Scepticism and Its Limits: an Investigation of Contextualist Strategies

Scepticism and its Limits: An Investigation of Contextualist Strategies

A thesis submitted to the University of

Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the

Faculty of Humanities

2018

Maeve M. MacPherson

School of Social Sciences Table of Contents

Abstract ...... 5 Scepticism and its Limits: An Investigation of Contextualist Strategies ...... 5 Declaration...... 6 Copyright Statement ...... 6 Dedication ...... 7 Acknowledgements ...... 8 Introduction ...... 9 1. The Argument from Ignorance ...... 9 1.2 Possible Responses to The Argument from Ignorance ...... 12 2. Overview of Part 1 ...... 15 3. Overview of Part 2 ...... 16 4. Overview of Part 3 ...... 16 Part 1 ...... 18 Semantic Contextualism’s Problematic Defence of Everyday Anti-Scepticism ...... 18 0. Introduction ...... 18 0.1 Semantic Contextualism ...... 19 1. DeRose’s Problematic Defence of Everyday Anti-Scepticism ...... 22 1.1 Characterisation of DeRose’s Semantic Contextualism ...... 23 1.2 DeRose’s Semantic Contextualism and Scepticism ...... 27 1.2.1 DeRose’s Subjunctive Conditionals Account of AI’s First Premise...... 29 1.2.2 DeRose on Relative Strength of Epistemic Position ...... 30 1.2.3 The Rule of Sensitivity ...... 34 1.3 DeRose’s Uncomfortable Concession to Scepticism ...... 38 1.3.1 DeRose’s Failure to Protect Truthful Knowledge Ascriptions concerning ~B ...... 39 1.3.1.1 DeRose’s Early Attempt to Protect Truthful Knowledge Ascriptions concerning ~B ...... 41 1.3.1.2 DeRose on Sensitivity ...... 45 1.3.1.3 DeRose on Conversational Scores ...... 48 1.3.1.4 Sosa and Koethe on DeRose’s Inability to Protect Knowledge Ascriptions concerning ~B ...... 54 1.3.2 Instantiating Sceptical Contexts ...... 58 1.3.3 Scepticism as the Result of Ordinary Epistemic Practices ...... 60 1.3.4 The Legitimacy of the Sceptical Context ...... 61

2. Cohen’s Problematic Defence of Everyday Anti-Scepticism ...... 62 2.1 Characterisation of Cohen’s Contextualism...... 63 2.2 Cohen’s Contextualist Response to The Sceptical Challenge ...... 66 2.2.1 Cohen on RSA ...... 67 2.2.2 Cohen on AI ...... 69 2.3 The Rule of Relevance ...... 71 2.4 Cohen’s Uncomfortable Concession to Scepticism ...... 73 2.4.1 Cohen’s Failure to Protect Truthful Knowledge Ascriptions concerning ~B ...... 74 2.4.2. Instantiating Sceptical Contexts ...... 79 2.4.3 Scepticism as the Result of Ordinary Epistemic Practices ...... 79 2.4.4 The Legitimacy of the Sceptical Context ...... 80 3. Blome-Tillmann’s Problematic Defence of Everyday Anti-Scepticism ...... 81 3.1 David Lewis' Rule of Attention ...... 81 3.2 Blome-Tillmann's Alternative Rule: The Rule of Presupposition ...... 84 3.3 Pragmatic Presuppositions ...... 86 3.4 Does Blome-Tillmann Succeed in Protecting Truthful Knowledge Ascriptions concerning ~B? ...... 88 3.4.1 Blome-Tillmann’s Failure to Protect Truthful Knowledge Ascriptions concerning ~B ...... 91 3.4.2. Instantiating Sceptical Contexts ...... 96 3.4.3 Scepticism as the Result of Ordinary Epistemic Practices ...... 97 3.4.4 The Legitimacy of the Sceptical Context ...... 98 4. Concluding Remarks ...... 99 Part 2 ...... 101 Diagnosing The Argument from Ignorance: Invariantist and Contextualist Presuppositions and Transmission of Warrant ...... 101 0. Introduction ...... 101 1. Epistemic Closure and Transmission of Warrant ...... 101 1.1 Transmission Failure in Moore’s Proof ...... 110 1.2 Davies’ Limitation Principle ...... 110 1.3 Why Transmission Fails in Moore’s Proof ...... 112 2. Transmission of Warrant and the Argument from Ignorance ...... 116 2.1 The Argument from Ignorance ...... 116 2.2 The Argument from Ignorance as Invariantist Scepticism ...... 118 2.3 Transmission Failure in the Invariantist Argument from Ignorance ...... 122

3. Restricting the Argument from Ignorance ...... 125 3.1 Context-Sensitive Scepticism ...... 125 3.2 Successful Transmission in the Restricted Argument from Ignorance ...... 127 3.3 Upholding Epistemic Closure ...... 128 4. Concluding Remarks ...... 131 Part 3 ...... 133 Epistemic Contextualism’s Proper Defence of Everyday Anti-Scepticism ...... 133 0. Introduction ...... 133 1. A Theoretical Diagnosis of Invariantist Scepticism ...... 133 1.1 Discussion of the Components of Invariantist Scepticism ...... 134 1.1.1 Epistemological Realism...... 135 1.1.2 Epistemic Priority ...... 141 1.1.3 Neutrality of Experience ...... 143 1.2 Reflective Understanding ...... 147 2. Williams’ Epistemic Contextualism ...... 150 2.1 Responsibility, Reliability and Entitlements ...... 151 2.2 The Sceptical Challenge ...... 157 2.3 Methodological Necessities ...... 159 3. How Can One Know that H and that ~B? ...... 163 3.1 The Instability of Knowledge, Epistemic Closure and Context Shifting ...... 169 4. Clarifying the Sceptical Context of Inquiry...... 173 4.1 Possible Formulations of the Sceptical Context: (1) The Traditional Philosophical Context ...... 174 4.2 Possible Formulations of the Sceptical Context: (2) The Priority Context ...... 179 4.3 Possible Formulations of the Sceptical Context: (3) The Neutrality Context ...... 186 5. Epistemic Contextualism Versus Semantic Contextualism ...... 192 5.1 Can One Truthfully say ‘I know that/S knows that ~B’? ...... 193 5.2 How Easy is it to Install a Sceptical Context? ...... 195 5.3 Does Context-Restricted Scepticism Arise from Ordinary Epistemic Practices? ...... 197 5.4 Is the Sceptical Context a Legitimate Context? ...... 201 6. Concluding Remarks ...... 204 Conclusion ...... 206 Bibliography ...... 210 Word Count: 61,472

Abstract

Scepticism and its Limits: An Investigation of Contextualist Strategies

In this thesis, I investigate different Contextualist strategies for responding to the sceptical Argument from Ignorance (AI). Such responses are notable for not challenging the Principle of Epistemic Closure (widely held to be primarily responsible for the argument’s conclusion). I am concerned to explore Contextualism’s ability to respond to AI in a way which does not result in an uncomfortable concession to scepticism. In Part 1, I discuss Semantic Contextualism; in Part 2, I investigate how AI fares with regards to transmission of warrant when AI utilises either invariantist or Contextualist presuppositions; and in Part 3, I discuss whether Epistemic Contextualism succeeds where Semantic Contextualism fails, arguing that it does. I conclude with an endorsement of Epistemic Contextualism.

Part 1: I demonstrate that Semantic Contextualism, of which I will consider three different varieties (externalist, internalist, presuppositionalist), is overly concessive to scepticism because it results in the following four difficulties: (1) knowledge attributions of the form ‘I know/S knows that ~B’ (where B stands for the sceptical brain-in-a-vat hypothesis) are invariably false; (2) the sceptical context is extremely easy to install; (3) scepticism is said to result from entirely ordinary epistemic practices and; (4) the sceptical context is taken to be an entirely legitimate context of ascription. I conclude Part 1 with the claim that Semantic Contextualism is overly concessive to scepticism.

Part 2: Previously, Moore’s Proof of an External World has been diagnosed with failing to transmit the warrant on offer for its premises to its conclusion. I argue that it is possible likewise to charge AI with transmission failure but that this cannot be done when some of the conceptual resources of Contextualism are brought to bear on AI. I show that AI can be charged with transmission failure when it is interpreted in support of invariantist (context- unrestricted) scepticism and that only when it is viewed as an argument for a context- restricted form of scepticism does it succeed in transmitting warrant. In this way, the sceptical consequences of AI are considerably reduced.

Part 3: The conceptual resources newly deployed in Part 2, which show that a context- restricted, as opposed to invariantist, interpretation of AI can succeed in transmitting warrant, are borrowed from Michael Williams’ Epistemic form of Contextualism. But is this form of Contextualism as concessive to scepticism as I showed Semantic Contextualism to be? I argue that it does not represent an overly concessive position vis-à-vis scepticism and therefore represents a superior Contextualist position and response to scepticism. To establish this conclusion, I interrogate the strategy and main elements of Williams’ theoretical diagnosis of scepticism and his resultant version of Contextualism so as to determine the extent to which scepticism can be allayed by it. Particular attention is paid to specifying issues that Williams does not discuss, most prominently how the sceptical context has to be understood in order for it to resist his theoretical diagnosis of scepticism and what makes toleration of such resistance by context-bound scepticism reasonable. I conclude my thesis with an endorsement of Williams’ Epistemic Contextualism.

Declaration

No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning.

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Dedication

This thesis is dedicated to Gabby and Rosie MacPherson; for everything.

And to Michael Williams, whose work, particularly his Unnatural Doubts, inspired my research more than anything else. It has been a joy.

And to JoJo and Joe Tibke, who I miss every day.

Acknowledgements

I would first like to acknowledge and thank Thomas Uebel, my main supervisor. This work has hugely benefited from all your comments, criticisms and advice. Thank you for offering so much of your time, support and expertise throughout the last four years. I would also like to thank Sean Crawford, who has helped guide me in my Philosophical training since I was a first year at undergraduate level. And to Graham Stevens, who offered so much advice and help when I was writing my PhD thesis application. My mother, Gabby MacPherson. Thank you for your endless support, love, wisdom and the work ethic you have instilled in me since I was a child. All of my achievements are just a reflection of the wonderful job you have done in raising me. My sister, Rosie MacPherson. Thank you for the support, the advice, for laughing at me when I needed to laugh at myself and for demonstrating what people can achieve when they're brave and take risks. And James Gilburt, for helping me learn to stay calm and for being a truly wonderful friend. Rachel Emms, for the proofreading, reassurance, advice and tactical breaks. You're a better friend than I could hope for. Thank you Pilar Lopez Cantero, Andy Kirton and Jack Casey for your hugely helpful comments on this work and for all the years of support and laughter. Thank you to Martin Davies, Helen Beebee, Mikkel Gerken, Rik Peels, and Andries de Jong for their responses and feedback on drafts of work presented in this thesis at various conferences. To all the members of the department of Philosophy at The University of Manchester who have ever offered advice, encouraging words, asked a question or made a comment which has shaped the work I have done here. There are too many of you to name, but your input is hugely appreciated. And to all the Philosophers who have inspired this work, particularly Michael Williams, Martin Davies and Keith DeRose.

Introduction

In this thesis, I investigate Contextualist strategies for responding to external world scepticism, focusing on the sceptical Argument from Ignorance (AI). I explore

Contextualism’s ability to respond to AI in a way that doesn’t result in an uncomfortable concession to scepticism. I argue that whilst Michael Williams’

Epistemic version of Contextualism can satisfy this criterion, Semantic

Contextualism fails in this respect. I also utilise aspects of Williams’ theoretical diagnosis of invariantist scepticism to argue that AI only succeeds in transmitting warrant to its conclusion, and is therefore only a cogent argument, when it is interpreted as an argument for context-restricted scepticism: when AI is interpreted as an argument for invariantist scepticism, it fails to transmit warrant from its premises to its conclusion. This new work further motivates Williams’ complex position vis-a-vis scepticism.

1. The Argument from Ignorance

The Argument from Ignorance is an argument for external world scepticism which utilises the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis. This hypothesis asks one to imagine a scenario in which, unbeknownst to you, your brain has been recently1 removed from your body and placed into a vat of nutrients and hooked up to a supercomputer. This supercomputer feeds your brain electrochemical information so that you continue to have the experiences which your non-envatted counterpart would have. So, though your external surroundings have now changed drastically, your perceptual experiences remain as they are now (in your non-envatted state).

1 Specifying that one has been envatted recently works to rebut Putnam-style responses to this argument which work with Semantic Externalism in order to argue that one can know that one is not a brain in a vat. DeRose states that by adding in ‘recently’ we can ignore this kind of response (see DeRose, 1995, 1, footnote 2 and DeRose, 2000 for a lengthier discussion of Putnam-style responses to AI).

Hilary Putnam eloquently describes such a scenario:

‘…imagine that a human being (you can imagine this to be yourself) has

been subjected to an operation by an evil scientist. The person's brain (your

brain) has been removed from the body and placed in a vat of nutrients

which keeps the brain alive. The nerve endings have been connected to a

super-scientific computer which causes the person whose brain it is to have

the illusion that everything is perfectly normal. There seem to be people,

objects, the sky, etc; but really all the person (you) is experiencing is the

result of electronic impulses travelling from the computer to the nerve

endings. The computer is so clever that if the person tries to raise his hand,

the feedback from the computer will cause him to 'see' and 'feel' the hand

being raised. Moreover, by varying the program, the evil scientist can cause

the victim to 'experience' (or hallucinate) any situation or environment the

evil scientist wishes. He can also obliterate the memory of the brain

operation, so that the victim will seem to himself to have always been in

this environment. It can even seem to the victim that he is sitting and

reading these very words about the amusing but quite absurd supposition

that there is an evil scientist who removes people's brains from their bodies

and places them in a vat of nutrients which keep the brains alive. The nerve

endings are supposed to be connected to a super-scientific computer which

causes the person whose brain it is to have the illusion that…’ (Putnam,

1981, 5-6).

This hypothesis can be utilised in order to construct an argument for external world scepticism. This argument, adapted from Keith DeRose (1995, 1), runs as

10 follows. Where H stands for some ordinary claim about the world (such as ‘I have hands’) and B stands for the sceptical brain-in-a-vat hypothesis:

The Argument from Ignorance (AI)

(S1) S doesn’t know that ~B.2

(S2) If S doesn’t know that ~B, then S doesn’t know that H.

(S3) S doesn’t know that H.

(S1) is motivated by the idea that, given S cannot distinguish between veridical experiences of the world and the non-veridical experiences had by a brain in a vat, S cannot know that she is not a brain in a vat (see, for example, Pritchard, 2016a, 3).

(S2) is motivated by appeal to the principle of closure under known entailment

(Epistemic Closure).

Epistemic Closure: If S knows that p, and S knows that p entails q, then S

knows that q.3

From Epistemic Closure, it follows that if one doesn’t know that q, and one knows that p entails q, then one doesn’t know that p. Using this, the AI sceptic can argue that, given S doesn’t know that ~B (asserted in premise (S1)), then S doesn’t know that H. From this, it follows that S does not know that H (captured by (S3)).

2 Here, S represents any epistemic subject (so can be replaced with ‘I’ if preferred). 3 This is a typical formulation of Epistemic Closure. For example, this is how Epistemic Closure is discussed by DeRose (see 1995, 31, footnote 33), Cohen (1988), Dretske (1970), Feldman (1999), Nozick (1981), Stine (1976), Pritchard (2011) and Bauman (2011). For present purposes, refinements of the Epistemic Closure Principle involving the demand for competent deduction to q from p, as noted in Bauman (2011), can be neglected.

1.2 Possible Responses to The Argument from Ignorance

Many different responses to this argument have been offered. Most deal with AI by denying one of the argument’s premises: by asserting that we can, contra (S1), know that ~B or by arguing that, contra (S2), we can know that H even if we do not know that ~B. Such responses to AI are usually offered as direct responses to the argument. They formulate positive proposals, such as accounts of knowledge or justification, which entail a denial of one of the argument’s premises.

For example, some have offered theories of knowledge which entail a denial of

Epistemic Closure, meaning that those who endorse such positions can deny premise

(S2) of AI. Such theories have been put forward by Fred Dretske (see 1970) and

Robert Nozick (1981). For example, Nozick offers a tracking analysis of knowledge which includes the following sensitivity condition: ‘if p weren’t true, S wouldn’t believe that p’ (Nozick, 1981, 172). Concerning one’s belief that H, if H weren’t true then presumably one would not believe that H (for one could see that one does not have hands). In this way, one’s belief that H satisfies this sensitivity condition and can count as a piece of knowledge (assuming that this belief satisfies the other conditions in Nozick’s analysis). However, one’s belief that ~B does not satisfy this condition. For, even if one were a brain in a vat, one would continue to believe that one were not. Thus, Nozick takes it that we can have knowledge of H even though we lack knowledge of ~B, and thus his account of knowledge entails a rejection of premise (S2) of AI.

However, this kind of response to AI is taken to be highly implausible by many.

DeRose, for example, states that a rejection of Epistemic Closure, and thus a rejection of premise (S2) of AI, leads to what he calls ‘abominable conjunctions’:

12 such as the claim that whilst you don’t know that you’re not a bodiless (and therefore handless) brain in a vat, you can know that you have hands (see 1995, 28).

Moreover, this kind of response represents what Duncan Pritchard refers to as an

‘overriding’ anti-sceptical strategy (Pritchard, 2016b, 16). Such strategies involve offering a revision of our pre-theoretical epistemological ideas, such that we can reject one of the intuitive premises of the sceptical argument. The response to AI which works via a rejection of Epistemic Closure is such a position because, though

Epistemic Closure is taken to be an intuitively supported pre-theoretical idea about our epistemic situation, those who offer up theories of knowledge/justification which deny Epistemic Closure are, in effect, offering up a revision of our pre-theoretical epistemological intuitions. So, they will argue that, though Epistemic Closure seems intuitively correct, given the correct analysis of knowledge (such as Nozick’s tracking analysis), we can discover that Epistemic Closure is false. And, therefore, we can reject premise (S2) of AI.

But Pritchard is unconvinced by such responses. He argues that we should prefer an

‘undercutting’ response to the sceptical problem to an overriding response (2016b,

16-17). An undercutting response is one which aims to show that the sceptical problem arises out of faulty philosophical ideas about our epistemic position. In this way, undermining such ideas would undermine the legitimacy of the sceptical problem. Pritchard says we should prefer an undercutting strategy to an overriding strategy because, on the overriding strategy, the sceptical problem is viewed as being

‘bona fide’ in that ‘it arises out of an authentic tension within our pre-theoretical epistemological concepts, [so] even if we can supply a sound theoretical basis for rejecting one of the claims… it will remain the case that the skeptical problem will generate intellectual unease’ (2016b, 17).

Williams similarly rejects such overriding responses to the sceptical problem. The reason for this is that Williams views such responses as implicitly accepting the theoretical legitimacy of the sceptical problem. Given this, such responses work by making changes ‘in our pre-theoretical thinking about knowledge that shrink the domain, or alter the status, of what we previously thought of as knowledge of objective fact’ (Williams, 1996, 22). But this falls into what Williams calls the

‘Epistemologist’s Dilemma’ (1996, 22). The Epistemologist who accepts the theoretical respectability of the sceptic’s problem can either keep her ordinary conception of knowledge but lose such knowledge to the sceptic or she can reject scepticism but at the expense of denying some aspect of our ordinary ways of thinking about knowledge. Regarding this latter option, it is not clear how far away it would be from scepticism if we were to respond to scepticism by doing away with, or changing, some fundamental aspect of our ordinary ways of thinking about knowledge. Williams states that the Epistemologist’s Dilemma is the idea that, in conceding the theoretical tenability of the sceptic’s problem, one can either agree with the sceptic directly or agree with her in an indirect, grudging way.

The response to AI which I will endorse in this thesis is offered by Contextualism.

Contextualism has been developed in two main varieties: a Semantic (attributor- based) form and an Epistemic (subject-based) form. According to all versions of

Contextualism, the truth or falsity of premise (S1) of AI is a contextually-dependent matter, whilst the conditional captured by (S2) is context-independently true. In those contexts in which (S1) is taken to be false, Contextualists argue that AI’s conclusion is also false. An upshot of this kind of response to AI is that it upholds

Epistemic Closure across all contexts of epistemic evaluation. However, Semantic

Contextualism and Epistemic Contextualism differ in how concessive they are to external world scepticism.

In this thesis, I argue that Semantic Contextualism is overly concessive to scepticism and should be rejected in favour of the less concessive epistemic form of

Contextualism. Moreover, I will demonstrate that Williams’ theoretical diagnosis of scepticism and his resultant Epistemic Contextualist theory of justification constitute a highly plausible undercutting response to the sceptical problem. I will now give a brief overview of Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this thesis.

2. Overview of Part 1

I argue in Part 1 that Semantic Contextualism is overly concessive to scepticism.

This is due to the following four difficulties which Semantic Contextualism results in: (1) knowledge attributions of the form ‘I know/S knows that ~B’ (where B stands for the sceptical brain-in-a-vat hypothesis) are invariably false; (2) the sceptical context is extremely easy to install; (3) scepticism is said to result from entirely ordinary epistemic practices and; (4) the sceptical context is taken to be an entirely legitimate context of ascription.

Some of these issues have already been raised in the literature.4 However, I aim to develop these criticisms more thoroughly than they have previously been developed, demonstrating exactly why such issues undermine Semantic Contextualism’s ability to offer a satisfying response to external world scepticism.

