I dont know that not-sh, then I dont know eSC. I dont know e.

MICHAEL BRADY AND DUNCAN PRITCHARD

The Editors ofThe Philosophical Quarterly,

1 See S. Cohen, Contextualism and Skepticism, Philosophical Issues, (), pp. ,at p. , for a neat presentation of this point.

2 See J.L. Austin, Other Minds, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol. (),

pp. ; L. Wittgenstein, On Certainty, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright (Ox-ford: Blackwell, ). Variants on the contextualist thesis can also be found (sometimes in justa suggestive form) in the following texts: A. Goldman, Discrimination and Perceptual Know-ledge, Journal of Philosophy, (), pp. ; G.C. Stine, Skepticism, Relevant

Alternatives, and Deductive Closure, Philosophical Studies, (), pp. ; D.B. Annis,A Contextualist Theory of Justification, American Philosophical Quarterly, (), pp. ;F. Dretske, The Pragmatic Dimension of Knowledge, Philosophical Studies, (),pp. ; M. Williams, Unnatural Doubts: Epistemological Realism and the Basis of Scepticism(Oxford: Blackwell, ).

3 See D. Lewis, Scorekeeping in a Language Game, Journal of Philosophical Logic, (),pp. .

4 See K. DeRose, Solving the Skeptical Problem, Philosophical Review, (), pp. ;

Cohen, Contextualism and Skepticism; Lewis, Elusive Knowledge, Australasian Journal ofPhilosophy, (), pp. .


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Famously, some have responded to this argument either by simply denying(S) or by denying (S) via a rejection of the principle that knowledge is

closed under known entailment (the closure principle) on which (S)

appears to depend (very roughly, closure holds that if one knows one pro-position, such as e, and one knows that this entails a second proposition,such as not-sh, then one also knows the second proposition, in this case

not-sh).5 Neither manuvre is particularly compelling, however, since both(S) and the closure principle are highly intuitive. Accordingly, rejectingthese premises seems tantamount to large-scale epistemological revisionism.This is what makes the alternative diagnosis of the sceptical problem offered

by contextualism so attractive, since it holds out the promise of resolving thisdifficulty without having to engage in revisionism of this sort.

According to contextualism, what is happening here is a shift in thecontext which brings about a shift in the epistemic standards demanded of

an agent before that agent can be truly said to have knowledge. In parti-cular, the idea is that in quotidian contexts the epistemic standards will below, thereby ensuring that assertions of ascription sentences (i.e., sentenceswhich ascribe knowledge to an agent) will tend to be true. This accounts for

why we find (SC) so counter-intuitive, since normally the assertion of anascription sentence regarding an e-type proposition will tend to express atruth. Moreover, since closure holds, it follows that our possession of

knowledge ofe-type propositions relative to the epistemic standards in playin quotidian contexts will be accompanied (provided we know the relevantentailment at least) by knowledge of the denials of sceptical hypotheses,

contra(S).In contrast, in more demanding contexts, such as contexts in which

the sceptical problem is at issue, the epistemic standards will rise, so thatassertions of ascription sentences will now no longer tend to be true.Accordingly, it willnow be true to say that we lack knowledge of the denialsof sceptical hypothesis, which is the intuition driving (S), and relative to

these standards an assertion of the sceptical conclusion, (SC), will likewise betrue also, so there is no tension with closure here either. The contextualisttherefore has a powerful diagnosis of the problem of scepticism one thataccommodates both sceptical and anti-sceptical intuitions while retaining

the highly intuitive closure principle for knowledge.

EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONTEXTUALISM: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS


5 The first tactic of simply denying (S) is often called the Moorean anti-sceptical strategy,since it shares certain features with the response to scepticism offered by G.E. Moore. SeeMoore, A Defence of Common Sense, Contemporary British Philosophy (nd series), ed. J.H.Muirhead (London: Allen and Unwin, ), and Proof of an External World, Proceedings of the

British Academy, (), pp. . For the main discussions of the second tactic of deny-

ing the closure principle, see Dretske, Epistemic Operators, Journal of Philosophy, (),pp. ; R. Nozick, Philosophical Explanations(Oxford UP, ).


