The Disappearance of Ignorance

Robin Mckenna

doi:10.1163/22105700-20191371

Abstract

Keith DeRose’s new book The Appearance of Ignorance is a welcome companion volume to his 2009 book The Case for Contextualism. Where latter focused on contextualism as a view in the philosophy of language, the former focuses on how contextualism contributes to our understanding of (and solution to) some perennial epistemological problems, with the skeptical problem being the main focus of six of the seven chapters. DeRose’s view is that a solution to the skeptical problem must do two things. First, it must explain how it is that we can know lots of things, such as that we have hands. Second, it must explain how it can seem that we don’t know these things. In slogan form, DeRose’s argument is that a contextualist semantics for knowledge attributions is needed to account for the “appearance of ignorance”—the appearance that we don’t know that skeptical hypotheses fail to obtain. In my critical discussion, I will argue inter alia that we don’t need a contextualist semantics to account for the appearance of ignorance, and in any case that the “strength” of the appearance of ignorance is unclear, as is the need for a philosophical diagnosis of it.

Highlights

Keith DeRose’s new book The Appearance of Ignorance is a companion volume to his 2009 book The Case for Contextualism
Via free access contextualism drawn from epistemology, with the skeptical problem being the main focus in six of the seven chapters
DeRose’s central argument in tai is that there are two things that a solution to the skeptical problem must accomplish. It must explain how we can resist argument from ignorance” (AI)’s skeptical conclusion: how is it that we can know common-or-garden propositions? Second, it must explain the appearance of ignorance: how is it that it can seem that we don’t know common-or-garden propositions, or anything at all? I have argued that one part of DeRose’s solution—his substantive picture of knowledge—threatens to render the other part—his contextualist semantics for knowledge attributions—explanatorily redundant

Summary

Introduction

Keith DeRose’s new book The Appearance of Ignorance ( tai) is a companion volume to his 2009 book The Case for Contextualism ( tcc). I am aware of two models for writing a critical commentary on a substantial piece of work like tai. The first involves highlighting some central claims without making much of an attempt to show how they fit together, and subjecting each claim to individual critical scrutiny. The second involves reconstructing the central line of argument and subjecting that argument to sustained critical scrutiny. I will start by outlining what I take to be DeRose’s central argument in tai. In slogan form, DeRose’s argument is that a contextualist semantics for knowledge attributions is needed to account for the “appearance of ignorance”—the appearance that we don’t know that skeptical hypotheses fail to obtain. I will argue inter alia that we don’t need a contextualist semantics to account for the appearance of ignorance, and in any case that the “strength” of the appearance of ignorance is unclear, as is the need for a philosophical diagnosis of it

The Two Tasks for a Theory of Knowledge

Alternative Explanations of the Appearance of Ignorance

Concluding Remarks