I focus on three different forms of Semantic Contextualism: those offered by Keith

DeRose, Stewart Cohen and Michael Blome-Tillmann. Nevertheless, the problems I

4 For example, Ernest Sosa (1999) and John Koethe (2005) both point out that Semantic Contextualism is a position which does not allow for one to truthfully lay claim to knowledge of ~B (see Part 1 section 1.3.1.4 for a discussion of their comments and Keith DeRose’s response).

15 raise for each are not offered as unique problems for these particular formulations of

Semantic Contextualism: they demonstrate issues which, given the underlying ideas concerning scepticism at work in Semantic Contextualism, are issues which beset all versions of Semantic Contextualism. I conclude Part 1 of my thesis with a rejection of all forms of Semantic Contextualism.

3. Overview of Part 2

In Part 2, I investigate whether the warrant on offer for AI’s first premise succeeds in transmitting from this premise to AI’s conclusion. My investigation takes one plausible theory of Transmission Failure from the literature and applies it to AI to see whether AI succeeds in transmitting warrant or not. The theory of Transmission

Failure which I focus on is presented by Martin Davies. Davies’ position takes it that an argument can fail to transmit warrant if the warrant for its premises only counts as a warrant for these premises given certain assumptions, and these assumptions could not be accepted by one who doubts the conclusion of the argument.

I argue that when AI utilises invariantist (context-insensitive) presuppositions concerning knowledge/justification, it fails to transmit warrant to its conclusion.

However, when it utilises presuppositions taken from an epistemic form of

Contextualism, it can be said to transmit warrant to its conclusion. This work therefore leads to an investigation of, and provides motivation for, Epistemic

Contextualism.

4. Overview of Part 3

Part 3 focuses on Michael Williams’ theoretical diagnosis of invariantist scepticism and his epistemic form of Contextualism. Part 3 offers a description, clarification and defence of both his diagnosis and subsequent Contextualist view of justification.

Williams argues that scepticism says something true about our epistemic position but only within the confines of a distinctively sceptical context of inquiry. In such a context, Williams asserts that scepticism does genuinely undermine our everyday and anti-sceptical knowledge of the world. In Part 3, I analyse the mechanics of

Williams’ theoretical diagnosis of scepticism and his alternative conception of knowledge and defend both against criticism. However, there is one aspect of his position which Williams fails to properly elucidate: the specific nature of the sceptical context of inquiry. To overcome this deficit, I fill this theoretical lacuna for

Williams’ position. To complete the task I set myself in this work, I then compare

Williams’ Epistemic Contextualism with Semantic Contextualism with regards to the four problems, (1), (2), (3) and (4), which I raise against Semantic Contextualism in

Part 1. I argue that Williams’ position is less concessive to scepticism in each respect. My thesis concludes with an endorsement of Williams’ Epistemic

Contextualism.

Part 1

Semantic Contextualism’s Problematic Defence of Everyday Anti-

Scepticism

0. Introduction

This thesis investigates Contextualist responses to the problem of external world scepticism as captured by the Argument from Ignorance. Part 1 of this thesis will focus on Semantic Contextualism. I will argue that Semantic Contextualism concedes too much to scepticism and will therefore reject it on this basis.

Semantic Contextualism is overly concessive to scepticism because it results in the following four difficulties: (1) knowledge attributions of the form ‘I know/S knows that ~B’ are invariably false; (2) the sceptical context is extremely easy to install; (3) scepticism is said to result from entirely ordinary epistemic practices5 and; (4) the sceptical context is taken to be an entirely legitimate context of ascription. Given (1),

(2), (3) and (4), Semantic Contextualism is overly concessive to scepticism.

This result is significant because Semantic Contextualism is meant to comprise a theory which contains scepticism to those (very) high-standard contexts; and so is meant to be a theory which restricts the power and importance of scepticism. Part 1 will, however, demonstrate that certain ideas implicit in this kind of view, and the issues that these ideas result in, mean that Semantic Contextualism is ultimately too

5 To be clear from the outset, Blome-Tillmann’s Semantic Contextualism does not seem to result in claim (3). However, this aspect of Blome-Tillmann’s position will be shown to be problematic because the way he bypasses this particular worry is by adding an ad hoc and implausible extra condition onto our knowledge of the negation of sceptical hypotheses. In this way, Blome-Tillmann’s position suggests that scepticism is not the result of only ordinary epistemic practices, but in a way this aspect of his position can be seen to be unfair to scepticism.

18 concessive to scepticism and should be abandoned in favour of a less concessive position. Part 1 of this thesis will thus conclude with a blanket rejection of Semantic forms of Contextualism.

0.1 Semantic Contextualism

Semantic Contextualism is a theory regarding the truth values of knowledge ascribing and knowledge denying sentences, sentences such as 'S knows that p', and

'S does not know that p'. It states that the truth values of such sentences are contextually determined; whether S can be truthfully ascribed with the knowledge that p will be determined by both the justificatory standards in play in the attributor of knowledge’s context and S’s epistemic position.

Part of the supposed appeal of Semantic Contextualism is that it provides a possible response to arguments for external world scepticism, arguments such as the

Argument from Ignorance (AI). Semantic Contextualism’s response to AI aims to both uphold our ordinary claims to know in some contextual settings, whilst explaining away the apparent forcefulness of such sceptical arguments. It is a theory that seeks to contain the sceptical challenge, as captured by AI, by means of a strategy best defined by the four following commitments.6 Where H stands for some ordinary claim concerning the external world/external world object (such as ‘I have hands’7) and B stands for some suitable8 sceptical hypothesis (such as the brain-in-a-

6 In support of this this characterisation; see DeRose (2000, esp. 134). 7 Of course, the claim that I know that I have hands is not normal or ordinary in the sense that this is something which one would not, in normal circumstances, bother claiming to know or call into doubt. By ‘ordinary’ here, I mean something that one would usually (at least implicitly) take oneself to know, if one thinks that one knows anything. 8 By ‘suitable’, I mean a sceptical hypothesis which seems, at least prima facie, not to be known to be false, builds in a theory as to why you cannot know it to be false and undermines an entire class of knowledge claims, such as those concerning external world objects. We can compare sceptics who offer such sceptical hypotheses to what DeRose calls a ‘simple’ sceptic; such as one who simply insists that you don’t know ordinary things about, for example, external world objects, whilst offering no reasoning for why you do not know such things (see DeRose, 1995, 9).

19 vat hypothesis): claims of the form ‘S knows that H’ can come out as true when made in low-standard contexts of ascription; claims of the form ‘S knows that ~B’ can come out as true when made in low-standard contexts of ascription; claims of the form ‘S knows that H’ will come out as false when made in (very) high-standard contexts of ascription and; claims of the form ‘S knows that ~B’ will come out as false when made in (very) high-standard contexts of ascription.

However, I will demonstrate that Semantic Contextualism cannot allow for claims of the form ‘S know that ~B’ to come out as true. This is the case even when such claims have been entered in a context with low-standards for knowledge ascription.

That is, I will argue that on all forms of Semantic Contextualism, claims of the form

‘I know/S knows that ~B’ are invariably false. They are invariably false because the epistemic standards which are put into place by such an assertion are the very standards at which such knowledge ascribing assertions come out as false. In other words, claiming to know ~B is sufficient to initiate a rise in epistemic standards to a level where no knowledge claim can be truthfully asserted.

As such, Semantic Contextualism cannot uphold one of its (sometimes explicit9) aims: to allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions of the form ‘I know/S knows that

~B’. All such knowledge ascriptions are invariably false. This result would be less problematic if the sceptical standards for knowledge ascription (standards at which all claims to know concerning the external world come out as false) were difficult to put into effect. But, as I will demonstrate, Semantic Contextualism has it that this context of ascription, the sceptical context, is exceptionally easy to install. All one need do to effect a shift into the sceptical context is either assert that one (either

9 See, for example, DeRose (1995, 40, footnote 36). DeRose explicitly states that his Semantic Contextualist position aims to allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions of form ‘I know/S knows that ~B’ in low-standard contexts of ascription.

20 oneself or another epistemic subject) does or does not know that ~B. For making such a claim is sufficient to shift one into a sceptical context of ascription in which all knowledge assertions concerning the external world come out as false. Thus,

Semantic Contextualism is a position which views the sceptical context of ascription as being extremely easy to install.

Moreover, Semantic Contextualism (at least in the versions put forward by DeRose and Cohen) takes it that the epistemic practices which trigger dramatic increases in epistemic standards, resulting in sceptical contexts of ascription, are entirely normal.

That is, Semantic Contextualism views shifts into the sceptical context of ascription as utilising the same mechanisms as do more ordinary variations in epistemic standards. This means that Semantic Contextualism views scepticism as being the result of ordinary, rather than extraordinary, epistemic practices.

Finally, Semantic Contextualism views the relevant epistemic standards (standards which help to set how hard or easy it is for a knowledge ascription to come out as true) as comprising a simple scale going from low to high. So whilst knowledge ascriptions will, more often than not, come out as true when the standards for attributing knowledge are quite low, such knowledge ascriptions will, more often than not, come out as false when the standards for attributing knowledge are raised to a high enough level. But this means that Semantic Contextualism only posits one simple scale of epistemic standards, going from ordinary (low) standard contexts to sceptical (high) standard contexts. In this way, there is no substantive distinction drawn between low-standard contexts and the sceptical context of ascription. The sceptical context is seen as one legitimate context of ascription amongst many.

Semantic Contextualism does not argue that there is anything wrong or amiss about the sceptical context of ascription.

Given these aspects of Semantic Contextualism, I argue that Semantic Contextualism is overly concessive to external world scepticism. For this reason, I reject this kind of

Contextualist position.

I will now discuss three Semantic Contextualist positions currently on offer in the literature. These three versions of Semantic Contextualism are offered by Keith

DeRose (see section 1), Stewart Cohen (see section 2) and Michael Blome-Tillmann

(see section 3) respectively. I look at these specific versions of Semantic

Contextualism because: DeRose and Blome-Tillmann both explicitly aim to construct Semantic Contextualist positions which can allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions of the form ‘I know/S knows that ~B’; DeRose’s and Blome-Tillmann’s positions represent well-developed externalist Semantic Contextualist positions whilst Cohen offers an internalist version of Semantic Contextualism; and, whilst

Cohen’s and DeRose’s positions represent the (relatively) early stages in Semantic

Contextualist literature, Blome-Tillmann’s position is representative of recent approaches to Semantic Contextualism.

1. DeRose’s Problematic Defence of Everyday Anti-Scepticism

Semantic Contextualism is offered as a position which aims to uphold our ordinary, everyday knowledge of the external world whilst explaining the apparent power of sceptical arguments such as the Argument from Ignorance (AI).10 Overall, Semantic

Contextualist responses to AI assert that the first premise and conclusion of AI are true, but are only true when the standards for attributing knowledge have been raised to a high enough level. The first premise and conclusion of AI are said to be false

10 AI is the sceptical argument (or is equivalent to the sceptical argument) which proponents of Semantic Contextualism, such as DeRose (see 1995, 1) and Cohen (see, 2000, 99), focus their attention on.

22 when evaluated at more ordinary levels for knowledge ascription. Moreover, that we can sometimes be successfully ascribed with the knowledge of ~B (i.e. ‘I am not a brain in a vat) and H (i.e. I have hands) on some occasions is said to be compatible with the fact that we can only be falsely attributed with this knowledge on other occasions. Whether such claims to know, or attributions of such knowledge, are true or false depends on the epistemic situation of the subject of knowledge and the epistemic standards at play in the attributor’s context of ascription.11

I start with an explication and critique of Keith DeRose’s formulation of Semantic

Contextualism. The reasons for starting with his position are threefold: DeRose explicitly states that his position is one which can allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions concerning ~B; DeRose offers a highly developed formulation of

Semantic Contextualism which has been refined and expanded upon over a number of years; and DeRose explicitly states that his Semantic Contextualist position is one which can be formulated in such a way as to make it relatively unfriendly to scepticism.12

1.1 Characterisation of DeRose’s Semantic Contextualism

Keith DeRose (1990, 1992, 1995, 2000, 2009, 2010) presents and defends a version of Semantic Contextualism; a theory according to which ‘the truth-conditions of knowledge-ascribing and knowledge-denying sentences (sentences of the form ‘S knows that p’ and ‘S does not know that p’ and related variants of such sentences) vary in certain ways according to the context in which they are uttered’ (DeRose,

11 The subject and attributor of knowledge can be two distinct individuals (or perhaps even two distinct groups of individuals) or the same individual (or perhaps the same group of individuals). 12 It should be noted that even a relatively sceptic-unfriendly version of DeRose’s account would still be one which sees scepticism as being a legitimate result of an extreme rise in standards for knowledge attribution. However, by suggesting that his account is one which can be developed in a sceptic-unfriendly way, DeRose is suggesting that his account is one which can avoid the problems which I levy against his position. I will demonstrate that, ultimately, DeRose’s position is one which is stuck with the problems I discuss.

2009, 2). What so varies is the epistemic standards which S must meet, or fail to meet, to make such a knowledge-ascribing, or knowledge-denying, sentence true.

DeRose’s position focuses on the context of the attributor of knowledge, rather than the context of the subject. This is because he starts first from a semantic thesis concerning the term ‘know’. For DeRose, the term ‘know’ is a context-sensitive term in a broadly similar way in which potentially vague terms like ‘flat’ are.13 That is, an everyday object such as a table may satisfy the standards for flatness in most ordinary situations, but the same table may fail to count as being flat in a context in which even microscopic variations in the table’s surface have important consequences (such as in a scientific investigation in which even small variations in the table’s surface could impact empirical findings).

This means that ‘this table is flat’ could be truthfully uttered in one context where lax standards for flatness are at play, whilst ‘this table is flat’ may only be falsely uttered in a distinct context in which more demanding standards for flatness are in play, even where the same table is under discussion. Similarly, the Semantic

Contextualist takes it that the same knowledge ascription (e.g. ‘S knows that p’) can be truthfully or falsely stated within different contexts in which different standards for knowledge ascription are at work. Where the standards for knowledge ascription are low, the claim that ‘S knows that p’ may come out as true whilst this same knowledge ascription can come out as false within a context where much higher standards for knowledge ascription are at work. This is the case even where the same subject and the same proposition are under discussion.

13 Whilst the supposed context-sensitivity of the term ‘know’ is an important matter for Part 1 of this thesis, the finer distinctions between different context-sensitive terms will not be of great importance.

DeRose claims that, in any given context of ascription, features of the attributor’s

(A’s) conversational context determine how strong an epistemic position the subject of knowledge (S) must be in for A’s assertion ‘S knows that p’ to come out as true.14

Because it is the attributor’s epistemic context which sets the standards for knowledge which must be reached by S, one attributor can truthfully say of S that ‘S knows that p’ whilst another attributor can truthfully say of S that ‘S does not know that p’ at the same time, even where both attributors are referring to the same epistemic subject and the same proposition. This will occur where both attributors are situated within distinct contexts of ascription from one another, where each context of ascription has different epistemic standards at play. For example, where one attributor, A1, is situated within a very high-standards context of ascription and another attributor, A2, is situated within a low-standards context, A1 may truthfully state that ‘S does not know that p’ whilst A2 may simultaneously truthfully state that

‘S does know that p’.

Taking a case similar to one offered by DeRose (1992, 913), say that our attributor of knowledge (A) and subject of knowledge (S) are discussing whether the bank will be open this Saturday. S claims that it is, so A (perhaps when relaying this information to a third party) states that ‘S knows that the bank will be open this

Saturday’. Whether or not A’s knowledge ascription comes out as true will depend on certain features of A’s context, which in turn impact the epistemic standards S must reach in order for her to be truthfully attributed with this piece of knowledge by

14 This context may be a straightforwardly conversational one, and are often discussed in this way in the literature. However, ascriptions can also be made from a solitary perspective. Therefore, I will not continue to speak of a conversational context, preferring the phrase ‘context of ascription’.

DeRose offers some features of A’s context of ascription which will impact the epistemic standards set by this context. For example, DeRose states that the importance of A’s knowledge ascription being ‘right’ (truthfully uttered) will affect the standards for knowledge ascription at play in A’s context (DeRose, 1992, 914).

Where ‘a lot hinges’ on A’s knowledge ascription being right, or where ‘the stakes’ are quite high, the standards for knowledge are increased so as to make it harder for this knowledge ascription to come out as true (see 1992, 914-915). So, if A is in a context in which it is very important that the bank be open this Saturday (such as a case where A needs to be able to cash an important cheque), S will need to be in a stronger epistemic position for A’s knowledge ascription to come out as true as compared to a context in which A does not need to cash an important cheque (1992,

913-915).

DeRose also states that what possibilities have been mentioned in relation to this claim to know will affect the epistemic standards S must meet in order for A’s knowledge ascription to come out as true. For example, if the possibility that the bank is usually open on Saturdays but is closed this Saturday due to maintenance work is raised in A’s context, S will need to be in a stronger epistemic position for

A’s knowledge ascription to come out as true when compared to a context where no such possibility is raised. This is because, for A’s knowledge ascription to come out as true in the case where this possibility has been raised, S will need to be able to rule out the possibility that maintenance work has led to the bank being shut this

Saturday; but S need not be able to rule out this possibility in the case where this possibility has not been raised.

1.2 DeRose’s Semantic Contextualism and Scepticism

DeRose’s offers his Semantic Contextualist account primarily as a way to resolve the puzzle presented by the Argument from Ignorance (see DeRose, 1995, 3).

The Argument from Ignorance (AI)

(S1) S doesn’t know that ~B.

(S2) If S doesn’t know that ~B, then S doesn’t know that H.

(S3) S doesn’t know that H.

AI presents us with a puzzle because, whilst we may (at least initially) be persuaded by AI’s premises, we will also take it that we do know that we have hands (and so will want to reject the claim found in AI’s conclusion). This means that we will be left with three plausible claims, all three of which cannot be (simultaneously) true: I do not know that I am not a brain in a vat (~B); if I do not know that ~B then I do not know that I have hands (H); I do know that H. DeRose claims that a good treatment of AI will explain how we fell into the trap of AI to begin with and why two plausible premises can lead to a conclusion, the negation of which we also find plausible.

DeRose’s basic strategy in dealing with AI asserts that AI’s premises and conclusion are true, but that they are only true when the standards for knowledge ascription are very high. That is, where A is situated within a context of ascription with very high- standards at work, A will be able to truthfully state of S that ‘S doesn’t know that

~B’ and that ‘S doesn’t know that H’.15 As such, A can truthfully assert the first

15 How, according to DeRose, such high standards can be put into place will be explained in section 1.2.3. For now, I am just outlining DeRose’s basic Contextualist response to AI.

27 premise and conclusion of AI when the standards for knowledge in her context of ascription are (very) high.

But, argues DeRose, S can be said to know that H and know that ~B when the standards for knowledge ascription are much lower. Where A is situated within a context in which low standards are at work, DeRose claims that A can truthfully state that ‘S does know that H’ and ‘S does know that ~B’. This means that, within such a low-standards context, the first premise and conclusion of AI turn out to be false. In this way, according to DeRose’s account, the sceptic’s denials of knowledge and our more ordinary claims to know are compatible and both can be correct when stated within an appropriate context. The sceptic only succeeds in falsifying our claims to know by raising the standards of knowledge ascription. As such, AI is said to have ‘no tendency to show that our ordinary claims to know are in any way defective’ (1995, 6).

I will now explain DeRose’s Subjunctive Conditionals Account of the plausibility of

AI’s first premise and his notion of (relative) strength of epistemic position. These two ideas will help clarify DeRose’s response to AI as well as leading to a discussion of DeRose’s Rule of Sensitivity. It is this rule which DeRose takes to explain how rises in epistemic standards can be generated and which helps to explain why we

(according to DeRose) take AI’s first premise to be so plausible. But it is also this rule which leads to the first of the four problems which I raise for DeRose’s account: that his account cannot, it turns out, allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions of the form ‘I know/S knows that ~B’.

1.2.1 DeRose’s Subjunctive Conditionals Account of AI’s First Premise

In explaining the plausibility of AI’s first premise, DeRose utilises aspects of

Nozick’s (1981) account of knowledge. DeRose abstracts the notion of ‘sensitivity’ from the third condition of Nozick’s tracking analysis of knowledge. This condition states that: ‘if p weren’t true, S wouldn’t believe that p’ (Nozick, 1981, 172).16 Using this, DeRose formulates an account of the plausibility of AI’s first premise which he calls the Subjunctive Conditionals Account (SCA) (DeRose, 1995, 17-18).17

According to SCA, the problem with one’s belief that ~B is that one would hold this belief even if it were false (one would hold this belief even if one were a brain in a vat). In other words, one’s belief that one is not a brain in a vat is an insensitive belief: even if one were a brain in a vat, one would believe that ~B (that one was not a brain in a vat). DeRose asserts that this is what makes it hard to claim to know ~B because ‘we have a very strong general, though not exceptionless, inclination to think that we don’t know that P when we think that our belief that P is a belief we would hold even if P were false’ (1995, 18).

DeRose stops short of accepting sensitivity as necessary for knowledge because doing so would mean accepting AI’s first premise as simply being true. That is, if sensitivity were necessary for knowledge, one could never be said to know ~B for one cannot have a sensitive belief in ~B. Nozick himself takes sensitivity to be necessary for knowledge; so he takes it that one cannot know that ~B. But because one’s belief that H can be sensitive, on Nozick’s account, one can know that H.

