Abstract

That knowledge ascriptions exhibit some form of sensitivity to context is uncontroversial. How best to account for the context-sensitivity at issue, however, is the topic of heated debates. A certain version of nonindexical contextualism seems to be a promising option. Even so, it is incumbent upon any contextualist account to explain in what way and to what extent the epistemic standard operative in a particular context of epistemic evaluation is affected by non-epistemic factors (such as practical interests). In this paper, I investigate how non-epistemic factors come into play when knowledge is ascribed. I argue that knowledge ascriptions often serve the purpose of providing actionable information. This, in turn, requires that epistemic interests be balanced against non-epistemic interests. Moreover, it raises the question of whose interests matter, those of the ascriber, the addressee (of the knowledge ascription), or the subject of ascription. Eventually, an answer to the question is suggested.

Highlights

  • That knowledge ascriptions exhibit some form of sensitivity to context or other is not controversial

  • The following necessary condition on utterance truth results: NIC: “An utterance of a sentence s in context c is true only if the proposition thereby expressed is true relative to circumstances ­(wc, ­ec), where ­wc is the world of c and ­ec is the epistemic standard operative in c” (Kompa 2015, p. 143)

  • There is, according to the contextualist, no single, context-invariant epistemic standard that has to be met for a knowledge ascription to be true

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Summary

Introduction

That knowledge ascriptions exhibit some form of sensitivity to context or other is not controversial. I take nonindexical contextualism to be a promising route. The aim is not to defend this version of contextualism but rather to develop it further. A question any contextualist has to answer is how and to what extent the epistemic standard operative in a particular context of epistemic evaluation is affected by non-epistemic factors (such as practical interests). (ii) to the extent that the function of knowledge ascriptions is to provide actionable information, epistemic interests and needs have to be balanced against non-epistemic interests and needs. That will help fix the epistemic standard operative in the context of ascription and solve what Stephen Grimm calls the whose stakes? That will help fix the epistemic standard operative in the context of ascription and solve what Stephen Grimm calls the whose stakes? problem (Grimm 2015)

The context sensitivity of knowledge ascriptions
Nonindexical contextualism
The threshold problem
Epistemic standards and epistemic goals
Actionable information
Objections and replies
Whose stakes?
10 Summing up
Full Text
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