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In general, the contextualist strategy has been to use this thesis about thecontext-sensitivity of knows to capture the intuitions we have regarding

the varying conditions under which we deem it appropriate to ascribe (or

deny) knowledge. It seems, for example, that where there is a lot at stake inan ascription, the standards that the subject needs to meet in order to betruly ascribed knowledge rise accordingly, and contextualism is clearly in

a strong position to accommodate this intuition. Moreover, by taking seri-ously the apparent context-sensitivity of epistemic terms, contextualists haveargued that this view can be employed to cast light on a number of othercentral issues in epistemology aside from the sceptical problem, such as, for

example, the lottery puzzle. It is thus little wonder that contextualism has soquickly become one of the most discussed positions in contemporary

epistemology, if not in philosophy as a whole.

II. REACTIONS AND REFINEMENTS

Inevitably, this first wave of work on contextualism was followed by the firstwave of critique. Although this is not at all an exhaustive list, one can regardthe first wave of criticism as focused on the following three issues:

. The contextualist claim that we are able to know the denials of sceptical

hypotheses in undemanding contexts. The intellectual adequacy of the contextualist response to scepticism

. The linguistic basis for contextualism; in particular, whether thelinguistic data could not be better accounted for by a non-contextualist(i.e., invariantist) view.

The first problem concerns the unusual status of our knowledge of the

denials of sceptical hypotheses on the contextualist view. It is essential tocontextualism that we are able to possess this knowledge, since, short ofsurrendering to scepticism at any rate, the retention of closure will demand

it. The problem is that this putative knowledge has an odd standing accord-

ing to this theory, since although it is possessed, one can apparently nevertruly assert a sentence which ascribes this knowledge, since in raising thesceptical possibility in this way one raises the epistemic standards, therebymaking what is asserted false. At the very least, then, it seems to be a

consequence of contextualism that epistemologists, who are concerned withproblems like this as a matter of course, are rarely able to know very much.6



6 At least unless we can make sense of Lewis suggestion that we are compartmentalizedthinkers, such that one compartment is able to know a great deal even while a second

compartment, that which is concerned with the sceptical problem, knows next to nothing.See Lewis, Elusive Knowledge.


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A related problem is that if we can make sense of the idea that we areable to know the denials of sceptical hypotheses, then it is far from clear whywe would also want to endorse contextualism. After all, the rejection of (S)

will by itselfsuffice to block the sceptical argument, regardless of whether it isallied to a contextualist thesis. Remember that the problem with (S) wasntthat while we approximate to meeting the standards necessary for know-ledge, in this case we dont quite meet them, but rather that this is the sort ofproposition that it is impossible for creatures like us to know, whateverincremental improvements we might make to our epistemic positions. Thusit is far from clear that merely lowering the epistemic standards for know-ledge will do the trick. And note that if this does do the trick if the problemhere is simply that we dont quite meet austere sceptical epistemic standards

then this invites the thought that perhaps the moral to be drawn is not thatwe should regard knows as a context-sensitive term, but rather that weshould resist the move to the sceptics austere epistemic standards and insistinstead on evaluating assertions of ascription sentences relative to morerelaxed quotidian epistemic standards (in every context).7

As we just noted, the contextualist treatment of scepticism seems to leavethe contextualist with a mute response to the sceptic, since the challenge isalways, by its very nature, posed in a sceptical context where assertions ofascription sentences will tend to be false. This sort of difficulty for the view

has led many to question the intellectual adequacy of the contextualist anti-sceptical thesis. Indeed, since the contextualist allows that it is the scepticwho is working with the higher epistemic standards, it is easy to see whysome commentators have claimed that the contextualist resolution toscepticism leaves one with the uneasy feeling that, strictly speaking, we donthave knowledge after all, its just that its OK (though strictly speaking false)to say that we do when we are speaking loosely in quotidian conversationalcontexts. In short, the worry here is that contextualism seems to leave thedoor open to infallibilism of the sort defended in early work by Peter Unger,where knows, rather than being treated as a context-sensitive term, is infact treated as an absoluteterm such that no one, strictly speaking, ever hasany knowledge, since the standards demanded for knowledge possession(infallibility) are so strong that no one can ever meet them.8



7 For more on this problem, see D. Pritchard, Recent Work on Radical Skepticism,American Philosophical Quarterly, (), pp. , in . Crispin Wright also explores thisproblem for the contextualist treatment of scepticism in his contribution to this volume.