DeRose, however, rejects the possibility that one can know that H and yet fail to

16 This condition is offered alongside further conditions for knowledge (so that a belief which satisfies this condition but not the others which Nozick offers will not count as a piece of knowledge). For a detailed discussion of Nozick’s analysis of knowledge, see his (1981). 17 Nozick calls his third condition for knowledge the ‘subjunctive condition’ (1981, 172). This is why DeRose calls his explanation of AI’s first premise the ‘Subjunctive Conditionals Account’.

29 know that ~B. He calls the combination of these two claims an ‘abominable conjunction’ (1995, 28).

So, whilst Nozick’s position takes it that you can know that H whilst failing to know that ~B, DeRose takes it that, depending on the epistemic context set by A, you either can be truthfully ascribed with both the knowledge that H and the knowledge that ~B, or only falsely ascribed with both the knowledge that H and the knowledge that ~B. DeRose’s position can, therefore, unlike Nozick’s, uphold the principle of closure under known entailment (Epistemic Closure). This principle states that:

Epistemic Closure: If S knows that p, and S knows that p entails q, then S

knows that q.

DeRose’s Contextualist response to AI aims to uphold Epistemic Closure within all epistemic contexts. Whether S can be attributed with such knowledge or not depends upon the epistemic standards set by A’s context of ascription and the method by which S comes to believe such claims.

Thus, DeRose’s Semantic Contextualist response to AI is one which utilises SCA, as abstracted from Nozick’s account of knowledge. But DeRose, unlike Nozick, does not deny Epistemic Closure. In order to show exactly how DeRose’s position can utilise SCA without giving up Epistemic Closure, he introduces the notion of

(relative) strength of epistemic position.

1.2.2 DeRose on Relative Strength of Epistemic Position

DeRose utilises SCA, but gets around having to deny Epistemic Closure, by incorporating SCA into a Contextualist response to AI. Central to DeRose’s

Contextualism is the notion of ‘(relative) strength of epistemic position’ (1995, 29).

This is the idea that ‘in some conversational situations one’s epistemic position must be stronger than in others to count as knowing’ (1995, 30). DeRose offers a test for when one epistemic position is stronger than another which utilises comparative conditionals; conditionals such as ‘If S knows that p in C1, then S knows that p in

C2’ where S stands for some epistemic subject, p stands for some true proposition which S believes and C1 and C2 stand for situations S is found in (1995, 30). This conditional will come out as true when S is at least in as strong an epistemic position with regards to p in C2 as she is with respect to the same belief in C1.

Concerning a subject’s knowledge of two distinct propositions, DeRose states that we can use such conditionals to test the relative strength of epistemic position S has with respect to each. He gives the example of: ‘If S knows that P, then S knows that

Q’ and ‘If S doesn’t know that Q, then S doesn’t know that P’ to indicate that S is in at least as strong an epistemic position with respect to Q as she is in with respect to P

(1995, 31). And, asserts DeRose, we can use this to test S’s strength of epistemic position in relation to the two propositions utilised by AI. By using comparative conditionals, we realise, argues DeRose, that S is in at least as good an epistemic position with regards to ~B as she is in with regards to H. Alternatively put, S is in no better a position to know that H than she is in to know that ~B.

DeRose explains this in terms of possible worlds. We have said that DeRose takes the epistemic standards which S must reach in order for A to truthfully ascribe S with some piece of knowledge, p, to be determined by A’s epistemic context. But, in-line with Nozick, DeRose also places heavy emphasis upon the method which S uses in coming to believe that p. S’s true belief that p will reach the epistemic standards set by A, and thus count as a piece of knowledge, iff S can track the truth of this belief in the real world and in a range of contextually determined close

31 possible worlds. The range of possible worlds which will be relevant to S’s claim to know that p will be, in part, determined by A’s epistemic position, whilst the closeness of possible worlds is to be measured in terms of the method which S uses in coming to decide whether p is true or not in the actual world.

As a general rule, the higher the epistemic standards set by A’s context of ascription, the larger the sphere of possible worlds in which S’s belief that p must track the truth of this belief in order for A to truthfully ascribe S with the knowledge that p. For one’s belief that p to be classed as a sensitive belief, one’s truth-tracking must extend out to the closest ~p world. That is, for one’s belief that p to be classed as a sensitive belief, one must not believe that p in the closest relevant ~p world. But this means that how strong an epistemic position one must be in, in order for one’s belief that p to be classed as a sensitive belief, depends on how far from actuality the closest ~p worlds are.

For example, if the belief in question is H, then the closest ~H world will not be one that far from actuality. An example of a possible world in which ~H is true would be a world in which one recently lost one’s hands in a car accident. If one does not believe that H in this nearest of ~H worlds, then one’s belief that H will be classed as a sensitive belief. And given that, in this ~H world, one would not believe that H

(being able to see for oneself that one doesn’t have any hands), one’s actual belief that H is a sensitive belief. One’s belief that H does not match the fact of the matter in those worlds in which one is a brain in a vat, but such worlds are very distant from the actual world. Thus, one is in a strong epistemic position with respect to one’s belief that H.

However, one’s belief that ~B (‘I am not a brain in a vat’) will not match the fact of the matter in the nearest possible world in which B is true: even though, in such a world, ~B is false, one would continue to believe that ~B. One will continue to believe that ~B in the nearest possible B world because, in this world, all of one’s perceptual experiences and states are indistinguishable from how they are in the actual world, in which one is not a brain in a vat. Thus, one would continue to believe that one is a not a brain in a vat even though, in this possible world, one is a brain in a vat. Thus, one’s belief that ~B is an insensitive belief. But, claims DeRose, this does not mean that we are in a weak epistemic position with regards to our belief that ~B. This is because the nearest possible world in which ~B is false is a very distant world from the actual world. And so long as one’s belief that ~B matches the fact of the matter in all close possible worlds (which it does, for we will believe that

~B in all such worlds and in all such worlds ~B is true) then one is in a good epistemic position with respect to one’s belief that ~B.

Thus, S can be a in good epistemic position with regards to her beliefs that H and ~B so long as she does track the truth of these claims in the relevant sphere of possible worlds. If the epistemic standards set by A’s context of ascription determines that the relevant sphere of possible worlds only extends out to the nearest world in which H is false (but ~B is true) then, so long as S does track the truth of these beliefs in this sphere of possible worlds, S can be said to know that both H and ~B. This is even though, in this context S’s belief that H is a sensitive belief and S’s belief that ~B is an insensitive belief. This means that, if one can be attributed with knowledge of H, then, within the same epistemic context, one can (supposedly) be attributed with knowledge of ~B; but if one cannot be attributed knowledge of ~B, then, within the same epistemic context, one cannot be attributed with knowledge of H. Thus,

Nozick’s abominable conjunction is taken to be false no matter what the standards for knowledge ascription are.

Therefore, DeRose’s response to AI accepts the conditional captured by AI’s second premise in all contexts of ascription. But, his position is one which takes AI’s first premise and conclusion to be jointly true or jointly false depending upon the context in which it is being evaluated in. What DeRose now offers is an account of how the sceptic can raise the epistemic standards at play so as to make the first premise and conclusion of AI true. The mechanism he posits which explains rises in epistemic standards is termed the Rule of Sensitivity.

1.2.3 The Rule of Sensitivity

DeRose takes it that one’s belief that H can be sensitive, whilst one’s belief that ~B is insensitive (and DeRose takes it that one’s belief that ~B could not be made sensitive). But, one is in at least as strong an epistemic position with respect to ~B as one is with respect to H. This leads DeRose to what he takes to be an important insight regarding hypotheses such as ~B: one’s epistemic position with respect to one’s belief that ~B must be stronger than it is with respect to one’s belief that H for one’s belief that ~B to be classed as a sensitive belief.

Expanding on this idea, DeRose posits a conversational18 mechanism which he states the sceptic uses in raising the standards for knowledge on us; the Rule of Sensitivity.

This rule states that:

18 The Rule of Sensitivity does not only concern conversations between attributor and subject. DeRose discusses his Rule of Sensitivity in relation to conversations occurring between two individuals in order to make contact with his Contextualist predecessors, who often framed the Contextualist explanation of sceptical arguments in relation to conversational rules. But DeRose concedes that such a mechanism will need to take effect in cases where a solitary attributor, outside of any conversation, is ascribing or denying a subject with the knowledge that p (see 1995, 6-7).

‘When it is asserted that some subject S knows (or does not know) some

proposition P, the standards for knowledge (the standards for how good an

epistemic position one must be in to count as knowing) tend to be raised, if

need be, to such a level as to require S’s belief in that particular P to be

sensitive for it to count as knowledge. Where the P involved is to the effect

that a skeptical hypothesis does not obtain, then this rule dictates that the

standards will be raised to quite a high level, for, as we’ve seen, one must

be in a stronger epistemic position with respect to a proposition stating that

a skeptical hypothesis is false - relative to other, more ordinary,

propositions – before a belief in such a proposition can be sensitive’ (1995,

36).

In terms of possible worlds, we can say that, for a subject to be truthfully attributed with the knowledge that p, S’s belief that p must track the truth of this belief in a contextually determined sphere of possible worlds. The larger the sphere of possible worlds in which S tracks the truth of p, the better an epistemic position she is in with respect to p. Using this model, DeRose states that the Rule of Sensitivity can be formulated as follows: ‘When it’s asserted that S does (or doesn’t know) that P, then, if necessary, enlarge the sphere of epistemically relevant worlds so that it at least includes the closest worlds in which P is false’ (1995, 37).

DeRose clarifies that he is not stating that sensitivity is necessary for knowledge. Rather, sensitivity helps to explain how the standards for knowledge can be raised. DeRose states that:

‘Where S’s belief that P is not sensitive, S is not in a good enough

epistemic position to count as knowing that P by the standards that,

according to the Rule of Sensitivity, would be put in place by the very

claim that S knows (or doesn’t know) that P. Thus, an assertion that S

doesn’t know that P, where S’s belief that P is insensitive, will raise the

standards for knowledge to a level high enough to make that denial of

knowledge true. A positive claim that S does know such a P, on the other

hand, is doomed to failure: The making of the claim will raise the standards

for knowledge to a level high enough to make that claim false. So,

whenever S’s belief that P is insensitive, we can truthfully assert that S

doesn’t know that P, and can only falsely say that S does know that P’

(1995, 39).

From this, DeRose develops his Contextualist account of the power of AI’s first premise. He argues that the sceptic chooses her sceptical hypothesis, in this case

~B, so that it has two features: (1) we will be in at least as good an epistemic position with regards to ~B as we are with regards to H, and; (2) our belief that

~B will be an insensitive belief. So, when the sceptic asserts, or brings our attention to, AI’s first premise, the claim in this premise (that ‘S doesn’t know that ~B’) drives the epistemic standards up so as to make this assertion true. In other words, ‘[The first premise] and the conclusion of the skeptical argument are true when evaluated according to the unusually high, “absolute” standards for knowledge that the presentation of the skeptical argument has at least some tendency to put into play’ for ‘the standards according to which we don’t know that [~B]… are the very standards that tend to get put into play by the bringing up of the [brain-in-a-vat] hypothesis’ (DeRose, 2000, 134-136).

And since we are in no stronger an epistemic position with regards to H as we are with regards to ~B, we fail to know that H in the high-standards context put into place by AI’s first premise. That is, for S’s belief that H to be counted as a piece of knowledge in the context which AI’s first premise puts into place, S’s belief that H will need to be classed as a sensitive belief in a possible world in which she is a (handless) brain in a vat. But given that S would believe that H in this possible world, S’s belief will no longer count as a sensitive belief, and so will not be classed as a piece of knowledge in the epistemic context put into place by AI’s first premise. The sceptic can, therefore, truthfully assert that S does not know that H in the context generated by AI.

However, DeRose states that this does not impact our ordinary claims to know in those contexts in which more relaxed standards for knowledge ascription are in effect. The sceptic can only truthfully state her sceptical conclusion by raising the standards for truthful knowledge ascription. But the truth of the sceptic’s assertion that one does not know either that H or that ~B in the high-standards context which her argument puts into effect is compatible with the truth of our claims to know that both that H and that ~B in more ordinary contexts in which lower standards for knowledge ascription are in effect.

Thus, DeRose takes it that his account of how the sceptic can undermine our knowledge of the world can explain the persuasiveness of AI whilst protecting those claims to know which are made in ordinary contexts of ascription. AI, according to DeRose, is a persuasive argument precisely because AI’s first premise pushes the epistemic standards up to a level in which the claim in AI’s first premise comes out as true. But, that AI’s first premise is true in such high-

37 standards contexts is said to be compatible with the truth of those ordinary claims to know made in lower-standard contexts of ascription.

DeRose, therefore, takes it that he has offered a Contextualist response to AI which doesn’t result in an uncomfortable concession to scepticism. I will now demonstrate why DeRose’s position fails in this respect. I will present four problems for DeRose’s Semantic Contextualist position, all four of which relate to DeRose’s Contextualist response to external world scepticism. I will argue that, given these four problems, DeRose Semantic Contextualist position is overly concessive to scepticism.

1.3 DeRose’s Uncomfortable Concession to Scepticism

DeRose asserts that his Semantic Contextualist account, and its response to AI, is one in which we can be truthfully ascribed with the knowledge that ~B when the standards for knowledge ascription are relatively low. He states that ‘on [my] solution, we do know, for instance, that we're not [brains in vats], according to ordinary low standards for knowledge’ (1995, 39). Moreover, he states that ‘[there are] cases in which it seems one can truthfully say "S knows that [~B]," despite the fact that S's belief that [~B] is insensitive… For it's a feature of my treatment of Al that we do know skeptical hypotheses to be false according to low epistemic standards. I would find it a bit embarrassing if we could never claim to have such knowledge by means of simple knowledge attributions…’ (1995, 40, footnote 36).

This is a claim which DeRose repeats in later explications of his position. For example, in his (2000) DeRose asserts that ‘[The first premise] and the conclusion of the skeptical argument are false when evaluated at the standards for knowledge that are set by most ordinary contexts’ (DeRose, 2000, 134). And in his (2010), DeRose

38 states that ‘on my view, we do know that we’re not [brains in vats] by the epistemic standards that govern most conversations…’ (DeRose, 2010, 171). I will, however, demonstrate that it is not possible to lay claim to knowledge of ~B on DeRose’s

Semantic Contextualist account. This will comprise the first of four interrelated problems which I will discuss in relation to DeRose’s position.

1.3.1 DeRose’s Failure to Protect Truthful Knowledge Ascriptions concerning ~B

DeRose cannot, contra his repeated claims, allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions of the form ‘I know/S knows that ~B’. This is primarily because of the mechanism which he posits to explain rises in epistemic standards: his Rule of Sensitivity. When explaining how this rule works, he states that both positive claims to know and denials of knowledge bring this rule into play. And once the Rule of Sensitivity has been triggered, S’s belief will need to count as a sensitive belief in order for it to be classed as a piece of knowledge.

The problem this creates for those claims to know ~B which are made in low- standard contexts is that this rule will result in a dramatic increase in the relevant epistemic standards. This is the case even when this claim to know has been made within a low-standards, quotidian context of ascription. Within such low-standards contexts, DeRose’s account intends for knowledge ascriptions concerning ~B to come out as true. But, by the Rule of Sensitivity, the very claim that one (either oneself or a distinct epistemic subject) does know that ~B is enough to raise the epistemic standards so as to falsify this knowledge ascription.

In other words, if A says of S that ‘S does know that ~B’, this knowledge ascription will trigger the Rule of Sensitivity. This Rule will raise the epistemic standards so

39 that, for this knowledge ascription to come out as true, S’s belief that ~B will need to be sensitive in order for it to count as a piece of knowledge. For her belief that ~B to count as a sensitive belief, she would need to be able to track the truth of this belief out to the nearest possible world in which she is a brain in a vat. However, in the nearest possible world in which she is a brain in a vat, S would continue to believe that she is not one, meaning that S’s belief that ~B is not a sensitive belief. So, when

A makes this claim concerning S, A’s knowledge ascription brings in the standards for knowledge at which S can only be falsely attributed with the knowledge that ~B.

DeRose’s formulation of the Rule of Sensitivity suggests that he does not wish a rise in epistemic standards to occur whenever a sceptical hypothesis is mentioned within a knowledge claim: ‘[w]hen it is asserted that some subject S knows (or does not know) some proposition P, the standards for knowledge…tend to be raised…’ (1995,

36, emphasis added). But DeRose also asserts, without qualification, that positive claims to know, such as ‘S knows that ~B’, can raise the epistemic standards at play:

‘…positive claims to know that skeptical hypotheses don’t obtain seem to raise the standards for knowledge as well as do denials of such knowledge’ (1995, 11). And

DeRose himself draws attention to the fact that his position raises an issue for our supposedly true knowledge ascriptions concerning ~B: ‘Indeed, that one is not a

[brain in a vat] is one of the things we know best – though it’s peculiarly difficult to truthfully say that we know it’ (DeRose, 2004b, 39, emphasis added).

Accordingly, DeRose's Semantic Contextualism fails to fulfil one of his own objectives; to allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions concerning ~B (a desideratum

DeRose himself sets out). Moreover, this is a problem which DeRose himself, at least in his initial formulation of his position, is aware of. I will now turn to a discussion of DeRose’s (1990) admission of this problematic aspect of his position.

1.3.1.1 DeRose’s Early Attempt to Protect Truthful Knowledge

Ascriptions concerning ~B

Early on in his development of his Semantic Contextualism, DeRose recognizes the present problem for his position.19 He states that it is a

‘consequence of the contextualist resolution of AI that if the strength

requirement for knowledge is held down to the usual level at which we

truly claim to know various things, then at that strength, we can also truly

claim to know that this or that sceptical hypothesis does not obtain, despite

the fact that our belief that it doesn’t obtain is not sensitive. The problem is

that in most cases it seems that we cannot truly claim to know that the

sceptical hypothesis does not obtain… But, as I’ve admitted, I would find it

an embarrassment if [on my account we] could never claim to know such

things’ (DeRose, 1990, 210-220).

In this work, DeRose offers a possible way to safeguard some knowledge ascriptions concerning ~B so as to allow for them to be truthfully uttered. He states that we

‘need cases in which one truly attributes knowledge of P to S despite the fact that S’s belief that P is not sensitive. Fortunately, I think there are such cases’ (1990, 220).

DeRose offers examples which, he asserts, support his claim that one can truthfully ascribe S with knowledge even when S’s relevant belief is not a sensitive belief.

In one such example, someone gives the inmates of a psychiatric ward copies of

Descartes’ Mediations. Some of the more unstable inmates are unnerved by the evil demon hypothesis presented by Descartes, and start to seriously doubt that they can, for example, know that they have hands given that they do not know that they are not

19 I would like to thank Keith DeRose for providing me with copy of his (1990), which led to the present discussion.

41 being deceived by an evil demon. A third party, S, is being given a tour of this ward by one of the institution’s psychiatrists. At one point the psychiatrist says to S ‘“So you see, none of the patients in this ward knows whether or not they are being deceived by an evil genius … So they don’t even know whether or not they’ve got hands”’ (1990, 221-222).

According to DeRose, the psychiatrist is not saying that the inmates lack such knowledge according to some very high, absolute standards for knowledge. Rather, the inmates do not know even according to the more ordinary standards for knowledge that govern most of our everyday conversations; ‘The psychiatrist, it seems, is not just saying that the patients do not know these things in some high, strong sense, but rather that they don’t know them even at the lower strength at which the rest of us do know such things’ (1990, 222, original emphasis).

Thus, according to DeRose, the psychiatrist’s remark does not raise the epistemic standards so that only sensitive beliefs count as pieces of knowledge; ‘[the psychiatrist’s] remark that the patients do not know that they aren’t being deceived by an evil genius does not have the effect of raising the standards for knowledge to a level high enough to require that one have a sensitive belief that one is not being deceived in order to count as knowing that one is not being deceived’ (1990, 222).

And at the low-standards in place in this conversation, DeRose asserts that ‘the rest of us’ do know such things as that we have hands and that we are not being deceived by an evil genius (1990, 222).

However, DeRose fails to explain why the psychiatrist’s remark manages to escape the usual effect of the Rule of Sensitivity, and so does not raise the epistemic standards in the psychiatrist’s context of ascription. DeRose merely claims that the

42 standards won’t be effected in this way; he does not explicitly explain why they won’t. DeRose then adds to this first example: S points to a member of staff, mistaking them for an inmate, and asserts ‘“That patient looks pretty normal. Is he really that far gone?”’ (1990, 220, original emphasis). DeRose claims that, if the psychiatrist answers by saying ‘“Oh, no. He knows perfectly well that he’s not being deceived by an evil genius. He’s not a patient – he’s a member of our staff” [then] this knowledge attribution remains relatively low in strength, and is, therefore, true’

(1990, 222-223, original emphasis). Here we have a clear case where DeRose claims that a knowledge attribution involving the negation of a sceptical hypothesis fails to bring the Rule of Sensitivity into play. But, again, DeRose fails to explain exactly why the Rule of Sensitivity is not brought into play by this ascription.

