Epistemic Contextualism and Its Problems: a Philosophical Critique
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Contrastivism Surveyed
Contrastivism Surveyed (Forthcoming in Nous) Jonathan Schaffer Joshua Knobe ANU-RSSS Yale University Suppose that Ann says, “Keith knows that the bank will be open tomorrow.” Her audience may well agree. Her knowledge ascription may seem true. But now suppose that Ben—in a different context—also says “Keith knows that the bank will be open tomorrow.” His audience may well disagree. His knowledge ascription may seem false. Indeed, a number of philosophers have claimed that people’s intuitions about knowledge ascriptions are context sensitive, in the sense that the very same knowledge ascription can seem true in one conversational context but false in another. This purported fact about people’s intuitions serves as one of the main pieces of evidence for epistemic contextualism, which is (roughly speaking) the view that the truth conditions of a knowledge attribution can differ from one conversational context to another. Opponents of contextualism have replied by trying to explain these purported intuitions in other ways. For instance, they have proposed that these purported intuitions may be explained via shifts in what is at stake for the subject, pragmatic shifts in what is assertible, or performance shifts in our liability to error. Yet a recent series of empirical studies threatens to undermine this whole debate. These studies presented ordinary people with precisely the sorts of cases that have been discussed in the contextualism literature and gave them an opportunity to say whether they agreed or disagreed with the relevant knowledge attributions. Strikingly, the results suggest that people simply do not have the intuitions they were purported to have. -
Knowledge Is Closed Under Analytic Content
Knowledge is Closed Under Analytic Content Samuel Z. Elgin July 2019 Abstract I defend the claim that knowledge is closed under analytic content: that if an agent S knows that p and q is an analytic part of p, then S knows that q. After identifying the relevant notion of analyticity, I argue that this principle correctly diagnoses challenging cases and that it gives rise to novel and plausible necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge. I close by arguing that contextualists who maintain that knowledge is closed under classical entailment within|but not between|linguistic contexts are tacitly committed to this principle's truth. Knowledge of some propositions requires knowledge of others. All those who know that p ^ q also know that p|as do those who know that p. Agents ignorant of the truth of p lack the epistemic resources to know either the conjunction or the double negation. When does this hold? Is it a feature of conjunction and negation in particular, or are they instances of a more general pattern? Why does this hold? What makes it the case that knowledge of some propositions requires knowledge of others? This is the interpretive question of epistemic closure. The most basic formulation of the closure principle is the following: Na¨ıve Closure: If an agent S knows that p and p entails q, then S knows that q.1 Na¨ıve Closure is transparently false. S may fail to realize that p entails q, and perhaps even disbelieve that q. And, surely, if S does not even believe that q, then S does not know that q. -
Contextualism in Ethics 2019 Draft
1(8) Contextualism in Ethics Gunnar Björnsson In more than one way, context matters in ethics. Most clearly, the moral status of an action might depend on context: although it is typically wrong not to keep a promise, some contexts make it permissible. More radically, proponents of moral particularism (see PARTICULARISM) have argued that a reason for an action in one context is not guaranteed to be even a defeasible reason in every context; whether it counts against an act that it breaks a promise or inflicts pain might depend on the particulars of the situation. In moral epistemology, Timmons (1999: Ch. 5) argues that whether a moral judgment is epistemically responsible depends both on the basic moral outlook of the moral judge and on whether the context of judgment is one of engaged moral thinking, or one of distanced, skeptical reflection. In the former, the judge’s basic moral outlook can serve to justify the judgment; not so in the latter (see EPISTEMOLOGY, MORAL). Our focus here, however, will be on forms of metaethical and, more precisely, semantic contextualism in moral discourse and moral thinking. According to these forms of contextualism (henceforth “metaethical contextualism,” or just “contextualism”), the meaning or truth‐conditions of a moral judgment or moral assertion depend not only on the properties of the act it concerns, but also on features of the context in which the judgment or assertion is made, such as the standards endorsed by the moral judge or the parties of the conversation. If metaethical contextualism is correct, it might be that when two people both judge that abortions must be banned, one judge might be correct whereas the other is mistaken, because they accept different fundamental norms. -