8 See P. Unger, A Defence of Skepticism, Philosophical Review, (), pp. , andIgnorance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, ). In more recent work Unger has argued for theweaker thesis that there is no way of adjudicating between a contextualist account of knowswhich enables us to avoid scepticism, and an infallibilist non-contextualist account which does

not. Accordingly, we are in no better position as regards the sceptical problem, since we stillhave no reason not to be sceptics. See Unger, Philosophical Relativity (Oxford: Blackwell, ).


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A similar problem in this regard is that while the early contextualist viewswere very clear about how the standards for knowledge could be raised so

that it was no longer possible to assert ascription sentences truly, it wasnt at

all clear what would be involved in lowering the standards again afterwardsso that assertions of these same ascription sentences would now expresstruths. This is the so-called problem of epistemic descent, and it is crucial

that contextualists have an account of such descent if they are to explainhow those who have actively considered the sceptical problem can, oncethey engage once more in normal quotidian contexts, return to assertingascription sentences truly as they did before.9

This last issue relates to the third type of problem initially raised forcontextualists, which concerns the linguistic basis of the view. The challenge

here is to specify just how conversational factors can alter the epistemic stan-dards in play, and do so in a way that does not offend against the linguistic

data. For example, in the case of epistemic descent just described, it seemsthat what the contextualist predicts in terms of linguistic behaviour is will-ingness on the part of the agent (i) to assert the relevant ascription sentencein a quotidian conversational context; (ii) to assert the negation of this

ascription sentence once the agent moves into the sceptical conversationalcontext (i.e., to say that the target subject doesnthave the knowledge thatwas previously ascribed to her); and (iii) to go back to asserting the original

ascription sentence when the quotidian conversational context returns. Onthe face of it, however, this prediction is not borne out by the linguistic data.In general, we would not treat someone as a good asserter if she altered herassertions merely in the light of conversational factors in this way.10

More generally, a further line of critique in this regard has concerned

whether the apparent context-sensitivity of knows could not be simplyaccommodated within a Gricean picture. On this view, certain assertionsbecome unassertable as the conversational context changes perhaps be-cause, for example, the new conversational context means that the assertion

now carries different conversational implicatures, ones which are nowmostly false even though they do not shift in their truth-value. It could be,for example, that it is conversationally inappropriate to say that one knowsthat one is not the victim of a sceptical hypothesis, even though this is in fact

true, because of what this assertion would imply.11



9 For a development of this line of critique, see Pritchard, Contextualism, Skepticism, andthe Problem of Epistemic Descent,Dialectica, (), pp. .

10 For more on this point, see Pritchard, Contextualism, Skepticism and WarrantedAssertability Manuvres, in J. Keim-Campbell, M. ORourke and H. Silverstein (eds), Know-ledge and Skepticism (MIT Press, forthcoming).

11 For the first sustained development of this sort of objection, see P. Rysiew, The Context-Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions,Nos, (), pp. .


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beyond it in key respects, DeRose identifies various aspects of ordinarylanguage use and explains why they provide such strong support for

contextualism.

He then turns his attention to the rival SSI account, and the support thisposition is thought to receive from certain judgements ordinary speakers areallegedly inclined to make about how the contents of various assertions

relate to one another. DeRose argues that the linguistic data do not leavethe two rival positions in an impasse, as Hawthorne and Stanley claim, but infact provide much greater support for contextualism.

In Knowledge, Speaker and Subject, Stewart Cohen also defends

contextualism against SSI. Cohen begins by discussing how contextualismattempts to resolve the lottery paradox, and then goes on to consider an

objection to contextualism, due to Hawthorne and Stanley, to the effect thatit cannot account for how knows functions in propositional-attitude

reports. Cohen argues that on closer analysis this objection does not holdwater, and after comparing contextualism with Hawthorne and Stanleysalternative proposal for resolving the lottery paradox, concludes that thelatter falls short of providing a satisfactory resolution. Cohen thus concludes

that contextualism has significant advantages over SSI when it comes toaccommodating our epistemic intuitions.