Moreover, one could give a coherent interpretation of the above example by arguing that the psychiatrist’s remark is not true, but merely warranted given his contextual setting. Such an interpretation would be offered by one with an Invariantist inclination. Invariantism concerning the truth-vales of knowledge ascriptions20 claims that context determines when a knowledge attribution/denial would in some sense be warranted or unwarranted, despite its truth conditions remaining fixed.21

Given this, Invariantists assert that knowledge ascriptions, such as ‘S knows that p’, are not context-sensitive in the way proposed by Semantic Contextualists. The reason an Invariantist will give for why we sometimes ascribe or deny the same knowledge claim to a single subject at different times is that the standards for warranted assertability vary according to context. So, according to an Invariantist, a particular knowledge ascription will have the same truth value regardless of when it

20 This should not be confused with invariantist scepticism which will be discussed in Parts 2 and 3. 21 For a discussion of this kind of Invariantism, see Stanley (2005). And for critical discussions of the differences between Invariantism and Contextualism, see DeRose (1999), Brown (2005a).

43 is uttered. However, whether this knowledge ascription is warranted will be a matter which varies given the conversational context in which the ascription is made.

Let us assume that ‘S knows that p’ is true. Despite this, the Invariantist will claim that in some conversational contexts, though this knowledge ascription is true, it can seem false. This is because, in certain circumstances, this knowledge ascription would be ‘improper or unwarranted’ (DeRose, 1999, 196). The mistake the

Contextualist supposedly makes, according to the Invariantist, is in taking these varying standards for when an attributor is warranted in ascribing a subject with knowledge as reflecting varying standards in when it would be true for an attributor to ascribe this knowledge. Going back to DeRose’s (1990) example, perhaps, given the conversational context, the psychiatrist’s response to S is just the right, or warranted, thing to say. And the error DeRose makes is in mistaking the psychiatrist’s false, but warranted, knowledge ascription for a true knowledge ascription.22

In consequence, one could respond to DeRose’s (1990) cases by arguing that these are only instances where one is warranted in ascribing a subject with the knowledge of ~Sc (where Sc stands for the relevant sceptical hypothesis). Given that DeRose

(1990) relies on these cases in defending his claim that his position is one which can allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions concerning ~B, DeRose’s mere assertion that such knowledge ascriptions can come out as true is insufficient. To make

DeRose’s claim that his position is one which can allow for the claim ‘I know/S

22 An Invariantist, who takes the standards for knowledge to be invariably quite high, would take claims to know the negations of sceptical hypotheses as (always) being false. For example, see Peter Unger (1975).

44 knows that ~B’ to come out as true in some instances (but not others23), DeRose needs to do much more to clarify and defend his assertion that some knowledge ascriptions of this kind do not trigger the Rule of Sensitivity.

This is a problem which DeRose does touch on in later work on his Semantic

Contextualism. For example, in his (2010), DeRose discusses in more detail his claim that sensitivity is not a necessary condition for knowledge. In this work,

DeRose also claims that the Rule of Sensitivity can be undermined by other

‘conversational forces’ which can help to keep the standards for knowledge ascription low even when a claim such as ‘I know/S knows that ~B’ has been made.

I will now turn to this discussion, and investigate whether it can provide a defence of his claim that his Semantic Contextualism is one which can allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions of the form ‘I know/S knows that ~B’. I will argue that it does not.

1.3.1.2 DeRose on Sensitivity

In his (2010) DeRose emphasises that he takes sensitivity to be a sufficient, but not a necessary, condition for knowledge. The role that sensitivity, or rather, insensitivity, plays on his account is to provide an explanation of why we sometimes deny that a subject knows certain propositions. For example, DeRose’s explanation of why we usually think that S does not know that ~B is captured in the following two claims:

(1) S’s belief that ~B is insensitive24, and (2) ‘We have some at least fairly general -

23 DeRose will have to assert that some instances where A states that ‘S does not know that ~B’ will trigger the Rule of Sensitivity whilst others do not. He will have to say that only some, and not all, trigger this rule if he wants to uphold his general Contextualist account of AI: that AI’s first premise can raise the standards for knowledge so as to render the claim ‘S knows that ~B’ false, but that this is compatible with the truth of the claim ‘S knows that ~B’ when this claim is made within a low- standards context. 24 By ‘insensitive’ DeRose means a belief that has ‘an important property… that the obtaining of insensitivity conditionals [conditionals of the form ‘S would have believed that P (even) if P had been

45 though perhaps not exceptionless - tendency to judge that insensitive beliefs are not knowledge’ (DeRose, 2010, 163). DeRose’s position is one which uses (1) and (2) in order to explain why some claims to know are not considered to be pieces of knowledge, ‘but does not do so by building a sensitivity condition (or anything like a sensitivity condition) into the very concept of knowledge’ (2010, 163, original emphasis). Because he does not take sensitivity to be a necessary condition for knowledge (or insensitivity to be sufficient for a lack of knowledge), DeRose takes it that we can truthfully ascribe a subject with the knowledge that ~B in ordinary, low- standard contexts of ascription.

The precise problem with this claim is that DeRose’s own formulation of the Rule of

Sensitivity means that an assertion of the form ‘S knows that ~B’ would trigger this rule, and thereby put into effect those standards for knowledge ascription which would falsify this knowledge ascription. This is because the Rule of Sensitivity raises the standards for knowledge at play to such a level that, for a knowledge ascription to come out as true, the subject’s claim to know would, in the context instantiated by this rule, require S to have a sensitive belief in order for it to be counted as knowledge. In other words, whilst DeRose’s account does not take sensitivity to be necessary for knowledge, his formulation of the Rule of Sensitivity has it that only sensitive beliefs will count as pieces of knowledge in the epistemic context which this rule puts into place.

It would therefore seem that DeRose’s position is one in which, in the contexts which the Rule of Sensitivity puts into place, sensitivity is a necessary condition for knowledge. This underscores an inconsistency between DeRose’s general

false (2010, 161)] gives us a first approximation of, and which tends to make us think [such a belief does not] constitute knowledge’ (2010, 166).

Contextualist position and the mechanism he posits for explaining how AI can undermine our claims to know: his Rule of Sensitivity. And DeRose himself touches on this problematic aspect of his position in his (2010): ‘on my view, we do know that we’re not BIVs by the epistemic standards that govern most conversations. The problem is that an attempt to claim this “knowledge” will, by the Rule of Sensitivity, tend to put into place precisely the exceedingly high standards for knowledge that we don’t meet’ (2010, 171).

DeRose then attempts to get around this issue by claiming that the Rule of

Sensitivity is just one ‘conversational force’25 amongst many. By ‘conversational force’, DeRose means a mechanism which affects the standards for truthfully attributing knowledge in a particular context of inquiry. Given that DeRose takes the

Rule of Sensitivity to be one conversational force amongst many, he thinks that it

‘can come into conflict with other conversational forces that oppose it, where the operation of the Rule of Sensitivity is pushing the “conversational score” in one direction (toward higher standards for knowledge) while other forces are pushing for lower standards, or perhaps for keeping the standards where they are. What happens then? Hard to say’ (2010, 171-172).

I will now discuss DeRose’s comments on such conversational forces, and explain why DeRose’s discussion on this aspect of his position does not help him to deal with the problem I have discussed.

25 The Rule of Sensitivity is a mechanism which will impact the epistemic standards at play in contexts of ascription which do not involve any conversation between attributor and subject (that is, where a solitary attributor ascribes S with the knowledge that ~B). Thus, the Rule of Sensitivity is not really a conversational mechanism, but DeRose describes it in this way for simplicity’s sake (1995, 6- 7).

1.3.1.3 DeRose on Conversational Scores

In his (2010), where he raises the possibility that different conversational forces can impact the standards for knowledge at play (and possibly counter the Rule of

Sensitivity’s automatic raising of the epistemic standards), DeRose cites his (2009).

Unfortunately, in his (2009) DeRose makes it clear that he is not concerned with giving an account of the conversational mechanisms that could work to oppose the

Rule of Sensitivity; ‘I should note that I won't be getting into any specifics here about the precise mechanisms by which speakers can change the [conversational] score26 or resist such changes’ (DeRose, 2009, 133). Rather, his (2009) is concerned with a separate problem to the one I am concerned with here. The problem which

DeRose is concerned with is what happens to the truth values of knowledge ascriptions/denials in conversations in which the attributor and subject are both pushing the epistemic standards in different directions.

For example, say A is imposing high standards for knowledge onto a subject, S, but

S is arguing (either explicitly or implicitly) for the standards of knowledge to remain quite low. In DeRose’s words, the cases he is concerned with are those in which

‘…the personally indicated content of one speaker—the content that speaker's conversational maneuvers have a tendency to put into place for that term—diverges from the personally indicated content of the other speaker, but in which the speakers still indicate that they are contradicting one another’ (DeRose, 2009, 133). DeRose does present some possible responses to this particular problem.27 I will now discuss

26 This notion of a ‘conversational score’ is taken from Lewis (1979). It includes aspects of linguistic interactions which determine the truth values, or acceptability in other respects, of utterances made in the conversation in question (Lewis, 1979, 344-346) 27 A few points to bear in mind to begin with: DeRose (and, DeRose reports, Cohen) rejects the claim that in such a situation both speakers can be speaking the truth (that A’s denial of knowledge and S’s claim to know can be simultaneously true in the conversation in question) (2009, 137). In this way, DeRose is a single scoreboard semanticist; asserting that the truth values of both speakers’ utterances

48 whether the responses which DeRose discusses could be used to resolve the problem

I have discussed. I will demonstrate that each response fails to provide an adequate safeguard for claims of the form ‘I know/S knows that ~B’.

One such response which DeRose raises incorporates the idea of a ‘veto power’. This idea stems from a section in Lewis (1979) in which he states that ‘One way to change the [epistemic] standards is to say something that would be unacceptable if the standards remained unchanged. If you say “Italy is boot-shaped” and get away with it, low standards are required and the standards fall if need be; thereafter

“France is hexagonal” is true enough’ (see Lewis, 1979, 352, and DeRose, 2009,

140, DeRose’s emphasis).

The idea here is that, if the speaker does not get away with this claim (that ‘Italy is boot shaped’) then the standards do not fall. In which case, the higher standards imposed by the speaker who has vetoed this claim will constitute the standards for knowledge at work in this conversation. Likewise, if A is attempting to raise the standards for knowledge, then a similar veto power may be available to S. In this case, the sceptically minded A would not be allowed to get away with changing the score, and the standards for knowledge would not rise. Given this, S’s claim to know that p would turn out to be true, whilst A’s denial of this would turn out to be false.

will be determined by a single scoreboard, rather than each speaker instantiating a different scoreboard that assign different truth-values to each utterance (2009, 135). Moreover, DeRose (and Cohen) reject the claim that the high standards imposed by one of the speakers will always win, rendering a knowledge claim made by the other speaker false whenever the two speakers disagree over the standards for knowledge at play (2009, 137). So, even if A is trying to push the epistemic standards up in conversation with S, A’s attempt may not succeed. Lewis, on the other hand, is a single scoreboard semanticist who thinks that an attempt to raise the standards for knowledge made by a more sceptically minded speaker will always be successful. The sceptical speaker can do this, according to Lewis, by making relevant a hard-to-rule-out alternative which S is not in a position to know the negation of. And the sceptic can make such alternatives relevant by drawing S’s attention to the hard-to-rule-out hypothesis (see Lewis, 1996, esp. 559).

If tenable, this could mean that DeRose’s position could allow for cases where S can truthfully be ascribed with the knowledge that ~B.

Unfortunately, this response will not work as a response to the specific problem I am concerned with. For the cases I am concerned with feature instances where A ascribes S with the knowledge that ~B. And in this type of case, in normal circumstances, S will not veto an ascription of knowledge made by A, for S will presumably agree that she does indeed know ~B. Thus, this conversational force (the veto power) does not seem appropriate given the cases I am concerned with. It seems that this response will not work to help DeRose protect our claims to know once a sceptical hypothesis has been mentioned in the form of a knowledge ascription. And this is despite the fact that this veto power is said to be very unfriendly to the sceptic

(DeRose, 2009, 139).

Another response given by DeRose is termed the Pure Reasonableness View (PRV)

(2009, 141). PRV asserts that the correct conversational score will be whatever score is most reasonable for the speakers to use. This is vague, but it might work as a way to respond to my problem if DeRose could argue that, when A is ascribing S with the knowledge that ~B and S is not contesting this knowledge ascription, the reasonable score will be the one which results in this knowledge ascription being true. Perhaps a conversational force that could work against the Rule of Sensitivity’s raising of the epistemic standards could be a type of ‘reasonableness factor’. And it is this reasonableness factor which keeps the standards for knowledge low in the cases where A ascribes S with the knowledge that ~B, despite the Rule of Sensitivity working to raise the epistemic standards.

However, this response is ad hoc. DeRose needs to provide independent reasons for supposing that the most reasonable score will be that which results in uncontested knowledge attributions being true. For, as it stands, the only reason to suppose such a score is the most reasonable is that it appears to help DeRose out of the theoretical jam I have presented for him. That this suggestion is ad hoc, along with the vagueness concerning exactly what a reasonable score is, undermines this type of response.

Another response to the problem he raises, given by DeRose, is termed the Binding

Arbitration Model (BAM) (2009, 141-142). According to BAM ‘when the personally indicated content of one speaker diverges from that of the other that she is talking with, then the score—which gives the truth‐conditions of both speakers’ claims—matches the personally indicated content of the speaker who is indicating the more reasonable content of the two’ (2009, 142). So, when A is ascribing S with the knowledge that ~B, and S is agreeing (explicitly or implicitly) with this knowledge ascription, then the conversational score will determine that A’s personally indicted content is the most reasonable. As such, the standards for knowledge will remain at the level instantiated by A. Therefore, A’s knowledge ascription will turn out to be true.

However, this response is not even one which DeRose endorses as a way to get around the problem he is concerned with. DeRose is not convinced by this kind of response because he only sees the speaker who has instantiated the more reasonable standards as being more ‘conversationally praiseworthy’ that her conversational partner (2009, 142). However, he does not see how this can mean that the truth- conditions of the speakers claims should be thought to have the truth-conditions that match the more reasonable speaker’s standards. And given that DeRose is

51 unconvinced by BAM, it’s unlikely that he himself would want to use this model as a way to deal with the problem I have challenged his position with.

Another response DeRose gives to the problem he concerns himself with is termed the Exploding Scoreboard View (ESV) (2009, 143-144). According to ESV, ‘when the personally indicated content of two speakers in a single conversation diverges…the scoreboard explodes: There is no correct score, and claims involving the relevant term [here the term being ‘know’] are neither true nor false’ (2009, 143).

However, this will not work in relation to the problem for DeRose’s position which I am concerned with. The problem I have presented for DeRose’s position does not concern an explicit disagreement between A and S concerning what the conversational score should be. As such, in the type of case I am concerned with, there is no reason to suppose that the relevant scoreboard will ‘explode’ when A ascribes S with the knowledge that ~B.

Moreover, DeRose aims to present a position in which claims of the form ‘I know/S knows that ~B’ can come out as true. But according to ESV, when the scoreboard explodes no claim to know/denial of knowledge comes out as true or false: such claims are rendered truth-valueless. If DeRose wants to uphold a position in which claims such as ‘S knows that ~B’ can be truthfully uttered, ESV will not be the right model to work with.

The response to his own problem which DeRose is most inclined to accept is termed

The Gap View (GV) (2009, 145). On GV, when personal scoreboards differ ‘‘S knows that p’ is true (and ‘S doesn't know that p’ is false) where S meets the personally indicated standards of both speakers; ‘S doesn't know that p’ is true (and

‘S knows that p’ is false) where S fails to meet either set of standards; and where S

52 meets one set of standards but fails to meet the other, both ‘S knows that p’ and ‘S doesn't know that p’ go truth‐value‐less’ (2009, 144-145).

DeRose is most inclined to accept this view given its ‘impressive ability to simultaneously respect both the sense that our two speakers are contradicting one another and the feeling that the truth-conditions of each speaker’s assertions should match that speaker’s personally indicated content’ (2009, 145). However, as I have said, there is no disagreement in personal scoreboards between A and S in the cases I am concerned with. So how could this response work when it comes to the problem I have raised for DeRose’s position?

Perhaps, in the cases I am concerned with, we could take A as instantiating one personal scoreboard, with the distinct, conflicting scoreboard being initiated by the

Rule of Sensitivity. If so, when A says of S that ‘S knows that ~B’, and where the

Rule of Sensitivity automatically attempts to raise the epistemic standards so as to falsify this knowledge ascription, according to GV we get the following results: given that S meets the standards imposed by A’s scoreboard, but fails to meet the standards imposed by the Rule of Sensitivity’s scoreboard, then ‘both ‘S knows that

~B’ and ‘S doesn't know that ~B’ go truth‐value‐less.

But again, this line of response would have it that A’s knowledge ascription is no longer true. Thus, even if this knowledge ascription is not rendered false by the Rule of Sensitivity, it will come out as truth-value-less. And this result means that DeRose cannot safeguard and preserve the truth of knowledge ascriptions concerning sceptical hypotheses which are made in low-standard contexts, a desideratum set out by DeRose himself.

Given the failings of these responses, DeRose’s (2009) does not offer insights into conversational scores which can help to resolve the present problem for his position.

Before moving on to three related problems for DeRose’s position vis-a-vis scepticism, I will discuss two previous instances in the literature where the present problem has been mentioned. DeRose himself refers to these instances, and again fails to adequately respond to this worry.

1.3.1.4 Sosa and Koethe on DeRose’s Inability to Protect Knowledge

Ascriptions concerning ~B

DeRose does explicitly refer to two instances in the literature in which the present problem has been raised in relation to his theory (DeRose, 2010, 185-186, footnote

10): Ernest Sosa’s (1999) and John Koethe’s (2005).28 I will start first with a discussion of Sosa on the present problem, and then go on to discuss Koethe.

Though his discussion of it is minimal, Ernest Sosa (1999) raises the present line of thought in relation to DeRose’s position. This falls out of a discussion of the

Moorean, Nozickean, sceptical and Contextualist responses to the sceptical

Argument from Ignorance (AI). Sosa claims that, ‘For DeRose it is only the skeptic’s position that is ever endorsable, in whatever context, inasmuch as the very endorsing of that position so changes the context as to make its endorsement correct’ (Sosa,

1999, 145).29 Thus, Sosa reads DeRose’s position as being one in which the raising

28 Pritchard (2002b) also briefly comments on Semantic Contextualism’s inability to allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions of the denials of sceptical hypotheses. He states that ‘Of course, when it comes to knowledge of the denials of sceptical hypotheses, once one makes the ascription one thereby makes sceptical hypotheses relevant and so raises the epistemic standards in such a way as to make that ascription sentence express a falsehood. In this sense, then, there is always something inherently ‘ineffable’ about this knowledge of the denials of sceptical hypotheses…’ (Pritchard, 2002b, 34, footnote 15). 29 DeRose explicitly refers to Sosa’s (1999) paper in his (2004b) reply to Sosa. Unfortunately, however, DeRose chooses not to deal with the issue Sosa has brought up. Rather, DeRose concentrates on a critique of Sosa’s ‘Moorean’ response to arguments for scepticism in a bid to defend his own Semantic Contextualist response to such arguments.

54 of the sceptic’s position in itself alters the standards for knowledge so as to make the sceptic’s response to AI turn out to be the correct response. Why would this be the case? I, and DeRose (see DeRose, 2010, 185, footnote 10), take it that Sosa thinks that the very mentioning of the sceptical hypothesis is enough in itself to raise the standards for knowledge so that denials of (S1) inevitably come out as false.

DeRose responds to Sosa’s assertion by claiming that this is a misreading of his position. Rather than claim that the raising of the sceptical hypothesis is in itself always sufficient to raise the standards for knowledge, DeRose claims that ‘my view is and was only that bringing up skeptical hypotheses has a tendency to put into place the high standards at which one counts as knowing neither that the hypothesis is false, nor the various beliefs that get undermined by the hypothesis’ (2010, 185, footnote 10, original emphasis). But again, he does not explain how or why some knowledge ascriptions and denials concerning ~B raise the epistemic standards whilst others do not.

DeRose adds three further points to the above claim. Firstly, he argues he can, and has, provided us with apparent examples of truthful, yet insensitive, knowledge attributions (2010, 185, footnote 10). This is said to back up his claim that you can assert that ‘S knows that ~B’ in a low standards context, despite this knowledge being insensitive. DeRose explicitly refers to the examples from his (1990, 219-225).

I discuss and undermine such examples in Part 1, section 1.3.1.1.

Secondly, DeRose states that his (1995) assumes a sceptic friendly version of AI.

But, he claims that he explains how to convert his solution into a less sceptic- friendly version (see 2010, 185-186, footnote 10). The explanation he cites amounts to the following:

‘Some contextualists may think that it's not so easy to so raise the standards

for knowledge, and that a determined opponent of the skeptic can, by not

letting the skeptic get away with raising them, keep the standards low… the

contextualist can provisionally assume a skeptic- friendly version of

contextualism, leaving it as an open question whether and under which

conditions the skeptic actually succeeds at raising the standards’ (DeRose,

1995, 6).

Here DeRose seems to hint at a veto power which might be available to the determined opponent of the sceptic. But, as I made clear in Part 1, section 1.3.1.3, the cases I am concerned with do not involve a sceptic and an anti-sceptic disagreeing over the standards for knowledge at play in their epistemic context.

Rather I am concerned with cases where A says of S that ‘S knows that ~B’, and S implicitly or explicitly agrees. The problem for such cases I have proffered is that the

Rule of Sensitivity would raise the epistemic standards so as to falsify this knowledge claim. But given no-one present is explicitly saying ‘S doesn’t know that

~B’, both A and S would not even think to employ a veto power against this rise in epistemic standards. A’s knowledge ascription will, given the Rule of Sensitivity, turn out to be false, regardless of whether A or S realise this or not.

