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Epistemic Contextualism and Its Problems: a Philosophical Critique

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EPISTEMIC CONTEXTUALISM AND ITS PROBLEMS EPISTEMIC CONTEXTUALISM AND ITS PROBLEMS: A PHILOSOPHICAL CRITIQUE By QILIN LI, B. A., M. A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University © Copyright by Qilin Li, October 2012 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (2012) (Philosophy) McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: Epistemic Contextualism and Its Problems: A Philosophical Critique AUTHOR: Qilin Li, B.A. (Peking University), M.A. (Peking University) SUPERVISOR: Professor Nicholas Griffin NUMBER OF PAGES: vi, 234 ii ABSTRACT The purpose of this dissertation is to argue that epistemic contextualism, which proposes that the word ‘know’ is a context-sensitive term, is seriously deficient and therefore indefensible. Since epistemic contextualists claim that their semantic theory of ‘know’ contributes not only to a linguistic model of knowledge ascription but also to a unified solution to some important puzzles in epistemology, I divide my thesis into two basic parts. In the first part (i.e., Chapters 2 and 3), I argue that the proponents of both binary and ternary accounts of the supposed context-sensitivity of ‘know’ fail to provide a reasonable linguistic model of knowledge ascription. My argument in Chapter 1 indicates that ‘know’ cannot be treated as a binary context-sensitive term that is similar to paradigmatic indexical terms or gradable adjectives. Chapter 2 takes contrastivism as a representation of the ternary account of the supposed context-sensitivity of ‘know’ and argues that this theory is in an even worse position because it even fails to capture the supposed phenomena of the context-sensitivity of knowledge ascription. The second part (i.e., Chapters 4, 5, and 6) argues that epistemic contextualism does not provide us with a really satisfactory solution to the puzzles of skepticism, the epistemic closure principle and fallibilism. On the contrary, its rival, invariantism, with some support from pragmatics, psychology of belief and experimental philosophy, is able to solve the above puzzles in a quite nice way. At the end of my thesis (i.e., Chapter 7), I systematize the observations, the evaluations and the critiques of epistemic contextualism from the previous chapters and indicate that epistemic contextualists even fail to establish their supposed phenomena of the context-sensitivity of ‘know.’ iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A number of people contributed to the final version of this thesis. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Nicholas Griffin, for all of his inspiring, detailed feedback and warm encouragement throughout the development of this dissertation. I would also like to acknowledge the efforts of other members of my supervisory committee, Professors Richard T. W. Arthur, Brian Garrett and Mark Vorobej. Professors Richard T. W. Arthur and Brian Garrett’s insightful comments helped me avoid many problematic points. Professor Mark Vorobej kindly accepted my invitation to be the new supervisory member after Professor Brian Garrett’s leave from the Department. Another person that I would like to thank is Professor Violetta Igneski, the Ph. D. advisor of the Department, whose generous help facilitated my preparation for the dissertation. Several other people also deserve my deep gratitude. They helped me during the development of my research project either via personal communication or via email correspondences. They are: Trent Dougherty, Linhe Han, Jinpeng Jiang, Christoph Kelp, Ivona Kucerova, Jianhua Mei, Duncan Pritchard, Baron Reed, Patrick Rysiew, Jason Stanley, Zoltán Gendler Szabó, Chuang Ye and Haixia Zhong. I would like to thank the Department of Philosophy at McMaster University for providing me with academic resources and financial support, without which I could not have accomplished my research. I would also like to thank my parents, Yaohua Li and Huizhen Zhang, for their unwavering support, and also for constantly encouraging me to stick to my goal. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction 1 1.1 Some Clarifications and Classifications 1 1.2 The Plan 4 PART ONE: Contextualism and Its Linguistic Models 9 Chapter 2: The Binary Account of the Context-Sensitivity of Knowledge Ascription 10 2.1 Lewis’ Contextualist Account of Knowledge Ascription 10 2.2. The Context-Sensitivity of Knowledge Ascription and Gradable 26 Adjectives 2.3 Cohen’s Argument for the Context-Sensitivity of Knowledge Ascription 38 2.4 The Cases for Contextualism and Experimental Philosophy 44 2.5 Some Invariantist Explanations 52 Chapter 3: Contrastivism and Its Problems: A Case Study of the Ternary Account of the Context-Sensitivity of Knowledge Ascription 61 3.1 Schaffer’s Account of Contrastive Knowledge Ascription 63 3.2 Schaffer’s Contrastivism and Its Problems 68 PART TWO: Contextualism and Its Supposed Contributions to Epistemology 86 Chapter 4: Contextualism and Skepticism 87 4.1 The Supposed Elegant Balance in Contextualism and the Indirect Concession of Knowledge Ascription 87 4.2 Contextualism and Its Supposed Protection of Our Everyday Knowledge Ascriptions 104 4.3 Conclusion 118 Chapter 5: Contextualism and Closure (Together with Skepticism) 120 5.1 Closure Principle of Knowledge: A Preliminary Outline 120 5.2 Two Types of Approach to the Supposed Failure of Closure 126 5.2.1 Skepticism and the Closure Principle of Knowledge 127 5.2.2 A Dretskean Approach to the Failure of Closure 129 5.2.3 A Nozickean Approach to the Failure of Closure 142 5.3 Contextualism and Closure 147 5.3.1 A General Sketch of Contextualism on Closure and Skeptical Puzzles 147 5.3.2 Contrastivism and Closure 152 5.3.3 Non- Contrastivist Contextualism and Closure 170 5.4 Closure and the Skeptical Problem: Some Lessons to Be Learned 175 Chapter 6: Contextualism and Fallibilism 181 v 6.1 Skepticism and Fallibilism 181 6.2 Cohen’s Contextualist Account of Fallibilism 182 6.3 Challenges to Contextualist Fallibilism 190 6.3.1 Contextualist Fallibilism vs. Traditional Fallibilism 190 6.3.2 The Oddity of Fallibilism 195 6.4 The Explanation of the Oddity of (PF) 200 6.4.1 A Contextualist Explanation of the Oddity of (PF) 200 6.4.2 Gricean Approach to the Oddity of (PF) 203 6.5 Conclusion 213 Appendix 6.1 The Ambiguous Scope of the Possibility Operator and the Oddity of (PF) 214 Appendix 6.2 Another Pragmatic Explanation of the Oddity of (PF) 215 Chapter 7: Epilogue 217 References 226 vi Ph. D. Thesis - Qilin Li; McMaster University - Philosophy CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Epistemic contextualism is a hotly debated issue in contemporary epistemology. Epistemic contextualism is a semantic theory of knowledge ascriptions, which suggests the word ‘know’ is a context-sensitive term: according to the theory, a sentence of the form ‘S knows that p’ can be true as uttered in one context and false as uttered in another. Although they all endorse this general approach to knowledge ascription, different contextualists have different ways to capture the context-sensitivity of the term ‘know.’ With this in mind, it is useful for us to make some preliminary clarifications and classifications. 1.1 SOME CLARIFICATIONS AND CLASSIFICATIONS As will be shown, (binary) epistemic contextualists, such as Stewart Cohen, Keith DeRose and David K. Lewis, hold quite a different view on how to account for the supposed context-sensitivity of ‘know’ from the contrastivists (such as Jonathan Schaffer). As Cohen suggests, there are two basic ways to cash out the contextualist idea of knowledge ascriptions (Cohen 1999, especially 61): (1) Knowledge is a two-place relation between a subject and a target proposition, which is contextually sensitive to the contexts of ascriptions. In this sense, the term ‘know’ functions in a similar way to context-sensitive terms such as ‘tall,’ ‘flat,’ etc. (2) Knowledge is a three-place relation between a subject, a target proposition and some other (semantic) component, such as standards of knowledge ascription, alternatives or contrast error possibilities, which 1 Ph. D. Thesis - Qilin Li; McMaster University - Philosophy reflects the relevant feature of the context. The first approach to the context-sensitivity of knowledge ascriptions is represented by the indexical model of knowledge ascriptions, which is proposed by Cohen, DeRose and Lewis (cf. Cohen 1988; DeRose 1992; and, Lewis 1996). The context-sensitivity of knowledge ascription stems from the fact that the verb ‘know’ is an indexical term that denotes different kinds of knowledge relations between the subject and the target proposition in different contexts. For instance, in skeptical contexts the binary knowledge relation it denotes is so demanding that no one can truly ascribe knowledge to anybody in those contexts. In ordinary contexts, by contrast, the relation it denotes is less demanding, so that one is often able to truly ascribe knowledge in those contexts. These epistemologists are thus committed to epistemic pluralism, according to which there is a plurality of knowledge relations, among which some are more demanding than others. The second approach is represented by Schaffer’s contrastivism, which suggests that, besides the arguments for the subject and the target proposition, the term ‘know’ also has a third argument place which, when made explicit, is occupied by a contrast clause that takes different propositions in different contexts. In a given context, the corresponding contrast clause represents an alternative that is eliminated
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