The third paper in this collection also focuses on the debate between

contextualists and invariantists, but seeks to defend insensitive invariantismagainst both contextualism and SSI. In Contextualism, Subject-SensitiveInvariantism and Knowledge of Knowledge, Timothy Williamson arguesthat insensitive invariantism has the explanatory resources to accommodatethe standard cases used to support both contextualism and SSI, and

concludes that the usual motivation offered for these theories is undermined.Williamson begins by arguing that although contextualism and SSI rely

upon a principle of charity in their interpretation of assertions involvingepistemic terms, neither approach satisfies this principle fully, in which case

insensitive invariantism should not be dismissed (as it usually is) on thegrounds that it alone violates such a principle. Since all theories arecommitted to the view that speakers make systematic errors in usingepistemic terms, the choice between the theories might seem now to rest on

how well they can explain such errors. Williamson proceeds to sketch howinsensitive invariantism can explain the illusion of ignorance surroundingour denials of knowledge in high standards contexts by appealing to psycho-logical bias caused by salience effects. One possibility is that the

psychological salience of high practical costs or vivid sceptical scenarios

focuses our attention on certain error possibilities in such a way as to giverise to psychological bias effects. Williamson argues that a more plausible




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proposal emerges once we focus on the propriety of employing our

knowledge in practical reasoning. On the face of it, this shift of focus wouldseem to favour contextualism and SSI, since while it is appropriate from a

practical standpoint to rely on ones knowledge in low standards contexts, itbecomes too risky to rely on the same propositions when the stakes areraised and standards become high. Williamson argues, however, that a

proposition can be an appropriate premise to use in practical reasoning even

though one is not in a position to know that it is appropriate, and somaintains that one can therefore know something without being in a

position to know that one knows it. On Williamsons view, this fact can beused to explain why we are mistakenly tempted to deny ascriptions of

knowledge in high standards contexts.

In Contextualism and Scepticism: Even-handedness, Factivity and Sur-reptitiously Raising Standards, Crispin Wright offers two key strands of

criticism against contextualist responses to scepticism. The first argues that

the factivity of knowledge ensures that contextualism is unable to main-tain the even-handed treatment of scepticism and anti-scepticism that it

presents itself as offering. That is, Wright maintains that contextualistresponses to scepticism are appealing, at least in part, because they seem to

allow us to be sympathetic to both sides of the traditional scepticism/anti-

scepticism debate, and to recover some truth in the assertions made by both

parties. Wright argues, however, that this is illusory, since closer examina-tion of the role of factivity for knowledge indicates that the contextualist is in

fact unable to maintain any such dialectical distance and thus must takesides in this debate after all.

The second strand of criticism that Wright levels against contextualistresponses to scepticism is that they are unable to respond adequately to the

main sceptical arguments. This is because the contextualist diagnosis of

the sceptical threat treats that threat as arising out of a raisingof the relevantepistemic standards, and yet, argues Wright, many of the key sceptical

arguments do not trade on a raising of the epistemic standards at all.Accordingly, contextualism is impotent at dealing with sceptical argumentsof this sort.

The fifth paper in this special issue, Jessica Browns Adapt or Die: theDeath of Invariantism?, focuses on another issue of contextualism, namely,

the question of whether the context-sensitivity of knows can be straight-

forwardly accommodated within a Gricean picture, as a number of com-mentators have claimed.13 DeRose has argued against this view by claiming

that there is no way of explaining away the apparent context-sensitivity in



13 See especially Rysiew, The Context-Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions.


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our usage of epistemic terms by solely appealing to the context-sensitivity ofthe assertability-conditions of sentences that employ those terms.14 It is this

DeRosean thesis that Brown takes issue with.