Thirdly, DeRose references his (2004a) in connection with explaining how sceptic- friendly his position really is (see 2010, 185-186, footnote 10). This (2004a) is an earlier version of his (2009) which I discuss in Part 1, section 1.3.1.3. The only point of difference is that the (2009) includes three sections added to the end of the original (2004a) paper. None of the issues raised in these sections have a bearing on the present issue, so we can take DeRose’s (2004a) and his (2009) to be equivalent

56 papers. In which case, see Part 1, section 1.3.1.3 for my discussion and dismissal of the ideas he presents in his (2004a).

John Koethe (2005) endorses a reading of DeRose’s position which similarly leads to the present problem. Koethe takes it that in those ordinary contexts, ones in which

‘scepticism and sceptical hypotheses are not at issue’, it would be true to assert that

‘I know that H’ whilst also being the case that you can know that ~B (Koethe, 2005,

69). But this does not mean that you can assert that you know ~B. For ‘an assertion or denial that one knows a sceptical hypothesis to be false (or the mere entertainment of a thought to that effect…)’ creates a context in which ‘a claim to know the sceptical hypothesis to be false’ is itself rendered false (2005, 70).

Koethe draws attention to the fact that, on DeRose’ Semantic Contextualism,

‘what is supposed to create the different contexts of ascription is the subject

matter of the propositions being discussed. What induces the context

appropriate to an evaluation of sceptical arguments is not the fact that we

are in, say, a philosophy seminar room, but the fact that the content of

sceptical hypotheses requires all knowledge claims under consideration to

be evaluated with respect to a much larger sphere of possible worlds than

they would be if the sceptical hypotheses had not been introduced’ (2005,

74, original emphasis).

How does propositional content affect epistemic context? Presumably, by the fact that content determines which possible worlds will be relevant in assessing whether

S knows that p or not. Where the p is ‘…is a brain in a vat’, then, relevant to this epistemic context will be at least one possible world in which S, the subject in question, is a brain in a vat. And, by DeRose’s own admission, this world will be

57 relevant whether this content has been raised in the form of an ascription of knowledge or a denial of knowledge. But given that S would believe that ~B even in a possible world in which this is false, then S, in this context, does not know that ~B.

DeRose’s responses to Koethe’s claim is the same as his responses to Sosa’s (1999) paper. These responses were that, (i) his view was and is only that bringing up the sceptical hypothesis has a tendency to put into effect the standards at which such claims to know come out as false; (ii) he can provide cases of insensitive, true knowledge ascriptions which defend his claim that you can know ~B even if your knowledge of this is insensitive; (iii) he takes it that a Contextualist could reformulate his (1995) presentation of his position so that it is less sceptic-friendly; and (iv) in his (2004a) he explicates how sceptic friendly his position really is. See the above discussion of Sosa (1999) for my thoughts on points (i), (ii) and (iii), and

(iv). As it stands, DeRose has failed to resolve the present problem for his account.

I will now raise three further related problems for DeRose’s position. These three problems are also in relation to DeRose’s response to scepticism. These problems, when combined with the one just discussed, will help to demonstrate that DeRose’s position is, contra to DeRose’s own claims, overly concessive to scepticism. I will then discuss these issues in relation to Stewart Cohen’s distinct form of Semantic

Contextualism, before examining Blome-Tillmann’s Semantic Contextualism.

1.3.2 Instantiating Sceptical Contexts

A further and related issue for DeRose’s Contextualist response to scepticism is the ease with which a sceptical context of inquiry can be generated. The previous issue, that on DeRose’s account claims of the form ‘I know/S knows that ~B’ are invariably false, highlights why such contexts are so easy to put into place. For, all

58 our attributor of knowledge need do in order to install the exceptionally high epistemic standards at work in the sceptical context of ascription, is ascribe or deny a subject with the knowledge of ~B (or a similar sceptical hypothesis).30

Moreover, this dramatic increase in the relevant epistemic standards will result when

A attempts to ascribe or deny any epistemic subject with the knowledge of ~B. This means that when A says of any other individual, that this individual does or does not know that ~B, the epistemic standards will increase to the sceptical level at which knowledge of the world can only be falsely attributed. And when A says of herself that she either does, or does not, know that ~B, the epistemic standards will also increase. This is because, where A attempts to ascribe or deny this knowledge to herself, she will act as both epistemic attributor and epistemic subject. In which case, when she attempts to lay claim to knowledge of ~B, the Rule of Sensitivity will dictate that the epistemic standards which A must reach in order to truthfully make this knowledge claim will increase to a level where A’s belief that ~B will need to be a sensitive belief in order for it to count as a piece of knowledge. And given that A’s belief that ~B, like S’s belief, cannot be a sensitive belief, A will lack knowledge of

~B in the very epistemic context which her knowledge claim puts into place.

In this way, on DeRose’s Semantic Contextualist account, the sceptical context of ascription is exceptionally easy to put into place. All one need do to raise the standards for knowledge ascription and so put into place a sceptical context of ascription is claim that either another individual, or oneself, either knows or does not know that ~B. Thus, DeRose’s Semantic Contextualism makes the sceptic’s job

30 Pritchard takes it that, on Semantic Contextualism, even the consideration of a radical sceptical hypothesis is sufficient to put an attributor into a sceptical context of ascription (Pritchard, 2016a, 10).

59 extremely easy. The sceptic can generate a context in which AI’s first premise and conclusion are true merely by asserting that S does not know that ~B.

1.3.3 Scepticism as the Result of Ordinary Epistemic Practices

Furthermore, on DeRose’s position, the sceptical context, in which exceptionally high epistemic standards are in effect, is generated by the same epistemic practices which govern more ordinary contexts of ascription. DeRose claims that scepticism is the result of a dramatic increase in epistemic standards, itself initiated by the Rule of

Sensitivity. But the Rule of Sensitivity is not a mechanism which is unique to knowledge ascriptions/denials concerning sceptical hypotheses. This mechanism plays a role in determining the epistemic standards at play in contexts in which more normal (non-sceptical) knowledge ascriptions/denials are being discussed or considered. DeRose’s formulation of this rule highlights this. In describing the Rule of Sensitivity, he states that:

‘When it is asserted that some subject S knows (or does not know) some

proposition P, the standards for knowledge (the standards for how good an

epistemic position one must be in to count as knowing) tend to be raised, if

need be, to such a level as to require S’s belief in that particular P to be

sensitive for it to count as knowledge’ (DeRose, 1995, 36).

From this description, we can see that it is not only knowledge ascriptions/denials concerning sceptical hypotheses which trigger the Rule of Sensitivity. Knowledge ascriptions/denials concerning any proposition will trigger this mechanism. In which case, sceptical increases in epistemic standards are triggered by the same epistemic mechanism which dictates the epistemic standards at play in all non-sceptical contexts. Scepticism is generated by an ordinary aspect of our epistemic

60 practices/situation: the Rule of Sensitivity alongside simple knowledge ascriptions/denials. Again, this aspect of DeRose’s position normalises scepticism to a degree that is overly concessive to the sceptic. The sceptic is not charged with doing anything abnormal or strange in order to undermine our knowledge of the world. DeRose’s account, therefore, views scepticism as resulting from ordinary, rather than extraordinary, epistemic practices.

1.3.4 The Legitimacy of the Sceptical Context

Given the problem just previously raised, DeRose’s Semantic Contextualism faces one more issue which, again, demonstrates that his position is overly concessive to scepticism. Because, for DeRose, scepticism is seen as resulting from ordinary epistemic practices and mechanisms (i.e., from the Rule of Sensitivity alongside simple knowledge ascriptions/denials), the sceptical context is viewed as being a legitimate epistemic context. There is nothing internally wrong or amiss with this extreme epistemic context, in which subjects can only be falsely attributed with knowledge of the world (and only truthfully denied such knowledge).

In other words, DeRose legitimises the sceptical context so that the distinction between the sceptical context and other contexts (in which subjects can be truthfully ascribed with knowledge of the external world) is eradicated. The sceptical context is viewed as a normal epistemic context; the only difference between this context of ascription and others is that the sceptical context represents the highest standards for knowledge ascription. On DeRose’s account, there is a linear scale of epistemic contexts, each context representing one level of epistemic standards. This scale goes from the most lax epistemic standards (in which knowledge ascriptions concerning the external world will tend to come out as true) to the highest epistemic standards

(in which knowledge ascriptions concerning the external world will come out as

(perhaps exclusively) false).

Therefore, the sceptical context is one legitimate and normal epistemic context amongst many and scepticism is, on DeRose’s account, viewed simply as the result of an extreme increase in epistemic standards. This, in itself, will be overly concessive to scepticism for those that view scepticism as resulting from more than just an extreme increase in epistemic standards.31 32 By combining this issue with the three previously discussed, we can see that DeRose’s Semantic Contextualism is overly concessive to scepticism.

I will now explicate two distinct Semantic Contextualist positions, and assess their respective concessions to scepticism. Doing so will demonstrate that Semantic

Contextualism’s characterisation of and response to scepticism is overly favourable to the sceptic.

2. Cohen’s Problematic Defence of Everyday Anti-Scepticism

I will now demonstrate that Stewart Cohen's distinct form of Semantic

Contextualism is also plagued by the same issues as DeRose’s. As we shall see, the distinction between Cohen’s and DeRose’s respective Semantic Contextualist

31 Michael Williams, for one, takes scepticism to result from more than just an extreme increase in epistemic standards. I will explicate, clarify and defend Williams’ epistemic form of Contextualism as a response to scepticism in Part 3. 32 In a related complaint, Pritchard asserts that Semantic versions of Contextualism (what Pritchard refers to as attributor Contextualism) endorse an ‘epistemic hierarchy of contexts’ (Pritchard, 2016a, 6). Given this, Pritchard views Semantic Contextualism as charging the sceptic with employing higher standards for truthful knowledge ascription than are at work in more ordinary contexts of epistemic ascription. But, asks Pritchard, doesn’t this ‘effectively cede the epistemological high ground to the radical sceptic?’ (2016a, 6). Pritchard goes on to assert that what we ideally want from a response to external world scepticism is one which demonstrates that there is something ‘inherently illegitimate about the sceptical context of epistemic evaluation, such that it is deprived of the epistemic high ground’ (2016a, 13). This is precisely what I demonstrate Semantic Contextualism cannot give us.

62 accounts consists in the fact that Cohen offers an internalist position whilst DeRose offers an externalist position.

2.1 Characterisation of Cohen’s Contextualism

Stewart Cohen's theory of knowledge ascription develops from his endorsement of what he defines as Fallibilism;

Fallibilism (F): ‘S can know P on the basis of (reasons or evidence) R even

if there is some alternative to P, compatible with R’ (Cohen, 2000, 95).

F claims that S can know some proposition p, even if there are some alternatives to p which are compatible with S’s reasons/evidence, but which contradict p. Hence, for

Cohen, infallibilism is not required for knowledge. That is, you do not need to be able to rule out all alternatives to p in order to know that p.

Cohen accepts this fallibilist theory of knowledge because it denies the following

Entailment Principle for knowledge, a principle which states:

Entailment Principle: ‘S knows P on the basis of (reason or evidence) R

only if R entails P’ (2000, 95).

Cohen argues we already have good reason to deny the Entailment Principle, given that it goes against our strong intuition that we can, and do, know many things (see

Cohen, 1988, 91 and Cohen, 2000, 95). That is, if S can only know p on the basis of

R if R entails p, then it seems we cannot know many of the things we do take ourselves to know.

For example, say I believe the proposition ‘I have hands’ on the basis of my perceptual and tactile experiences of my hands. Such experiences do not rule out the possibility that I am a bodiless, and therefore handless, brain in a vat being

63 electronically fed such experiences by a genius scientist. Thus, according to the

Entailment Principle, my reasons for knowing that I have hands do not entail that ‘I have hands’. And though a sceptic would argue that this shows we cannot know such propositions merely on the basis of perceptual/tactile input, Cohen takes this to be a good reason to reject the Entailment Principle. Given this rejection, Cohen accepts that we can know a proposition p when our reasons/evidence justifies such a belief in p, but where such reasons/evidence do not have to be able to rule out all alternatives to p.

The upshot from this is that, according to Cohen, we can know on the basis of non- entailing reasons. It is in the context of Cohen's discussion of the sceptical challenge in which he switches from discussing knowledge as such to knowledge ascription.

That he does so is due to the nature of the anti-sceptical argument he develops.

Cohen’s Contextualist reading of knowledge ascriptions comes in because, for

Cohen, how good our reasons need to be in order for us to know is something which can alter with each new instance of knowledge ascription. That is, how good our reasons have to be in order for us to be said to know is a context-sensitive matter. For

Cohen, features such as “the purposes, intentions, expectations, presuppositions, etc., of the speakers who utter these sentences” affect how good one’s reasons need to be in order for us to be said to know in a particular context of ascription (Cohen, 1999,

187-188).

On Cohen’s analysis, S can only be truthfully said to know that p if S has a justified true belief that p. S’s having justification for p, on Cohen’s position, means that S can rule out a contextually determined range of relevant alternatives to p which are consistent with S's evidence/reasons for believing that p. Which alternatives are relevant will be determined by the attributor, A's, epistemic context. In general, the

64 higher the standards for knowledge imposed by A, the greater the number of alternatives S will need to be able to rule out in order for A to truthfully ascribe S with the knowledge that p. If A imposes a very demanding epistemic context, the alternatives which S needs to rule out in order to be said to know that p will include some very hard-to-rule-out alternatives. For Cohen, these standards can be affected in many ways. For example, they can be affected by speaker intentions, listener expectations and presuppositions of the conversation (Cohen, 2000, 98). But it is salience relations which are said to be of particular importance, particularly those pertaining to the chance of error in the context in question.

Let’s take an ordinary proposition, such as (t) 'there is a table to my right'. In a context in which A has set low-standards for knowledge, the alternatives which S needs to be able to rule out in order to be said to know that t could include, for example, the object in question being an art installation (and so not a table at all). If this is the kind of thing S can rule out, e.g. by asking the building maintenance worker whether it is a table or an art installation, then in a low-standards context (i.e. one where A does not take many alternatives to be relevant to this knowledge claim)

A can truthfully attribute S with the knowledge that t.

However, if A were to set particularly high-standards for knowledge, A may take as relevant an alternative where S is not really in the presence of a table (or an object) at all, but is, for example, a brain in a vat being fed such ‘table-experiences’. In such a context, as S would not be able to rule out such an alternative, A can truthfully deny that S knows that t. But given that, in most ordinary contexts, we do not take such alternatives to be relevant to our ordinary claims to know, we are ordinarily in a position to be truthfully said to know such things as 'there is a table to my right'.

This is the basic outline of Cohen's Semantic Contextualism. One of the main motivations for this theory comes from its apparent ability to handle sceptical arguments concerning our knowledge of the external world. I will now explicate

Cohen's resolution of restricted sceptical arguments and arguments for global scepticism. This discussion will lead me to argue that, given the limitations of the mechanism which Cohen implicitly uses to explain a sceptic's ability to manipulate the standards for knowledge, his Rule of Relevance, Cohen's position is, much like

DeRose’s, overly concessive to scepticism.

2.2 Cohen’s Contextualist Response to The Sceptical Challenge

There are two forms of sceptical challenge which Cohen aims to deal with; restricted scepticism and global scepticism. Restricted sceptical arguments aim to undermine only a limited set of everyday knowledge claims which we usually take ourselves to possess. Global scepticism aims to undermine the everyday intuition that we can know anything about, for example, the external world. The Global form of scepticism is captured by the Argument from Ignorance (AI).33

Restricted scepticism can be generated with the following claims. Where Z stands for the ordinary proposition 'The animal in front of me is a zebra', and M stands for the sceptical hypothesis 'The animal in front of me is a cleverly disguised mule';34

Restricted Sceptical Argument (RSA): 35

(R1) S doesn’t know that ~M.

(R2) If S doesn’t know that ~M, then S doesn’t know that Z.

33 See Cohen (2000, 103-106) for a discussion of global scepticism. 34 Cohen (1999, 62) references Dretske (1970) in relation to proposition Z and hypothesis M. 35 See Cohen (1999, especially 61-62 and 65-67) for a discussion of restricted scepticism.

(R3) S doesn’t know that Z.

2.2.1 Cohen on RSA

Cohen’s proposed resolution of RSA derives from his claim that we only know a proposition, p, against a background of contextually determined relevant alternatives to p. An alternative to p will be one which is incompatible with the truth of p. Thus, as M is incompatible with Z, M is an alternative to Z.

But what, for Cohen, makes an alternative proposition relevant? Cohen states that

‘an alternative (to q) h is relevant (for S) = df S's epistemic position with respect to h precludes S from knowing q’ (Cohen, 1988, 101). Thus, M is only a relevant alternative to Z if M is incompatible with Z and there is some reason to believe that

M obtains. This latter condition will be a contextually variable matter: whether there is reason to believe that M obtains will depend upon the context in question. Thus,

‘the standards that govern relevance are context-sensitive. How probable an alternative must be in order to be relevant will depend on the context in which the knowledge attribution is made’ (1988, 96).

For Cohen, where M is not relevant to S’s claim to know that Z, S is in a position to know that ~M obtains (that it is not a painted mule). This is because, according to

Cohen, where S has sufficient evidence to know that Z in context C, and where M is an alternative to Z in C, it follows that some subset of that evidence, e, is sufficient evidence to deny M; to prevent M from being a relevant alternative to Z in C. Thus, in those contexts where A has set low epistemic-standards (and thus high-standards for relevance) the mule hypothesis will not be a relevant alternative to S’s claim to know that Z. And if, in such a context, S has sufficient evidence or reason to know that Z, then S has sufficient evidence to know that ~M.

How can S know that ~M in a context in which M is not a relevant alternative to her belief that Z? This is due to Cohen’s retention of Epistemic Closure. He concludes a long discussion of Fred Dretske’s (1970) and Gail Stine’s (1976) versions of the

Relevant Alternatives theory as follows: ‘If S knows q and S knows that q entails not-h, then (contrary to Dretske) S does know not-h, but (contrary to Stine) S knows not-h on the basis of his evidence’ (1988, 105). Thus, Cohen rejects the Entailment

Principle for knowledge but upholds Epistemic Closure, and so facilitates the description of why he can say that S knows ~M even in a context in which M is not a relevant alternative to Z. That is, in any context in which S knows that Z, given

Epistemic Closure, S knows the negation of any alternative to Z.

In this way, Cohen rejects premise (R1) of RSA in low-standard, everyday contexts where A does not take M to be a salient alternative to S's belief that Z. However, where A has set a high-standards context (so where the standards for relevance are a lot lower, and thus more alternatives are considered to be relevant to S’s claim to know that Z) S will not have sufficient evidence to know that Z. That is, S’s evidence in support of her belief that it is a zebra will not be sufficient to rule out the now relevant alternative that it is actually a cleverly disguised mule. In this way, premise (R1) will come out as true. And the sceptical conclusion, (R3) will now hold. The conditional captured in (R2) is true no matter what the epistemic standards.

What gives rise to this sceptical problem is our failure to keep the standards of relevance fixed. We fall into the sceptic’s trap because, when reading premise (R1) of RSA, we accept the hypothesis M as being a relevant alternative to S’s claim to know that Z despite the fact that we would usually be happy to grant S the knowledge that Z. And given the highly intuitive Epistemic Closure principle, once

68 we have accepted that M is a relevant alternative to S's claim to know that Z, and S cannot rule out the possibility that M, we are no longer comfortable ascribing S with the knowledge that Z.

Thus, the sceptic’s conclusion, that S does not know that Z, appears to be true simpliciter. But Cohen argues that, were we to keep the standards of relevance fixed,

S could know both Z and ~M in those contexts in which M is not taken to be a relevant alternative to Z. Thus the RSA sceptic’s conclusion, in such contexts, would come out as false: S would have sufficient evidence to know that what she is looking at is a zebra, and not a cleverly disguised mule.

2.2.2 Cohen on AI

However, Cohen's proposed way of dealing with RSA won’t do as a way of resolving the more extreme sceptical argument, AI. Whilst arguments such as RSA include sceptical hypotheses which can, in principle, be ruled out given enough evidence (you could, after all, take a scrubbing brush and some paint remover with you to the zebra enclosure), AI includes a sceptical hypothesis which, it seems, no evidence whatsoever could falsify. Sceptical hypotheses such as B ‘neutralize’ any evidence which could be used to try and undermine them (1988, 111). Hence, no evidence given in support of an ordinary claim to know, such H, could possibly be sufficient for a subject to know that ~B.

This means that you ‘will not be able to argue, as we did regarding [RSA] that the evidence we do have to deny [B] really is sufficient relative to everyday standards.

Thus [B] will be a relevant alternative (by the internal criterion) and we will fail to know [an incompatible proposition, such as H]’ (1988, 111). For this reason,

Cohen’s response to RSA will not work as a response to AI.

In light of this, Cohen accepts that we do not have any evidence which could support

S's belief that ~B. Nonetheless, he argues that such beliefs are ‘intrinsically rational’: it is intrinsically rational, or reasonable, to hold some beliefs even when we do not possess any evidence for that belief (1988, 112). Cohen’s reasoning in support of why belief in ~B is intrinsically rational asserts that there is an extreme asymmetry between how rational we would take someone who believed that B and how rational we would take someone who believed that ~B, and not even the sceptic would take someone who denies B to be irrational.