The University of Chicago in Praise of Praise a Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Division of the Humanities in Candi
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO IN PRAISE OF PRAISE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE HUMANITIES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY BY DANIEL J. TELECH CHICAGO, ILLINOIS AUGUST 2018 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank my dissertation committee. I am incredibly fortunate to have had Agnes Callard and Brian Leiter direct my dissertation project. Their support, wisdom, and generosity have meant a great deal to me—philosophically and personally—over the past several years. Joint dissertation meetings with Agnes and Brian unfailingly left me with a sense of urgency, demandingness, and encouragement that remains with me, at least on good days, when doing philosophy. Before they were my advisors, they were my teachers. Agnes’ seminar on deliberation, on the one hand, and Brian’s workshop on free will and responsibility, on the other, played significant roles in my becoming gripped by the questions animating this project. I hope to be able to live up to the ideals that working and studying with them has allowed me, however incipiently, to appreciate. I thank Paul Russell for being an excellent committee member. Paul has helped me stay attuned to the complexity and humanness of issues of agency and responsibility. This dissertation owes much to insightful conversations with him. I also thank Derk Pereboom. Derk supervised a valuable visit of mine to Cornell in the fall of 2016, and became something of an unofficial committee member, providing me with generous and instructive comments on the majority of the dissertation. There are many others to whom I am grateful for support with and valuable discussion on, parts of my project, and its earlier and attendant stages. -
1 Epistemic Closure in Folk Epistemology James R. Beebe And
Epistemic Closure in Folk Epistemology* James R. Beebe and Jake Monaghan (University at Buffalo) Forthcoming in Joshua Knobe, Tania Lombrozo, and Shaun Nichols (eds.), Oxford Studies in Epistemology We report the results of four empirical studies designed to investigate the extent to which an epistemic closure principle for knowledge is reflected in folk epistemology. Previous work by Turri (2015a) suggested that our shared epistemic practices may only include a source-relative closure principle—one that applies to perceptual beliefs but not to inferential beliefs. We argue that the results of our studies provide reason for thinking that individuals are making a performance error when their knowledge attributions and denials conflict with the closure principle. When we used research materials that overcome what we think are difficulties with Turri’s original materials, we found that participants did not reject closure. Furthermore, when we presented Turri’s original materials to non- philosophers with expertise in deductive reasoning (viz., professional mathematicians), they endorsed closure for both perceptual and inferential beliefs. Our results suggest that an unrestricted closure principle—one that applies to all beliefs, regardless of their source—provides a better model of folk patterns of knowledge attribution than a source-relative closure principle. * This paper has benefited greatly from helpful comments and suggestions from John Turri, Wesley Buckwalter, two anonymous reviewers from Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy, an anonymous reviewer for the Second Annual Minds Online Conference, and audiences at the 2015 Experimental Philosophy Group UK conference, the 2016 Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology conference, and University College Dublin. 1 Keywords: epistemic closure, folk epistemology, experimental philosophy, knowledge, expertise 1. -
Contrast and Contrastivism: the Logic of Contrastive Knowledge
University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Arts Arts Research & Publications 2010 Contrast and Contrastivism: The Logic of Contrastive Knowledge Scobbie, Taylor http://hdl.handle.net/1880/51000 Thesis Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca Contrast and Contrastivism: The Logic of Contrastive Knowledge Taylor Scobbie - 0 - Table of Contents I. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ - 2 - II. Contrast ............................................................................................................................... - 5 - A. Contrastive Sentences ..................................................................................................... - 5 - B. Knowledge of Contrastive Sentences .............................................................................. - 9 - III. Contrastivism .................................................................................................................... - 11 - A. Historical Context ........................................................................................................... - 11 - B. Contrastivism ................................................................................................................. - 13 - C. Contrastivism and Epistemic Logic ................................................................................ - 22 - D. Compatibility ............................................................................................................. -