Brown begins by noting that the classic argument for contextualismexploits the fact that it can seem intuitively correct to ascribe knowledge to asubject in one context, but not in another, even though she is in the same

epistemic position in both contexts. In response, however, an invariantistmay exploit a warranted assertability manuvre (or WAM) according towhich the problematic intuitions reflect mere changes in the conversationalpropriety of the relevant assertions, rather than changes in the truth-

conditions of the sentences asserted. Brown then focuses on DeRoses attackon the possibility of an invariantist WAM, noting first that his argument

directly affects only classical invariantism, and not the more recentlydeveloped view of SSI. Brown proceeds to consider DeRoses use of the

knowledge account of assertion, as popularized by Williamson, and claims(with Williamson in mind) that there is an important equivocation hereregarding the notion of warrant in play when one talks about warrantedassertions. With these considerations outlined, Brown offers a classical

invariantist theory of how one might understand the relevant linguistic datathat works within any reasonable constraints we might place on a WAM.On the basis of the linguistic data alone, then, the state of play as regards

contextualism and invariantism as Brown sees it is one ofimpasserather thanthe default support for contextualism that DeRose claims.

In the final full-length paper in this issue, A Sense of Occasion, CharlesTravis draws connections between epistemological contextualism and adifferent, although related, position in the philosophy of language. He seeks

to explain a view of knowledge which emerges out of the writings of theBritish philosopher John Cook Wilson and features prominently in the workof Austin and John McDowell. Travis begins with Cook Wilsons concep-tion of knowledge, which treats it as having two central features: (i) it is irre-

ducible (in particular, it is not a species of, and does not involve, belief); and(ii) it is unmistakable (if one knowsp, thenp is unmistakably so for one).

According to Austin, argues Travis, we need to appeal to a speakerscircumstances in order to fix a standard of truth for the speakers utterances.

As Travis puts it, what one does say ... in saying things to be such and sucha way will depend upon the circumstances in which one says it. Travispoints out that similar things can be said for such notions as evidence,what might be, and, importantly in Cook Wilsons picture, for factive



14 See DeRose, Contextualism: an Explanation and Defense, in J. Greco and E. Sosa (eds),

Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell, ), pp. , and Knowledge, Assertion, and Context,Philosophical Review, (), pp. .


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meaning. Given this, knowledgetoo will be occasion-sensitive in this way, andTravis goes on to explain how this is relevant to externalist and contemp-

orary contextualist thought. In the final section Travis explains how John

McDowell incorporates Cook Wilsons core conception of knowledge, butwithout accepting Austins account of the occasion-sensitivity of epistemicnotions. Travis argues that this is a mistake on McDowells part, since it

leads to a tension which McDowell cannot resolve. Occasion-sensitivity thusappears obligatory.

The issue closes with discussions of four of the articles. In Contextualism,Hawthornes Invariantism and Third-Person Cases, Anthony Brueckner

casts a critical eye over DeRoses contribution to this issue. In particular, hefocuses on DeRoses treatment of knowledge-attributing sentences in third-

person cases and maintains that there are some important critical lacunaeinDeRoses arguments.

In her discussion of Williamsons article, Williamson on Luminosityand Contextualism, Brown claims that Williamsons appeal to the non-luminosity of knowledge being such that one can know a proposition with-out knowing that one knows it is unnecessary, since the critique William-

son offers of contextualism in terms of psychological bias would suffice byitself. Moreover, argues Brown, this account of how psychological bias canaffect our knowledge attributions also offers the best account of why the

cases that contextualists often appeal to are characterized by a failure ofluminosity.

Tim Blacks discussion piece, Classic Invariantism, Relevance andWarranted Assertability Manuvres, offers a critique of Browns full-lengtharticle, and along the way also criticizes an earlier article by DeRose. Brown

offers a broadly Gricean account of how one could account for the apparentcontext-sensitivity in our epistemic terms by appealing only to the shiftingpropriety-conditions for knowledge claims. This account makes use of therule of relevance, and it is this feature of Browns thesis that Black takes issue

with here, arguing that, amongst other things, the correct Gricean accountof the apparent context-sensitivity of our epistemic terms lies elsewhere.

Finally, in Travis Sense of Occasion, Alan Millar offers a critical dis-cussion of Travis paper. In particular, Millar raises some issues regarding

exactly how Travis view is to be understood, and queries the extent towhich Travis can employ considerations regarding occasion-sensitivity to re-solve the epistemological problems he is concerned with.

University of Stirling



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Epistemological Contextualism Problems and Prospects Brady and Pritchard Philosophy Journal