Cohen then utilises this idea of an intrinsically rational belief to formulate a response to AI:

‘In everyday contexts where S believes an ordinary proposition [H], on the

basis of reason r, a radical skeptical alternative [B] will not be relevant. The

standard yielded by the internal criterion in those contexts is such that the

reasonability (viz., the intrinsic rationality) of denying [B] is sufficient for

S to know [that H] on the basis of r. This explains our intuition that we

know [that H]. Of course, the paradox36 is generated because, upon

reflection, we do not think it is sufficiently reasonable for S to deny [B] so

that S knows [that ~B]. But the reasonability of denying [B] just is the

reasonability of believing [that ~B]… [I]n contexts where the standards are

such that [~B] is sufficiently reasonable for S to know [that H], according

to those same standards, [~B] is sufficiently reasonable for S to know [that

36 The ‘paradox’ which Cohen refers to consists of three plausible, yet incompatible, propositions: (1) if we know that H, then we know that ~B; (2) we do not know that ~B; (3) we know that H.

~B].37 Thus [epistemic] closure holds, relative to a context, and the paradox

is avoided’ (1988, 113-114).

Disregarding the immediate issues which arise concerning, for example, how to define an ‘intrinsically rational belief’, it remains to be seen how Cohen can provide a mechanism which explains how a sceptic can manipulate the standards for relevance so as to render her sceptical conclusion true. Such a mechanism is needed in order to explain why a sceptical hypothesis, such as B, would be relevant in one epistemic context but not in another, and how it could become relevant when it was not before. Without an adequate explanation of this mechanism, Cohen’s resolutions of RSA and AI do not pack much explanatory punch. I will now explicate a mechanism which seems to fall naturally out of Cohen’s position.

2.3 The Rule of Relevance

Cohen’s Semantic Contextualism implicitly makes use of a similar mechanism to

DeRose’s Rule of Sensitivity in explaining the sceptic’s ability to raise the epistemic standards at play in a context of ascription. We can term such a mechanism the Rule of Relevance.38 Cohen’s Rule of Relevance explains sceptical shifts in epistemic standards by suggesting that, when a sceptic challenges S’s ordinary knowledge claim, the sceptic focuses one’s attention on the chance of error, ‘on the existence of alternatives consistent with S's reasons’ (1988, 109). And when one’s attention is

37 Cohen later claims that having an intrinsically rational belief that ~B is, alone, not sufficient to know that ~B. But he claims that S’s evidence in support of her knowing that H combined with the rationality of denying B, alongside Epistemic Closure, will suffice for her to know that ~B (see Cohen, 1999, 76). 38 This is DeRose’s name for such a rule. DeRose formulates a rule stemming from the Relevant Alternatives theory in the context of motivating his own Rule of Sensitivity. DeRose’s version of the Rule of Relevance states that ‘mentioning a proposition Q - ceteris paribus and within certain limits, no doubt - tends to make Q a contextually relevant alternative to any P that is contrary to Q’ (DeRose, 1995, 15).

71 focused on such chances of error, one will begin to view these chances as being relevant to S’s ordinary knowledge claim.

That is, ‘skeptical arguments make alternatives relevant by forcing us to view the reasons [i.e. our, or S’s, reasons for believing that H] in a way that makes the chance of error salient’ (1988, 108). And once these sceptical alternatives have become relevant, we are ‘reluctant to attribute knowledge unless the subject of the attribution has sufficient reason to deny the alternatives’ (1988, 109). Consequently, once a sceptical alternative has become relevant to S’s claim to know that p, an attributor will not ascribe S with the knowledge that p unless S’s reasons for believing that p can rule out such a sceptical alternative.

But can S rule out sceptical alternatives to her ordinary claims to know? Cohen thinks not. Concerning restricted scepticism, Cohen takes it that S’s reasons for denying a sceptical hypothesis such as ‘It is a cleverly disguised mule’ will be statistical in nature, e.g. zoo owners rarely engage in such elaborate deceptions. And

Cohen argues that such statistical reasons play into the sceptic’s hand; since such reasons in themselves make the chance of error salient. That is, drawing our attention to the fact that zookeepers rarely engage in such deceptions is to ‘underscore the fact that they sometimes do’ (1988, 109). Given this, we become reluctant to say that S knows that what she is looking at is a zebra, and not a painted mule.

On the other hand, concerning global scepticism, S’s reasons for denying the proposition ‘I am a brain in vat’ will consist of, for example, her perceptual evidence of the world around her. But once the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis has become a relevant alternative to S’s ordinary claim to know that, for example, she has hands, this evidence will no longer be sufficient to rule this sceptical possibility out. That is,

72 once the attributor of knowledge’s attention has been drawn to this alternative, the possibility that S is a brain in a vat will become a salient possibility. This means that this possibility will become a relevant alternative to S’s ordinary claim to know. And once this has happened, our attributor cannot truthfully ascribe S with the knowledge that H or the knowledge that ~B.

2.4 Cohen’s Uncomfortable Concession to Scepticism

Unfortunately, however, Cohen’s distinct form of Semantic Contextualism is problematic in the same ways which I have demonstrated in regards to DeRose’s position. For example, an important condition for Cohen’s response to sceptical arguments, such as AI, is that a subject can be, in quotidian contexts of ascription, ascribed with truthful knowledge ascriptions concerning the negation of sceptical hypotheses. Such a condition plays a crucial part in both Cohen’s response to sceptical arguments and in its initial motivation.

But, as I will now show, Cohen’s theory is unable to allow for anti-sceptical knowledge ascriptions to come out as true. In any epistemic context, if A were to say of S that ‘S knows that ~B’, Cohen’s Rule of Relevance will kick in and automatically falsify such a claim. Given this, Cohen’s Semantic Contextualism is unable to accommodate a vital aspect of his response to sceptical arguments; that we are in a position to be truthfully ascribed with knowledge of the negation of sceptical hypotheses (including the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis) in low-standards contexts of ascription.

2.4.1 Cohen’s Failure to Protect Truthful Knowledge Ascriptions concerning ~B

Unlike DeRose, Cohen does not explicitly claim that his Semantic Contextualism can allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions concerning ~B. I cannot, therefore, claim that Cohen fails to uphold a condition he himself sets out for his position.

However, this condition nonetheless forms an integral part of all forms of Semantic

Contextualism’s response to scepticism, including Cohen’s. This is because

Semantic Contextualism takes the truth conditions for all knowledge ascriptions and denials to be context-sensitive, so that a knowledge ascription may be truthfully uttered on one occasion but falsely uttered on another (even where the knowledge ascription in question refers to the same epistemic subject and the same proposition believed by this subject). If, as it turns out, Semantic Contextualism can only allow for unvarying truth-conditions for a particular class of knowledge ascriptions/denials

(such as those concerning global sceptical hypotheses), it will undermine its aim of demonstrating that knowledge ascriptions/denials are context-sensitive in the way it purports them to be. For, in that case it will turn out that all knowledge ascriptions will have context-sensitive truth conditions except knowledge ascriptions that deny sceptical hypotheses. And that is an exception remarkable enough to require explicit discussion. As Cohen has not provided such a discussion, I take it that he shares

DeRose’s ambition to allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions concerning the negation of sceptical hypotheses.

And, as with DeRose’s position, Cohen’s Semantic Contextualism cannot fulfil this aim. This is because of the implicit mechanism which Cohen utilises in explaining shifting standards for knowledge ascription: his Rule of Relevance. The Rule of

Relevance, like DeRose’s Rule of Sensitivity, is a mechanism posited to account for

74 all increases (or changes) in epistemic standards; including both sceptical and non- sceptical increases. That is, Cohen’s position has it that the epistemic standards relevant to a claim to know will increase where the attributor of knowledge takes into consideration more hard-to-rule-out alternatives. Thus, if A ascribes (or denies)

S with the knowledge of the negation of a sceptical hypothesis, A will focus her attention on possibility of error; on the existence of alternatives consistent with S's reasons for claiming to know the negation of such a hypothesis. And given this, such sceptical error possibilities will become relevant to S’s claim to know. But given S’s epistemic position is neutral with respect to her anti-sceptical beliefs, such as her belief that ~B, S is not in a position to rule out sceptical possibilities. As such, in those contexts in which the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis is a relevant alternative, S cannot be truthfully ascribed with the knowledge that ~B or the knowledge that H.

This is a problematic aspect for both Cohen’s response to RSA and AI. For, when A states that ‘S knows that the animal is not a cleverly disguised mule [~M]’, the Rule of Relevance will automatically expand the range of relevant alternatives that S must be able to rule out so as to include hypothesis M. In doing so, the epistemic standards rise, so that the same evidence/reasons (S’s justification for believing it is a zebra) will no longer be sufficient for her to know that it is a not a cleverly disguised mule. And if S’s evidence is not sufficient to rule out M, then S can no longer be said to know either that Z or that ~M.

Cohen does admit that his Semantic Contextualism does not present much of an explanation of how the standards for relevance can alter, nor how the term ‘know’ gets its meaning in each context of use:

‘I certainly have no general theory of how precisely the context determines

the standard [of relevance]. But this is no special problem for my claim that

ascriptions of knowledge are context-sensitive. Even for (relatively)

uncontroversial cases of predicates whose application depend on context-

sensitive standards, e.g., 'flat', it is very difficult to say exactly how the

context determines the standards. I am not proposing a semantic theory for

predicates of this kind. I am just proposing that we view the knowledge

predicate as a predicate of this kind’ (Cohen, 1999, 61).

Nevertheless, even accepting that setting the boundaries for other context-sensitive terms (such as ‘here’ or ‘flat’) is equally problematic, it seems prima facie plausible that such terms are context-sensitive. However, Cohen’s Semantic Contextualism has to argue that, despite any initial intuition we may have that suggests that the term

‘know’ has a set, unvarying meaning, it is also a context-sensitive term. Thus, theories such as Cohen’s (and DeRose’s) must incorporate an error theory39 concerning our use of the term ‘know’ – and this is unlike cases concerning other context-sensitive expressions.

Therefore, it is the job of Semantic Contextualists such as Cohen to convince others that ‘know’ is a context-sensitive expression whose meaning gets set by, for example, contextually determined standards of relevance. And the present problem cannot be ignored by Semantic Contextualists such as Cohen on the basis that it is a

39 As Cohen himself states, ‘According to the contextualist treatment of the skeptical paradox, competent speakers can fail to be aware of these context-sensitive standards, at least explicitly, and so fail to distinguish between the standards that apply in skeptical contexts, and the standards that apply in everyday contexts. This misleads them into thinking that certain knowledge ascriptions conflict, when in fact they are compatible. Contextualism thus combines a contextualist semantics for knowledge ascriptions with a kind of error theory—a claim that competent speakers are systematically misled by the contextualist semantics’ (1999, 77).

76 problem for all Semantic Contextualist theories of knowledge ascription. For, that very fact itself does not bode well for any Semantic Contextualist theorist.

To be as charitable to Cohen’s position as possible, we should consider if there are any possible responses which might lessen the impact that this problem has for his version of Semantic Contextualism. Two possible responses are: (1) one could argue, on behalf of Cohen, that, whilst the sentence ‘S knows that ~B’ can be true in certain contexts of ascription, the claim (the uttered expression) ‘S knows that ~B’ will inevitably come out as false given his Rule of Relevance. In this case, the impact of the problem is lessened by arguing that, at the very least, the truth value of the above sentence will not be affected. And: (2) Cohen could argue that, where the attributor,

A, is not contesting S’s claim to know ~B but is merely remarking on it, the Rule of

Relevance will not expand the range of relevant alternatives so as to include the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis. I will now consider response (1) and (2) and undermine each in turn.

Starting with (2), it is arbitrary to argue that the standards for relevance do not alter when the attributor does not intend for this alteration to occur. For there is nothing in the Rule of Relevance itself, as we have formulated it, that can make such a distinction in an attributor’s intentions. As long as Cohen takes salience relations to be primary in determining epistemic standards (which he does, see Cohen, 2000, 98), he will have to accept that the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis will become a relevant alternative when this hypothesis is considered by the attributor of knowledge. This means that, whenever an attributor ascribes (or denies) a subject with the knowledge of ~B, B will become a relevant alternative which S will need to be able to rule out in order for this knowledge ascription to come out as true (or for the knowledge denial to come out as false). Given that S cannot rule out B, all knowledge

77 ascriptions of the form ‘S knows that ~B’ are doomed to failure (and all knowledge denials of the form ‘S does not know that ~B’ will turn out to be true).

Concerning (1), Cohen’s Semantic Contextualism is a theory of knowledge ascriptions, ascriptions being claims made about whether a subject does or does not know some proposition p. As such, it is not enough to argue that the sentence ‘S knows that ~B’ can come out as true even if the corresponding knowledge ascription would come out as false. Cohen’s theory is essentially concerned with knowledge ascriptions – actual instances where we say (or at least think) that S does or does not know some p. To go from talking about such knowledge ascriptions to talking about sentences is inadequate as a method for dealing with the present problem.

Cohen’s distinct version of Semantic Contextualism therefore cannot allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions concerning the negation of (global) sceptical hypotheses, such as ‘S knows that ~B’. By making such a knowledge ascription,

Cohen’s position has it that the standards for knowledge ascription are increased to a point where this ascription turns out to be false. As such, Cohen’s position has the consequence that we can only falsely assert that one knows that ~B, and only truthfully assert that one doesn’t know that ~B.

Furthermore, there are similar problems for Cohen’s internalist version of Semantic

Contextualism as for DeRose’s externalist Semantic Contextualism (see Part 1, sections 1.3.2, 1.3.3. and 1.3.4). Like the present problem, these further issues all relate to Cohen’s treatment of (global) external world scepticism. I will now go through each in turn.

2.4.2. Instantiating Sceptical Contexts Cohen’s position views the variation in epistemic standards which govern contexts of ascription to be primarily related to which alternatives are deemed salient in the context in question. That is, how high or low the epistemic standards are in an attributor’s context of ascription is determined by which, and how many, alternatives are relevant to the attributor’s ascription of knowledge.

This simple view of how epistemic standards are governed has the consequence that it is very easy for a sceptical context, in which especially high standards for knowledge ascription are in play, to be put into place. In order to do this, an attributor merely has to pay attention to sceptical possibilities: once such possibilities are deemed relevant, the subject in question will need to be able to rule such possibilities out in order to be truthfully ascribed with such knowledge. And given that (global) sceptical possibilities (such as the brain in a vat hypothesis) are said to be impossible to rule out by one’s evidence (because they neutralise such evidence), once these possibilities become relevant, the attributor cannot truthfully ascribe the subject with the knowledge of ordinary or anti-sceptical claims. This means that

Cohen’s position, as with DeRose’s, makes it overly easy to instantiate a sceptical context of ascription.

2.4.3 Scepticism as the Result of Ordinary Epistemic Practices Moreover, as with DeRose’s position, Cohen views scepticism as resulting from the same epistemic practices which govern more ordinary contexts of ascription. The

Rule of Relevance, like DeRose’s Rule of Sensitivity, is said to account for normal

(non-sceptical) changes in salience relations, which determine standards for relevance (and so determine what epistemic standards are in play). This means that the mechanism posited by Cohen’s position, which is said to explain how sceptical

79 contexts can be generated, is a mechanism which underpins even our most ordinary epistemic contexts. There is, in this way, nothing particularly strange or special about the sceptical context of ascription. This context is taken to be simply one of many which can be generated by the Rule of Relevance.

2.4.4 The Legitimacy of the Sceptical Context Lastly, Cohen’s Contextualist account of knowledge ascriptions/denials, as with

DeRose’s, takes there to be a linear scale of epistemic contexts. These contexts each instantiate a particular epistemic standard, going from lax epistemic standards to extremely high epistemic standards. The sceptical context is only unusual in the sense that it represents the highest epistemic standards, in which (most of)40 our ordinary and (all of our) anti-sceptical knowledge claims turn out to be false. In this way, the sceptical context of ascription is not viewed as defective or illegitimate in any interesting epistemic way. Scepticism is a normal, if uncomfortable, result of the mechanism which underpins standards for truthful knowledge ascription generally; the Rule of Relevance.

Given these consequences of Cohen’s position, his Semantic Contextualism can also be charged with the following four features: (1) knowledge attributions of the form ‘I know/S knows that ~B’ are invariably false; (2) the sceptical context is extremely easy to install; (3) scepticism is said to result from entirely ordinary epistemic practices and; (4) the sceptical context is taken to be an entirely legitimate context of ascription. For these reasons, Cohen’s position is overly concessive to scepticism.

40 Particular claims about the nature of the external world or external world objects can only be falsely ascribed in the sceptical context. The claim that ‘There is an external world’ may, however, be truthfully ascribed in the sceptical context given that this particular claim is not inconsistent with the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis (this hypothesis does, after all, rely on there being an external world; this external world is just taken to be very different from the actual world).

3. Blome-Tillmann’s Problematic Defence of Everyday Anti-

Scepticism

Blome-Tillmann’s (2009, 2014) version of Semantic Contextualism is based on a modified version of David Lewis’ (1996) Semantic Contextualist account. Lewis argues that one cannot be said to know that p in any context in which one cannot properly ignore some alternative to p which one is not in an epistemic position to rule out. Blome-Tillmann substitutes one of Lewis' rules for the raising of epistemic standards, Lewis' Rule of Attention, for his Rule of Presupposition. This alternative rule is said to allow an attributor of knowledge more autonomous control over the epistemic standards at play in her context, C, by controlling which alternatives to p she can and cannot pragmatically presuppose in C. According to Blome-Tillmann, this allows one to truthfully ascribe knowledge to S even in those contexts where sceptical hypotheses are on the table.

However, I will argue that Blome-Tillmann’s explanation for how knowledge ascriptions such as ‘S knows that ~B’ can come out as true involves some puzzling, if not entirely inadequate, claims. This will lead me to reject Blome-Tillmann’s claim that his version of Semantic Contextualism can account for, and safeguard the truth of, our anti-sceptical knowledge ascriptions. I will begin by outlining Lewis' version of Semantic Contextualism and Blome-Tillmann's subsequent alterations.

3.1 David Lewis' Rule of Attention

On David Lewis’ (1996) version of Semantic Contextualism, the knowledge- ascribing sentence ‘S knows that p’ comes out as true in context C iff S's evidence41 eliminates every ~p possibility, excluding those possibilities which are properly

41 ‘Evidence’ is to be read as the totality of S’s perceptual experiences and memory states (see Lewis, 1996, 553 and Blome-Tillmann, 2014, 17).

81 ignored in C. Of central importance to this account are the 'rules of relevance' which stipulate what possibilities can and cannot be properly ignored in a given context.

Lewis posits eight rules to govern which possibilities can be properly ignored, including his Rule of Actuality, Rule of Belief, Rule of Resemblance, Rule of

Reliability, two Rules of Method and his Rule of Conservatism. But it is his Rule of

Attention which does the main explanatory work in relation to attempts to ascribe subjects with anti-sceptical knowledge.42

Lewis' Rule of Attention: If q is attended to by the speakers in context C,

then q is not properly ignored in C (see Lewis, 1996, 559).

This rule means that, if our attributor of knowledge attends to the possibility that S is a brain in a vat (B) in C, then for A to truthfully ascribe S with the knowledge that

~B in C, S’s evidence must be able to rule out the possibility that she is a brain in a vat. But S's evidence is insufficient to successfully rule this possibility out.43 For, any evidence which S could gather to support her claim that she is not brain in a vat is evidence that would also be available to an envatted subject. As such, S cannot be truthfully ascribed with the knowledge that ~B in any context in which the brain-in- a-vat hypothesis is attended to.

This means that in any context of ascription in which the speaker attends to the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis is a context in which the subject of knowledge cannot be truthfully ascribed with the knowledge that ~B, even if this context was originally a very low-standards one. And given Lewis' retention of Epistemic Closure, any

42 I will leave detailing Lewis’ other rules and focus on the Rule of Attention because it is this rule which explains Lewis’ concession to scepticism and it is this rule which Blome-Tillmann replaces with his Rule of Presupposition. 43 This is true only when S’s perceptual experiences and memory states (i.e. her evidence) are individuated internalistically. This is something which Blome-Tilllman grants the sceptic in his discussion (see 2014, 18, footnote 16).

82 context in which S cannot be truthfully ascribed with the knowledge that ~B is a context in which S cannot be truthfully ascribed with the knowledge that H. On

Lewis’ account, the sceptic's job is thus an easy one. All that the sceptic must do to raise the epistemic standards in play in context C is draw attention to the sceptical brain-in-a-vat hypothesis. Once this has been done, S can only be falsely ascribed with the knowledge that H in C.

However, this does not mean that scepticism prevails outright on Lewis' account.

Though the sceptic has an easy job, it is still the case that S can be ascribed with the knowledge that H in ordinary contextual settings. As long as the brain-in-a-vat (or some other global sceptical) possibility is not attended to, then this possibility can be properly ignored and S can be truthfully ascribed with ordinary knowledge of the external world. Moreover, as with DeRose’s and Cohen’s accounts, Lewis’ version of Semantic Contextualism has it that the truth of knowledge ascriptions concerning external world objects made in quotidian contexts of ascription are compatible with truth of sceptical denials of such knowledge claims.

Blome-Tillmann's issue with Lewis’ Rule of Attention is that he takes it, as do I, that this rule makes scepticism too pervasive. As Michael Williams puts it:

‘[Lewis’] Rule of Attention makes retaining knowledge too hard.

Conceding for the present that far-fetched sceptical possibilities – brains-

in-vats, demon-deceivers – resist elimination by evidence, the Rule ensures

that a person’s knowledge vanishes every time such a possibility enters his

head’ (Williams, 2001, 15).