Stenmark's "Rationality in Science, Religion, and Everyday Life: a Critical Evaluation of Four Models of Rationality" - Book Review Mark S
Digital Commons @ George Fox University Faculty Publications - College of Christian Studies College of Christian Studies 9-1999 Stenmark's "Rationality in Science, Religion, and Everyday Life: A Critical Evaluation of Four Models of Rationality" - Book Review Mark S. McLeod-Harrison George Fox University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ccs Part of the Christianity Commons Recommended Citation Previously published in Zygon, 1999, 34(3), pp. 533-535 http://www.zygonjournal.org/index.htm This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Christian Studies at Digital Commons @ George Fox University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications - College of Christian Studies by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ George Fox University. Reviews 533 Rationality in Science, Religion, and Everyday Life: A Critical Evaluation of Four Models of Rationality. By MIKAEL STENMARK. Notre Dame, Ind.: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1995. ix + 392 pages. $32.95 (hardcover). Mikael Stenmark does philosophers, theologians, scientists, and all others inter ested in the relationships among science, religion, and rationality an enormous amount of good in this book. As its title indicates, it presents four models of rationality and evaluates them from the scientific, religious, and everyday points of view. The chapters include an "Introduction," "The Nature of Rationality," "Sci ence and Formal Evidentialism," "The Scientific and the Evidentialist -
Contextualist Responses to Skepticism
Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Philosophy Theses Department of Philosophy 6-27-2007 Contextualist Responses to Skepticism Luanne Gutherie Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/philosophy_theses Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Gutherie, Luanne, "Contextualist Responses to Skepticism." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2007. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/philosophy_theses/22 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Philosophy at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CONTEXTUALIST RESPONSES TO SKEPTICISM by LUANNE GUTHERIE Under the Direction of Stephen Jacobson ABSTRACT External world skeptics argue that we have no knowledge of the external world. Contextualist theories of knowledge attempt to address the skeptical problem by maintaining that arguments for skepticism are effective only in certain contexts in which the standards for knowledge are so high that we cannot reach them. In ordinary contexts, however, the standards for knowledge fall back down to reachable levels and we again are able to have knowledge of the external world. In order to address the objection that contextualists confuse the standards for knowledge with the standards for warranted assertion, Keith DeRose appeals to the knowledge account of warranted assertion to argue that if one is warranted in asserting p, one also knows p. A skeptic, however, can maintain a context-invariant view of the knowledge account of assertion, in which case such an account would not provide my help to contextualism. -
Hereafter, Closure
Erkenntnis (2006) Ó Springer 2006 DOI 10.1007/s10670-006-9009-y PETER MURPHY A STRATEGY FOR ASSESSING CLOSURE ABSTRACT. This paper looks at an argument strategy for assessing the epistemic closure principle. This is the principle that says knowledge is closed under known entailment; or (roughly) if S knows p and S knows that p entails q, then S knows that q. The strategy in question looks to the individual conditions on knowledge to see if they are closed. According to one conjecture, if all the individual conditions are closed, then so too is knowledge. I give a deductive argument for this conjecture. According to a second conjecture, if one (or more) condition is not closed, then neither is knowledge. I give an inductive argument for this conjecture. In sum, I defend the strategy by defending the claim that knowledge is closed if, and only if, all the conditions on knowledge are closed. After making my case, I look at what this means for the debate over whether knowledge is closed. According to the epistemic closure principle (hereafter, Closure), if someone knows that P, knows that P entails Q, goes on to infer Q, and in this way bases their belief that Q on their belief that P and their belief that P entails Q, then they know that Q. Similar principles cover proposed conditions on knowledge. Call the conditions on knowledge, whatever they might be, k-conditions. A k-condition, C, is closed if and only if the following is true: if S meets C with respect to P and S meets C with respect to P entails Q, and S goes on to infer from these to believe Q thereby basing her belief that Q on these other beliefs, then S meets C with respect to Q.1 On one view about the relationship between knowledge and its conditions, Closure is true just in case all k-conditions are closed. -
