Contextualist Swords, Skeptical Plowshares*

Abstract

In this paper I consider two responses which are usefully thought of as variants of a single view called contextualism, and argue that neither is successful. To a first approximation, and running roughshod over some important differences, both sorts of theorists hold that the truth conditions for knowledge claims vary with context, and that in contexts in which skeptical hypotheses are being taken seriously those conditions are so stringent that SA's premises, and hence its conclusion, will count as true. But this fact, they argue, carries no implications for the truth of knowledge claims made in ordinary contexts, where the conditions are much more relaxed; in such contexts, they hold, many knowledge claims are true. The central difference between the two responses lies in their accounts of what exactly it is whose variability accounts for the fact that a knowledge