It is this aspect of Lewis’ account which Blome-Tillmann focuses on in his reformulation of this position.

3.2 Blome-Tillmann's Alternative Rule: The Rule of Presupposition

Lewis' account draws its motivation from its apparent ability to uphold the following two intuitions:44

Anti-Sceptical Intuition (ASI): People often speak truly when they assert 'I

know that p'.

Sceptical Intuition (SI): People sometimes speak truly when they assert

'Nobody knows that p' in contexts in which sceptical arguments are

discussed.

But Lewis's Rule of Attention seems to result in SI being read as the following:

(SI*) People always speak truly when they assert that 'Nobody knows that

p' in contexts in which sceptical arguments are discussed.

And (SI*) is not only implausible, but there are intuitive counter-examples to it. An example from Blome-Tillmann, call it the Son Case, illustrates this: imagine you see your teenage son sneaking out of the house late one night. The next morning when you confront him he replies that you can't know that he left the house, for how can you know that you didn't just dream that you saw him sneaking out? (see Blome-

Tillmann, 2009, 246-247).

Lewis' Rule of Attention means that in this situation you can't know that you saw your son sneak out, for your attention has been drawn to a possibility which your evidence cannot rule out; namely, that you only dreamt what you saw. But this is surely something you do know! Lewis' Rule of Attention is thus too strong, and gives us the wrong result when considering cases such as the Son Case.

44 See Blome-Tillmann (2009, 246).

Blome-Tillmann's proposed way of dealing with the above problem for Lewis'

Semantic Contextualism is to combine an endorsement of Lewis’ rules for governing which possibilities can be properly ignored in a context C alongside a modified version of Lewis’ Rule of Attention. Rather than endorse the Rule of Attention,

Blome-Tillmann puts in place a new rule which does not, he claims, have the consequence that any possibility attended to is ipso facto not a possibility properly ignored.

Blome-Tillmann's new rule results from his alternative way of characterising proper ignoring. In characterising proper ignoring, Lewis' account draws a distinction between, on the one hand, properly ignoring x and, on the other hand, attending to x.

But Blome-Tillmann does not see attending to x as making it impossible to properly ignore x in the epistemologically relevant sense. Rather, on Blome-Tillmann's account, the distinction is made between, on the one hand, properly ignoring x and, on the other hand, taking x seriously.

Blome-Tillmann explicates this notion of 'taking seriously' via the notion of a pragmatic presupposition: 'a possibility [x] is taken seriously in C just in case [x] is compatible with the speaker's pragmatic presuppositions in C' (2009, 247). From this

Blome-Tillmann develops his alternative rule to Lewis' Rule of Attention, his Rule of Presupposition:

Blome-Tillmann's Rule of Presupposition: If x is compatible with the

speaker's pragmatic presuppositions in C, then x cannot be properly ignored

in C (see 2009, 248).

One apparent advantage of this alternative rule is that it allows a speaker (the attributor of knowledge) more voluntary control over the content of the term 'knows'

85 in their contextual setting, given that they have a certain degree of control over what they do and do not take seriously in their context of ascription. This is then said to give us the correct result for the Son Case: you do know that you saw your son sneak out of the house last night because, despite him drawing attention to the possibility that you merely dreamt what you saw, you can resist taking this possibility seriously.

As such, so long as you are able to rule out all the alternative possibilities which you do take seriously in this context, you can satisfy the standards for 'knows' and truthfully state that ‘I know that I saw my son sneak out of the house’. And so, according to Blome-Tillmann, his version of Semantic Contextualism can allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions concerning external world objects (such as ‘S knows that H’) to come out as true in context C even when sceptical hypotheses have been attended to in C.45

3.3 Pragmatic Presuppositions

An important aspect of Blome-Tillmann's account is his notion of a pragmatic presupposition. In explicating this notion, Blome-Tillmann relies heavily on Robert

Stalnaker's work on presuppositions. Stalnaker's most recent explication of this notion starts first with a definition of what he calls 'common ground':

Stalnaker's Common Ground (SCG): It is common ground that p in a group

G iff all members of G accept (for the purpose of the conversation) that p,

and all believe that all accept that p, and all believe that all believe that all

accept that p, etc. (see Blome-Tillmann, 2009, 250 and Stalnaker, 2002,

716).

SCG is then used to define a pragmatic presupposition:

45 This is only given that none of Lewis’ other rules prohibit properly ignoring the sceptical hypotheses attended to in C, which Blome-Tillmann assumes is the case (see 2014, 21, footnote 24).

Stalnaker's Pragmatic Presupposition (SPP): A pragmatically presupposes p

iff A believes p to be common ground (see Blome-Tillmann, 2009, 251 and

Stalnaker, 2002, 707 and 717).

As such, on Stalnaker's account A pragmatically presupposes p iff she believes that all members participating in her discourse accept p, believe that all accept p, believe that all believe that all accept p, etc.46 But SPP equates pragmatic presuppositions with a special type of belief. This causes a problem for Blome-Tillmann's claim that subjects can have voluntary control over the pragmatic presuppositions at work in their context of discourse: 'since belief is spontaneous and thus not under one's direct voluntary control, one can hardly choose to believe that a proposition p is common ground' (2009, 251).

In order to amend this difficulty, Blome-Tillmann offers a modified version of SPP which coheres with Stalnaker's earlier work on pragmatic presuppositions.

Blome-Tillmann's Pragmatic Presupposition (BTPP): A pragmatically

presupposes p in C iff A is (at least partially47) disposed to behave, in her

use of language, as if she believed p to be common ground in C (see 2009,

253).48

And since one has, according to Blome-Tillmann, direct voluntary control over one's behavioural dispositions, BTPP puts pragmatic presuppositions within the realm of the voluntary.49 So, even if A is presented with a sceptical hypothesis, B, in context

46 I take it that such beliefs do not need to be explicitly attended to by S for her to pragmatically presuppose p. 47 See Blome-Tillmann (2014, 26, footnote 32). 48 And see Stalnaker (1974, 52) where he states that 'Presupposing is thus not a mental attitude like believing, but is rather a linguistic disposition – a disposition to behave in one's use of language as if one had certain beliefs, or were making certain assumptions'. 49 It isn’t actually clear that one does have direct voluntary control over one’s behavioural dispositions. Think of a case where a subject has a complex vocal tic, e.g. they repeat a certain word

C, A can choose to presuppose ~B in C. Moreover, as B is not compatible with A's presupposition ~B, then B can be properly ignored, by A, in C. Given this, Blome-

Tillmann thinks that there can be cases where, even if A attends to a sceptical possibility, such as B, the contextual standards do not shift and A can truthfully ascribe our subject S with the knowledge that H.

3.4 Does Blome-Tillmann Succeed in Protecting Truthful Knowledge

Ascriptions concerning ~B?

But does this allow an attributor, A, to truthfully say of our subject, S, that ‘S knows that ~B’? If Blome-Tillmann’s account can allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions concerning the negation of sceptical hypotheses, then his Semantic Contextualism can overcome the first problem which I presented for DeRose’s and Cohen’s positions.

That is, it is not enough that Blome-Tillmann’s Semantic Contextualism can allow for ordinary knowledge claims concerning H to remain true even in contexts where sceptical hypotheses have been raised. Though this would undoubtedly be an advantage of Blome-Tillmann’s account over Lewis’, the problem I have proffered for DeRose’s and Cohen’s forms of Semantic Contextualism focuses on their respective accounts’ inability to allow for true knowledge ascriptions concerning the negation of sceptical hypotheses. If Blome-Tillmann’s account is going to offer a better version of Semantic Contextualism in this respect, it needs to demonstrate how an attributor’s claim that ‘S knows that ~B’ can turn out to be true. This is important precisely because a central aspect of Semantic Contextualism’s response

or phrase without control. Or a more common example; where a subject accidentally ‘spills’ truths she’s been asked to keep secret.

88 to arguments such as AI is its claim that knowledge ascriptions of the form ‘S knows that ~B’ can come out as true in quotidian contextual settings.

It might seem, at first blush, that Blome-Tillmann’s account is no more equipped to allow knowledge ascriptions like ‘S knows that ~B’ to come out as true than

DeRose’s or Cohen’s (or Lewis’, for that matter) are. This is because Blome-

Tillmann contrasts properly ignoring x with taking x seriously, meaning that a proposition which is taken seriously is, on his account, a proposition not properly ignored. And, if A ascribes S with the knowledge that ~B, then surely A is, in this instance, taking the brain-in-a-vat possibility seriously. That is, when claiming that

‘S knows ~B’, A is not merely turning her attention to B; A is explicitly engaging with the brain-in-a-vat possibility. Saying of S that she reaches the standards for knowledge regarding ~B is more than just attending to a sceptical possibility in a non-committal fashion. A is, in such a case, positively asserting that 'Despite this sceptical possibility, S reaches the standards for 'know' regarding the proposition

~B in my context of ascription'. And A does, therefore, seem to be taking the brain- in-a-vat hypothesis seriously enough for this possibility to no longer be regarded as properly ignored.

However, unlike DeRose and Cohen, Blome-Tillmann offers an explicit explanation for how a subject can satisfy ‘knows’ for propositions such as ~B (and other anti- sceptical claims) in quotidian contexts. Blome-Tillmann asserts that:

‘In quotidian contexts, the defender of [his version of Semantic Contextualism]

maintains, we are in a position to satisfy the predicate ‘knows ¬sh’ [the

negation of a sceptical hypothesis], for in such contexts our evidence eliminates

all alternatives to ¬sh that are not properly ignored (all alternatives to ¬sh are,

after all, properly ignored in such contexts) and… in quotidian contexts we can

properly base our belief that ¬sh on a competent derivation from our

‘knowledge’ that op [an ordinary proposition]—as long as we do not stop

pragmatically presupposing ¬sh. Thus, in quotidian contexts, all conditions for

being in a position to ‘know ¬sh’ are satisfied’ (2009, 285).

From this, we can abstract three conditions which, if met, supposedly allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions of the form ‘S knows that ~B’. Such knowledge ascriptions are said to come out as true in context C iff: 50

(1) S‘s evidence eliminates all alternatives to ~B which are not properly

ignored in C.

(2) S is able to properly base (i.e. provide sufficient justificatory grounds

for) her belief that ~B in C.

(3) S consistently pragmatically presupposes ~B in C.

And in quotidian contexts, Blome-Tillmann argues that conditions (1), (2) and (3) are met.

Condition (1) is satisfied because all alternatives to ~B are properly ignored in a quotidian context because ~B is pragmatically presupposed in C. That is, so long as

S is disposed to behave, in her use of language, as if she believed ~B to be common ground in C, then S is in a position to pragmatically presuppose ~B. And given that all alternatives to ~B are ignored in quotidian contexts, all such alternatives can be properly ignored in C. This means that S just doesn’t have to eliminate any alternatives to her belief that ~B in C. And S can satisfy condition (3) above so long

50 This assumes that S is both subject and attributor of knowledge in C.

90 as she consistently pragmatically presupposes ~B in C; where S doesn’t waver, in her disposed use of language, from her belief that ~B is common ground in C.

Condition (2) will be satisfied only in those contexts in which S’s belief that ~B is properly based. S’s belief that ~B is properly based in C if S can competently deduce her belief that ~B from something that she does know in C. And given that S satisfies the standards for ‘knows’ in relation to her belief that H in C, S is, according to Blome-Tillmann’s account, in a position to deduce her belief that ~B from her knowledge that H in context C.

As such, in quotidian contexts, where conditions (1), (2) and (3) are met, S is said to satisfy the standards for ‘knows’ for anti-sceptical propositions, such as ~B. If plausible, this would mean that Blome-Tillmann’s Semantic Contextualism can allow for cases where S is truthfully ascribed the knowledge that ~B, a feat which both DeRose’s and Cohen’s accounts cannot deliver. However, I will now demonstrate why this aspect of Blome-Tillmann’s account is not plausible.

3.4.1 Blome-Tillmann’s Failure to Protect Truthful Knowledge

Ascriptions concerning ~B

One issue for Blome-Tillmann’s account of how knowledge ascriptions concerning

~B can come out as true stems from condition (3) above: that for S to satisfy ‘knows’ in relation to ~B in C, S must consistently pragmatically presuppose ~B in C. As

Blome-Tillmann asserts, ‘…in quotidian contexts we can properly base our belief that [~B] on a competent derivation from our ‘knowledge’ that [H]—as long as we do not stop pragmatically presupposing [~B]…’ (2009, 285, emphasis added).

On Blome-Tillmann’s account there are no other cases of true knowledge ascription which require one to pragmatically presuppose the very thing one is claiming to

91 know. For example, one’s ability to be truthfully said to know that H in C does not require one to pragmatically presuppose H in C. Rather, it is only conditions (1) and

(2) above which are relevant for such a knowledge claim to be true: i.e., for one’s claim to know that H in C to come out as true, one’s evidence must eliminate all alternatives to H which are not properly ignored in C and one must be able to properly base one’s belief that H in C. In Blome-Tillmann’s words, for S to satisfy

‘knows that p’ (where p stands for some ordinary proposition concerning the external world) in context C, the following two conditions must be met: ‘[S’s] belief that p is properly based’ and ‘[S’s] evidence eliminates all ¬p-worlds, except for those that are properly ignored in C’ (Blome-Tillmann, 2014, 31).51

That true knowledge ascriptions concerning ~B require the additional condition of

(3) above is ad hoc unless Blome-Tillmann can offer a convincing account of why condition (3) is required in such instances of knowledge ascription, but not in any others. Moreover, Blome-Tillmann needs to offer a convincing account of why this is an acceptable stipulation for knowledge ascriptions concerning the negation of sceptical hypotheses, when this stipulation is not required for knowledge ascriptions concerning any other kinds of proposition. Without an adequate defence of this claim, Blome-Tillmann’s position seems overly unfair to scepticism. We do want a

Contextualist response to external world scepticism which is not overly concessive to scepticism, but this response should not arbitrarily make the sceptic’s job too difficult. If the only reason for positing condition (3) above is that it helps Blome-

Tillmann to claim that his position can safeguard true knowledge ascriptions concerning ~B, we should expect a substantial defence of this stipulation.

51 Blome-Tillmann develops these conditions in the remainder of his (2014), but states that the amendments are ‘of a largely cosmetic nature only’ (2014, 31).

Of course, if we can truly be said to know that ~B in C, it’s likely that the explanation for this will differ from the correct explanation for how one can be truly said to know that H in C. Knowledge of the negation of sceptical hypotheses does, after all, seem strange; especially when contrasted with knowledge of more ordinary propositions. But it’s not obvious that we should be able to claim (truthfully) to know that ~B by, in part, presupposing ~B. If we do know that ~B in C, we need a satisfying (even if counter-intuitive) explanation of how this can be the case.

Condition (3) above is counter-intuitive, but it is also theoretically unsatisfying.52

So why does Blome-Tillmann include condition (3) at all? Because, in relation to anti-sceptical knowledge ascriptions, condition (2) requires that condition (3) be satisfied. Blome-Tillmann claims that the only way (or at least the only way he is willing to offer) one can properly base one’s belief that ~B in C is by competently deriving this belief from something that one does know in C (2009, 285). And, if one knows anything in quotidian contexts, then one surely knows that H. So, we can justify our claim to know that ~B in C by deducing it from our knowledge of H in C.

But, importantly, Blome-Tillmann claims that one can only satisfy ‘knows that H’ in

C if one (consistently) pragmatically presupposes ~B in C. Otherwise, B possibilities will become relevant to your claim to know that H in C. And given one’s evidence cannot rule out such possibilities, if we do not pragmatically presuppose that ~B in

52 To be clear, the criticism here is not that Blome-Tillmann’s account requires that one assume that ~B in ordinary contexts of ascription. The criticism I am levelling against Blome-Tillmann’s account of our knowledge of ~B does not equate pragmatic presuppositions with assumptions. Blome- Tillmann makes it clear that pragmatic presuppositions are distinct to assumptions and uses examples to back this up; examples where some subject assumes p whilst pragmatically presupposing ~p. For example, Blome-Tillmann offers a case where a speaker states ‘We all knows it’s false, but let’s assume that pigs can fly’ (2014, 72). In such a case, Blome-Tillmann asserts that the speakers, though assuming pigs can fly, will still behave in in their use of language as if they believed it to be common ground that pigs cannot fly. That this is the case is evident from the things they are disposed to say. For example, when asked if pigs can really fly, they will say things such as ‘Of course they can’t!’ (2014, 72). This disposition in language shows that, though they assume pigs can fly, they simultaneously pragmatically presuppose that pigs cannot fly.

C, then we cannot truthfully say that one knows that H in C. But this means that, when one says (apparently) truthfully of S that ‘S knows that ~B’ in C, the justificatory grounds of this true claim is derived in part from S’s true claim to know that H in C, which itself is, in part, only granted as a piece of knowledge given one presupposes that ~B in C.

To be fair, it should be pointed out that the charge against Blome-Tillmann here is not that his account of how one can satisfy ‘knows that ~B’ is circular in any obvious sense. One can, on his account, presuppose ~B by having a disposition to behave in one’s use of language as if one believed that ~B to be common ground in one’s context of ascription. And to satisfy this particular condition, one need not even mention the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis itself. That is, one need not be disposed to say things like ‘I know that I’m not a brain in a vat’, or ‘The idea that I am a brain in a vat is ridiculous’, etc. Rather, one can presuppose that ~B by being disposed to use language which entails the denial of the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis. And one can do this by being disposed to talk about external world objects which, if they exist and one knows that they do, entail that one is not a brain in a vat. For example, by being disposed to refer to external world objects such as hands, tables, chairs etc.

However, there is still a more subtle (and perhaps, less obviously bad) form of circularity occurring in Blome-Tillmann’s account of how one can satisfy ‘knows that ~B’ in quotidian contexts. For, on his account, one’s ability to satisfy ‘knows’ for ~B in C relies on one properly deducing this belief from one’s knowledge that H in C, which in turn relies on one pragmatically presupposing ~B in C. But, this means that the justificatory grounds for one’s knowledge that ~B rests on one pragmatically presupposing this very claim; namely, ~B. Thus, there is circularity within this account. This circularity is not in any sense obvious. But, by requiring

94 one’s knowledge of ~B to be based upon one’s knowledge of H, which in turn requires one to pragmatically presuppose ~B, there is a subtle form of circularity taking place. And this strikes me, for one, as an unsatisfactory account of how we can satisfy ‘knows that ~B’ in quotidian contexts.

Therefore, Blome-Tillmann’s account of how S can, in ordinary-standards contexts, be truthfully ascribed the knowledge that ~B is unsatisfying. We are thus left with two problematic options regarding Semantic Contextualism vis-a-vis scepticism: either we accept a form of Semantic Contextualism that cannot give any coherent account for how one can truthfully ascribe S with anti-sceptical knowledge, or we accept an account which includes a deeply unsatisfying and suspect explanation of how one can truthfully ascribe S with anti-sceptical knowledge.53

I will now evaluate Blome-Tillmann’s position with respect to the three further problems which I highlight for DeRose’s and Cohen’s forms of Semantic

Contextualism. Part 1 will conclude with the claim that all considered forms of

Semantic Contextualist and, by extrapolation, all forms of Semantic Contextualism are overly concessive to scepticism and should, for this reason, be rejected in favour of a less concessive position.

53 Note that Patrick Rysiew (2016) takes Blome-Tillmann to have successfully articulated a semantic Contextualist position which can deal with the problem I have discussed in this section. Rysiew states that ‘[Blome-Tillmann’s Contextualism] allows that the mere mentioning or thinking of a skeptical possibility needn’t make a difference to the contents and truth-values of a given knowledge claim— whether it does so depends on whether it effects or reflects, which it need not do, a shift in the pragmatic presuppositions of the parties involved’ (Rysiew, 2016, section 3.3, original emphasis). This implies that Blome-Tillmann can allow for one to claim to know the negation of sceptical hypotheses without this resulting in a contextual shift (which would automatically render the knowledge claim false). Unfortunately Rysiew does not evaluate this aspect of Blome-Tillmann’s account nor explain exactly how Blome-Tillmann can supposedly allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions concerning the negation of sceptical hypotheses. I have admitted that Blome-Tillmann’s account may enable one to truthfully claim to know that H even in a context where the sceptical brain- in-a-vat hypothesis has been raised. But my discussion demonstrates that Blome-Tillmann’s account of how one can form truthful knowledge ascriptions concerning the negation of the brain-in-a-vat (or other suitable sceptical hypotheses) is deeply suspect. So, in this respect, Blome-Tillmann’s account is no better than Lewis’.

3.4.2. Instantiating Sceptical Contexts For Blome-Tillmann, one can properly ignore p even if one attends to p, so long as one does not take p seriously. And, on his account, a possibility p is only taken seriously in a context C if p is compatible with the speaker’s pragmatic presuppositions in C. Thus, if B is incompatible with a speaker’s pragmatic presuppositions in C, then B can be properly ignored in C. So, the idea goes, even if our speaker explicitly ascribes S with knowledge of ~B in C, so long as the speaker pragmatically presupposes ~B, the subject of knowledge need not rule out the brain- in-a-vat hypothesis in order to be truthfully said to know that ~B in C.