On the Limits of Experimental Knowledge∗
On the Limits of Experimental Knowledge∗ Peter W. Evans†1 and Karim P. Y. Th´ebault‡2 1School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Queensland 2Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol June 4, 2020 Abstract To demarcate the limits of experimental knowledge we probe the limits of what might be called an experiment. By appeal to examples of scientific practice from astrophysics and analogue gravity, we demonstrate that the reli- ability of knowledge regarding certain phenomena gained from an experiment is not circumscribed by the manipulability or accessibility of the target phe- nomena. Rather, the limits of experimental knowledge are set by the extent to which strategies for what we call ‘inductive triangulation’ are available: that is, the validation of the mode of inductive reasoning involved in the source- target inference via appeal to one or more distinct and independent modes of inductive reasoning. When such strategies are able to partially mitigate reasonable doubt, we can take a theory regarding the phenomena to be well supported by experiment. When such strategies are able to fully mitigate reasonable doubt, we can take a theory regarding the phenomena to be estab- lished by experiment. There are good reasons to expect the next generation of analogue experiments to provide genuine knowledge of unmanipulable and inaccessible phenomena such that the relevant theories can be understood as well supported. ∗Forthcoming in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, The Next Generation of Analogue Gravity Experiments, edited by Maxime Jacquet, Silke Weinfurtner and Friedrich K¨onig. †email: [email protected] ‡email: [email protected] 1 Contents 1 Introduction2 2 Epistemology and Experiment5 2.1 Reasonable and Unreasonable Doubt..................5 2.2 Three Forms of Unobservable Phenomena...............8 2.3 Experimental Evidence and External Validation........... -
Evidence, Epistemic Luck, Reliability, and Knowledge
Acta Analytica https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-021-00490-0 Evidence, Epistemic Luck, Reliability, and Knowledge Mylan Engel Jr.1 Received: 8 August 2020 / Accepted: 5 August 2021 © Springer Nature B.V. 2021 Abstract In this article, I develop and defend a version of reliabilism – internal reasons relia- bilism – that resolves the paradox of epistemic luck, solves the Gettier problem by ruling out veritic luck, is immune to the generality problem, resolves the internal- ism/externalism controversy, and preserves epistemic closure. Keywords Epistemic luck · Reliabilism · Generality problem · Internalism/ externalism debate · Personal and doxastic justifcation · Analysis of knowledge 1 A Modest Goal My goal is to develop and defend a version of reliabilism—internal reasons reliabi- lism—that resolves the paradox of epistemic luck, solves the Gettier problem by rul- ing out veritic luck, is immune to the generality problem, resolves the internalism/ externalism controversy, and preserves epistemic closure. Let’s begin! 2 The Epistemic Luck Paradox Epistemic luck is a generic notion used to describe various ways in which it is some- how accidental, coincidental, or fortuitous that a person has a true belief that p. The phenomenon of epistemic luck gives rise to an epistemological paradox. The para- dox is generated by three extremely plausible theses. 2.1 The Knowledge Thesis We know a lot. We possess all sorts of knowledge about the world around us. You know that you are currently reading an article on epistemology. I know that I am looking at a computer screen. You know what city you are currently in. I know that * Mylan Engel Jr. -
The Π Research Network
Version 1.0 THE Π RESEARCH NETWORK Patrick Allo, Bert Baumgaertner, Simon D’Alfonso, Nir Fresco, Federico Gobbo, Carson Grubaugh, Andrew Iliadis, Phyllis Illari, Eric Kerr, Giuseppe Primiero, Federica Russo, Christoph Schulz, Mariarosaria Taddeo, Matteo Turilli, Orlin Vakarelov, Hector Zenil. THE PHILOSOPHY OF INFORMATION AN INTRODUCTION T H E Π RESEARCH NETWORK The Philosophy of Information An Introduction The Philosophy of Information - An Introduction by The Π Research Network is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. THE PHILOSOPHY OF IN F O R M A T I O N — A N INTRODUCTION Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 List of Figures 5 PREFACE 6 CONTRIBUTORS 7 Part I: Introductory material 8 1. A QUICK HISTORY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF INFORMATION 9 1.1 Introduction 9 1.2 Turing’s basic idea 10 1.3 Shannon’s basic idea 12 1.4 Extension of the concepts 14 1.5 Cybernetics 15 1.6 Dretske 18 1.7 French Philosophy of Information 21 1.8 Conclusion 26 1.9 Exercises 26 1.10 Further reading 27 2. WHAT IS THE PHILOSOPHY OF INFORMATION TODAY? 28 2.1 Introduction 28 2.2 The information revolution alters our self-understanding 29 2.3 The philosophy of information as a field 31 2.4 Open and closed questions 33 2.5 The idea of a Level of Abstraction (LoA) 36 2.6 The definition of a level of abstraction 37 2.7 The implications of LoAs 39 2.8 Exercises 41 2.9 Further reading 42 3. NATURALISED INFORMATION 43 3.1 Semantic vs.