Ascent and fallacy of semantic descent

Abstract

A substantial share of recent semantic and epistemological debates is focused on the description and analysis of ways to defend the thesis that changes in truth conditions of knowledge claims enfold on the back of subjective parameters. The broad popularity of this thesis - which runs contrary to the notion that variation in truth value is independent of informal factors - is a result of the belief that it offers a sustainable methodological framework for responding to the skeptic?s doubts. This paper begins by sketching the key points which serve to illustrate the nature of this antiskeptical strategy. Further on, the paper describes three problems the strategy faces, as well as attempts to address them by articulating a meta-linguistical thesis on truth conditions of knowledge attribution sentences. The aim of the paper is to reconstruct the project of the meta-linguistical analysis, point to its specifics and flaws, and answer the question of what it achieves.