Ahmad Hemmati Moghaddam

Epistemic contextualism was devised mainly to provide a solution to the problem of skepticism based on a thesis about the truth conditions of knowledge attributing sentences. In this paper, I’ll examine two possible semantic bases of epistemic contextualism i.e., the epistemic standard is an unarticulated constituent, the epistemic standard is a hidden variable. After showing that the unarticulated constituent thesis is incompatible with epistemic contextualism, I’ll argue that the hidden variable account remains unconvincing. My aim in this paper is to show that questions remain that must be answered before epistemic contextualism can claim success in the project of resolving skepticism.

Epistemic contextualism is a thesis about truth conditions of knowledge ascribed to sentences such as “S knows that p” and “S does not know that p”. According to contextualists it is the speaker’s context – the one attributing knowledge – that is pertinent to the truth conditions and truth value of knowledge attributions. Thus, in one context a speaker might say “S knows p” while in another context another he/she might say “S does not know p” without any contradiction involved. Cohen’s version of contextualism takes justification, rather than knowledge, to come in degrees. I shall argue that Cohen’s contextualist theory of justification suffers from several major problems

Epistemic contextualism is a thesis about truth conditions of knowledge ascribed to sentences such as “S knows that p” and “S does not know that p”. According to contextualists it is the speaker’s context – the one attributing knowledge – that is pertinent to the truth conditions and truth value of knowledge attributions. Thus, in one context a speaker might say “S knows p” while in another context another he/she might say “S does not know p” without any contradiction involved. Cohen’s version of contextualism takes justification, rather than knowledge, to come in degrees. I shall argue that Cohen’s contextualist theory of justification suffers from several major problems.