I, however, in the previous section have outlined some problematic aspects of this part of Blome-Tillmann’s Semantic Contextualist account. For one, that our speaker needs to pragmatically presuppose the very proposition which is being ascribed to our subject of knowledge is a unique condition for knowledge ascriptions concerning the negation of sceptical hypotheses. This particular condition does not hold for knowledge ascriptions concerning ordinary propositions. So, this particular claim is ad hoc. Moreover, this aspect of Blome-Tillmann’s account was shown to be (subtly) circular. For S to satisfy ‘knows that ~B’ in C, S’s belief that ~B must be properly deduced from something she does know in C, such as H. But, claims Blome-

Tillmann, S only satisfies ‘knows that H’ in C if our speaker pragmatically presupposes ~B in C.

Thus, there are some problematic aspects of Blome-Tillmann’s account of how one can truthfully ascribe a subject with the knowledge that ~B in quotidian contextual settings. So long as this aspect of Blome-Tillmann’s account remains unsatisfactory, it isn’t clear that his position is one which can allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions concerning ~B. If Blome-Tillmann cannot allow for such ascriptions then

96 his account would also seem to allow for sceptical contexts of ascription to be put into effect with surprising ease. For, if knowledge ascriptions concerning ~B cannot come out as true on Blome-Tillmann’s account, the explanation which his position offers for this is that the alternatives relevant to S’s belief that ~B includes a possibility which S is not able to rule out and which cannot be properly ignored: namely, the possibility that S is a brain in a vat (hypothesis B). But the very context of epistemic appraisal in which B cannot be properly ignored just is the sceptical context; in which our attributor cannot truthfully ascribe S with knowledge of ordinary or anti-sceptical propositions. Thus, as with DeRose’s and Cohen’s positions, if Blome-Tillmann cannot safeguard at least some instances of truthful anti-sceptical knowledge ascription, his position ultimately collapses into one in which the sceptical context of ascription can be put into place merely by an attributor attempting to ascribe a subject with the knowledge that ~B.

3.4.3 Scepticism as the Result of Ordinary Epistemic Practices DeRose’s and Cohen’s positions, we have seen, view scepticism as being the result of ordinary epistemic practices. Both positions offer (either explicitly, in DeRose’s case, or implicitly, in Cohen’s case) mechanisms which explain changes in epistemic standards which are said to account for both sceptical increases in epistemic standards and more ordinary changes in epistemic standards.

However, Blome-Tillmann’s position does not view scepticism as being the result of entirely ordinary epistemic practices. His position views anti-sceptical knowledge as being different from ordinary knowledge in the sense that it requires an extra condition be met (see section 3.4 above). So, Blome-Tillmann’s position is better than DeRose’s and Cohen’s in one way because his position, unlike the others discussed, does a better job of highlighting the uniqueness of anti-sceptical

97 knowledge ascriptions. By building one more condition which we must meet to truthfully lay claim to anti-sceptical knowledge as opposed to knowledge of more ordinary propositions, Blome-Tillmann’s account helps to separate anti-sceptical knowledge ascriptions from those knowledge ascriptions concerning ordinary claims about the external world/external world objects.

However, as I argue in section 3.4.1, the extra demand which Blome-Tillmann makes on our anti-sceptical knowledge ascriptions is problematic. He builds this condition into his account as a way of trying to protect anti-sceptical knowledge ascriptions: so that he can claim that, on his account, we can be truthfully said to know that ~B. So, interestingly, an aspect of Blome-Tillmann’s account which is included so as to allow us to truthfully ascribe subjects with anti-sceptical knowledge is an aspect which also helps to undermine the idea that anti-sceptical knowledge is a normal kind of knowledge.

And, in a way, this particular aspect of Blome-Tillmann’s Semantic Contextualism is overly unfair to scepticism, rather than being overly concessive. It may be that

Blome-Tillmann adds in this demanding and unfair constraint on ascriptions concerning knowledge of the negation of sceptical hypotheses precisely because his position, much like DeRose’s, Cohen’s and Lewis’, fails to provide a substantive barrier between our ordinary knowledge claims concerning external world objects and the sceptical arguments/hypotheses which work to undermine such ordinary claims to know.

3.4.4 The Legitimacy of the Sceptical Context Blome-Tillmann’s account takes there to be a relatively simple scale of epistemic standards, going from low-standard contexts to extremely high-standard contexts.

The standards for knowledge which are at work in an attributor’s context of

98 ascription are dictated by the possibilities which are, and which are not, properly ignored. Blome-Tillmann’s account of which possibilities are properly ignored is more complex than DeRose’s or Cohen’s because his position posits more rules which work to raise and lower epistemic standards. But the basic idea, that there is a linear scale of epistemic standards, is still implicit in Blome-Tillmann’s account. The more possibilities which are not properly ignored, and the harder these possibilities are to rule out given one’s evidence, the higher the epistemic standards at work. In this way, scepticism is, again, viewed as the result of pushing the epistemic standards up to their limit: scepticism is the result of including sceptical possibilities, which we are told we cannot rule out, as relevant possibilities (and so not ones properly ignored) to our claims to know.

Thus, Blome-Tillmann’s Semantic Contextualism does not view the sceptical context as being illegitimate in any interesting way. Scepticism is not, for example, the result of augmenting or pushing our epistemic position in some unreasonable direction. Nor is it the result of a poor or false theory of our epistemic position/practices. Scepticism is, according to Blome-Tillmann’s Semantic

Contextualism, simply what happens when epistemic standards are pushed to their upper limit. Thus, in this particular way, Blome-Tillmann’s Semantic Contextualism is just as concessive to scepticism as DeRose’s and Cohen’s positions are.

4. Concluding Remarks

Different forms of Semantic Contextualism, namely the externalist position offered by DeRose, the internalist position offered by Cohen, and Blome-Tillmann’s presuppositionalist account, cannot deliver one of its key promises. As I have shown,

Semantic Contextualism struggles in vain, and fails, to allow for true knowledge

99 ascriptions concerning the negation of sceptical hypotheses, such as the brain-in-a- vat hypothesis. But that such knowledge ascriptions can be truthfully made in quotidian contexts forms a central aspect of Semantic Contextualism’s response to arguments such as AI.

Thus, I reject Semantic Contextualism because I take it that it fails to provide a convincing response to arguments for external world scepticism such as AI.

Ultimately, this means that I reject Semantic Contextualism’s position in relation to, not only knowledge ascriptions concerning the denials of sceptical hypotheses, but also knowledge ascriptions concerning ordinary claims about the external world

(such as ‘S knows that H’). Semantic Contextualism is built on theoretical ideas which result in a misguided characterisation of, and response to, external world scepticism.

I will now turn my focus onto AI itself. By utilising conceptual resources taken from

Contextualism, I will argue that AI only succeeds in transmitting warrant from its premises to its conclusion, and is thus only a cogent argument, when it is interpreted as an argument for context-restricted (as opposed to context-unrestricted) scepticism.

Though this will motivate adopting a Contextualist resolution of the sceptical problem, it will not provide motivation for a Semantic form of Contextualism. As we will see, Part 2 lends support to an epistemic form of Contextualism.

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Part 2

Diagnosing The Argument from Ignorance: Invariantist and

Contextualist Presuppositions and Transmission of Warrant

0. Introduction

In Part 2 of my thesis, I will demonstrate that the Argument from Ignorance fails to transmit warrant from its premises to its conclusion when it is viewed as an argument for invariantist (context-unrestricted) scepticism. When viewed as an argument for context-restricted scepticism, it successfully transmits warrant to its conclusion. My treatment of AI, in both its invariantist and context-restricted interpretations, can, I will argue, uphold my commitment to Epistemic Closure.

I turn to this discussion now because the treatment of AI which I develop here utilises aspects of Williams’ theoretical diagnosis of, and Epistemic Contextualist response to, scepticism. The discussion in Part 2 will thus lead to a deeper analysis of Williams’ position, which will be developed in Part 3. In Part 3, I will demonstrate that Williams’ Epistemic Contextualism fares much better as a response to external world scepticism when compared to the Semantic versions of

Contextualism discussed in Part 1.

1. Epistemic Closure and Transmission of Warrant

Transmission failure has been used to explain what goes wrong in certain epistemological arguments which are deductively valid, rest on plausible premises, yet fail to comprise cogent arguments. For example, Moore’s Proof of An External

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World54 and The McKinsey Paradox55 have both been diagnosed as failing to successfully transmit the warrant on offer for their respective premises to their respective conclusions (for example, see Davies, 1998, 2000, 2003a and 2003b and

Wright, 2000 and 2003). In this discussion, I will focus on Moore’s Proof and extend the discussion of transmission and transmission failure onto the sceptical Argument from Ignorance.

The discussion of Transmission of Warrant has, primarily, arisen in connection with another epistemic principle, that of closure under known entailment. As we have seen, this principle states that:

Epistemic Closure: If S knows that (proposition) p, and S knows that p

entails (proposition) q, then S knows that q.56

Straight forward examples of knowledge being extended from a known proposition, coupled with a known entailment to the entailed proposition, highlight Epistemic

Closure’s intuitiveness. For example:

(1) I know that I am currently sat down.

(2) I know that if I am currently sat down then I am not currently standing

up.

(3) I know that I am not currently standing up.

Prima facie, this seems like an entirely plausible way of extrapolating from one’s original pieces of knowledge.

54 See (Moore, 1959, section VII). 55 See McKinsey (1991). 56 See footnote 3 for literature offered in support of this formulation of Epistemic Closure.

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Nevertheless, there are some valid arguments which incorporate Epistemic Closure which are, nonetheless, unconvincing. Moore’s (1959) Proof of an External World, though deductively valid and incorporating highly plausible premises, is often viewed as such as argument.

Moore’s Proof (MP)

(M1) Here is a hand and here is another.

(M2) That here is a hand and here is another entails that an external world

exists.

(M3) An external world exists.

Moore offers MP as an argument against metaphysical idealism; the position that the only real entities are minds and their properties.57 MP takes a consequence of idealism (that objects such as hands do not exist) and offers the denial of this as a premise in support of an anti-idealist conclusion. MP, as Moore presents it, is not necessarily an argument in favour of an anti-sceptical conclusion, for it does not concern our knowledge of the world. Moore clarifies this when he states that

‘I have sometimes distinguished between two different propositions, each

of which has been made by some philosophers, namely (1) the proposition

“there are no material things” and (2) the proposition “Nobody knows for

certain that there are any material things”. And in…‘Proof of an External

World’… I implied with regard to the first of these propositions that it

could be proved to be false in such a way as this; namely, by holding up

one of your hands and saying “This hand is a material thing; therefore there

57 This interpretation of Moore’s Proof is supported by Baldwin (1990, chapter 9, §5) and Sosa (2007).

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is at least one material thing”. But with regard to the second of the two

propositions… I do not think I have ever implied that it could be proved to

be false in any such simple way’ (Moore, 1942, 668, original emphasis).

Nonetheless, Moore does state that, though he cannot offer a proof in favor of (M1), he does know (M1) (see 1959, 150). For when he makes claims such as ‘I have in my hand some sheets of paper with writing on them’, he, at the time of making such claims, has the evidence of his senses on which he bases such a claim (see 1959, see

227 and 243). In the same way, when making the claim ‘Here is a hand and here is another’, Moore will take it that he has the evidence of his senses in support of this claim and, therefore, is in a position to know premise (M1). So, though MP (as

Moore presents it) is not concerned with external world scepticism, it still represents an anti-sceptical position because Moore takes it that he does know (M1) and, by extension, can know (M3). By utilising Epistemic Closure, one can argue that, given that one knows (M1), and given that one knows that (M1) and (M2) entail (M3), one can know (M3). However, MP is often considered to be unconvincing as an argument against idealism and, by extension, unconvincing as an argument against external world scepticism.58 This is even though it is a deductively valid argument which makes use of highly plausible premises.

As we have seen, another argument which incorporates Epistemic Closure is the

Argument from Ignorance:

Argument from Ignorance (AI)

(S1) S doesn’t know that ~B.

(S2) If S doesn’t know that ~B, then S doesn’t know that H.

58 See, for example, Wright (1985 and 2002).

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(S3) S doesn’t know that H.

Part of the supposed significance of AI is that our ordinary proposition, ‘I have hands’, could be swapped for any proposition concerning an external world object. Given this, AI threatens to undermine all our knowledge claims concerning external world objects. Of course, one could respond to AI by denying that knowledge is closed under known entailment.59 Such people will assert that, even if S does not know that ~B, S can still be said to know that H; an untenable result for anyone committed to Epistemic Closure.60

Alternatively, one could argue that S can be said to know that ~B, and so reject premise (S1). This kind of response to AI can come in two basic forms: on the one hand, one could think that in certain contexts, S can be said to know that ~B

(and that H) even though she lacks such knowledge in distinct contexts (this represents a Contextualist response to AI61); on the other hand, one could think that S is always in a position to know that ~B (and that H), and so reject premise

(S1) altogether.62 The focus of this thesis is on the Contextualist response to AI.

Thus, we have two arguments, MP and AI, which both incorporate plausible premises (namely, (M1) and (S1)) and the (highly plausible) Principle of Epistemic

Closure. My aim is to show that AI, even though it satisfies the conditions for

Epistemic Closure, fails to transmit the warrant in support of its premises to its

59 The two main proponents of this view are Robert Nozick (1981) and Fred Dretske (1970). 60 For those who uphold Epistemic Closure (or some broadly equivalent formulation) see DeRose (1995, 2000, 2009, 2010), Williams (1996), Stroud (1984), Cohen (1988, 1999, 2000) and Hawthorne (2004). 61 See, for example, DeRose (1995, 2000, 2009, 2010), Cohen (1988, 1999, 2000) and Williams (1996, 2001, 2004). 62 Such a view will be supported by those who offer a safety theory of justification (see, for example, Pritchard (2007), (2008) and (2009) and Sosa (1999)), those who offer a Epistemological Disjunctivist view (see, for example, Pritchard (2012) and Haddock and MacPherson (2008)) and those who support a Moorean-style response to AI (see, for example, Moore (1959) and Pryor (2000) and (2004)).

105 conclusion. This method therefore relies on a distinction between Epistemic Closure and what we can call Epistemic Transmission.

Pritchard asserts that Epistemic Closure expresses the idea that ‘knowledge always transfers across known entailments’ whilst Epistemic Transmission ‘makes the extra demand that the knowledge that transfers across the known entailment should also preserve what Wright refers to as the “cogency” of the argument, which is its aptitude to produce rational conviction’ (see Pritchard, 2002a, 281-282 and Wright,

2000, 140). Pritchard therefore makes a distinction between knowledge transference and knowledge transmission.

Discussing Epistemic Closure and Epistemic Transmission in terms of warrant, rather than knowledge, is helpful. Wright, for example, states that Epistemic

Transmission is, roughly, the idea that ‘to acquire a warrant for the premises of a valid argument and to recognise its validity is to acquire – perhaps for the first time – a warrant to accept the conclusion’ (Wright, 2000, 141). This is opposed to the

‘weaker’ Epistemic Closure principle, which concerns the idea that ‘whenever there is warrant for the premises of a valid argument, there is warrant for the conclusion too’ (2000, 140).

Pritchard (2011) offers an approximate formulation of a principle for Epistemic

Transmission:

‘If S knows that p on the basis of supporting grounds G, and S

competently deduces q from p (thereby coming to believe q while retaining

her knowledge that p), then G is sufficient to support S’s knowledge that q’

(Pritchard, 2011, 542).

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The main difference between the principle of Epistemic Closure and the principle of

Epistemic Transmission is that, whilst Epistemic Closure simply states that q is known, the principle of Epistemic Transmission ‘specifies the manner in which this proposition is known. In particular, it specifies that the very same grounds which epistemically support knowledge of the entailing proposition will also support knowledge of the entailed proposition. This difference ensures that the transmission principle is more demanding than the closure principle’ (2011, 543).

We can offer up some necessary and sufficient conditions for Epistemic

Transmission in order to clarify the distinction between Epistemic Transmission and

Epistemic Closure.

Successful Transmission of Warrant:63

S’s warrant for p (based on evidence e) transmits to p’s logical

consequence q at time t1 if:

64 (a) At t1, S is warranted in believing p based on e.

(b) At t1, S knows that p entails q.

(b).

It is condition (c) which distinguishes between Epistemic Closure and Epistemic

Transmission, for there can be cases which uphold Epistemic Closure which do not satisfy condition (c). However, there is little in the literature which works to clarify the ‘in virtue of’ relation utilised in condition (c). Chris Tucker does

63 The following are adapted from Moretti and Piazza (2013a, section 2). 64 We can assume that p is true for the present discussion.

107 give some indication of what he takes the ‘in virtue of’ relation to be, stating that it acts ‘as a placeholder for… [whatever] causal relation(s) [are] required for transmission’ (Tucker, 2010, 500).

One possible reason for characterising the ‘in virtue of’ relation as a causal relation is to connect it to the literature on the epistemic basing relation. Epistemic basing relations are those relations ‘obtaining [between] a reason and a belief when the reason is the reason for which the belief is held’ (Korcz, 1997, 171). There are different analyses of such relations on offer in the literature, with ‘the standard view

[being] that the correct analysis of the basing relation will be some sort of causal analysis’ (1997, 171). However, such causal analyses are not without their problems.65 I will leave detailing such problems aside, though it should be pointed out that drawing a link between a causal analysis of the ‘in virtue of’ relation and current causal analyses of the epistemic basing relation may invite similar problems with the former as have been directed at the latter.

However, it may be possible to sidestep such issues by discussing Epistemic

Transmission in terms of propositional, as opposed to doxastic, warrant. Roderick

Firth (1978) offers an explanation of the difference between these two types of warrant. Say there is evidence, e1, for a proposition, p. Where e1 is held by some subject, S, S has a propositional warrant for p. This is regardless of whether S believes p or not. Propositional warrant is therefore constituted by a certain

(sufficient) amount of evidence which is, in some sense, available to the subject and which is in favour of the proposition in question. On the other hand, S has doxastic

65 For discussions of such problems, see Korcz (1997 and 2010).

108 warrant for p where S both believes that p and rationally believes66 that p based on the suitable available evidence, e1.67

By talking of Epistemic Transmission in terms of propositional, as opposed to doxastic, warrant, we are interested in when the proposition in question (in this case, q) would be warranted for S. But this says nothing of whether the proposition in question is believed by S or not. And given that basing relations are said to be those relations obtaining between a reason and a belief when the reason is the reason for which the belief is held, discussing Epistemic Transmission in terms of propositional warrant helps to draw a distinction between the ‘in virtue of’ relation and epistemic basing relations.

This is also in line with Martin Davies’ discussion of Epistemic Transmission, which concerns propositional warrant (see Davies, 2009, 338). Wright, on the other hand, characterizes Epistemic Transmission in terms of doxastic warrant (see Wright,

2000, 140). Moretti and Piazza (2013b) suggest that Wright’s conception of

Transmission and Transmission failure works with doxastic warrant regarding perfectly rational subjects in order to ‘speak of’ the corresponding propositional warrant ‘that we (non-ideally rational beings) would possess in the same situation’

(Moretti and Piazza, 2013b, 2484). In this way, what a perfectly rational subject would believe in some situation is thought to correspond to what we (non-ideally rational beings) should believe in such a situation.

66 By ‘rationally believes’ I take it that S does not rationally believe p where S believes p based on e1, but also believes ~p based on e1 or is aware of some other available evidence, e2, which supports ~p to the same degree or more than e1 supports p. This is not an exhaustive description of rational belief, but will suffice for the present purposes. 67 As such, doxastic warrant seems to presuppose propositional warrant, meaning propositional warrant may be the more basic kind of warrant. But this is not uncontentious. For example, see John Turri (2010) who asserts that doxastic warrant is the more basic kind of warrant, and Johnathan Kvanvig and Christopher Menzel (1990) who claim that propositional warrant is the more basic kind of warrant. I will park this issue, as it is not essential to the following discussion.

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1.1 Transmission Failure in Moore’s Proof

Martin Davies argues that Moore’s Proof (MP) fails to transmit warrant from its premises to its conclusion. He takes transmission failure to be the ‘analogue, within the thought of a single subject, of the dialectical phenomenon of begging the question’ (Davies, 2000, 394). Given that my response to AI will incorporate ideas from Davies’ treatment of MP, I will now spend some time explaining Davies’ own position.

1.2 Davies’ Limitation Principle

Davies offers a principle for limiting transmission of warrant in deductively valid arguments such as MP. Davies’ (2000) proposed limitation principle develops from a discussion of what it is to beg the question.68 What is important for begging the question is the particular way in which the evidence that is available supports the premises of the argument.

An example which illustrates this can be taken from Wright (2000). This involves a subject, S, who sees (at least what appears to be) a football match in progress. Whilst

S watches, one of the players drives the ball in to the back of the net, and the crowd cheers in response. Wright asks, ‘Is all that evidence that a goal has been scored?’

(Wright, 2000, 142).

The answer is ‘yes’, in normal circumstances. But ‘no’ if, for example, you happen to know that a television crew is currently filming a scene for a film (2000, 142). As such, one’s background assumptions impact whether particular pieces of evidence provide warrant for particular beliefs. Where your background assumption is that

‘this is just a shot being taken for a film; it isn’t a real football match’, the evidence

68 Davies makes use of Jackson’s account of begging the question. See Jackson (1987, especially 107- 112).

110 in favour of the proposition ‘a goal has just been scored’ will be no evidence. But where your background assumption is that ‘this is a genuine football match’, this same evidence will count as evidence in favour of this proposition.

So, we can imagine a case where a speaker wishes to offer an argument for a conclusion, C, to a hearer who is not already convinced of the truth of C. Suppose that A is one of the argument’s premises. Davies, and Jackson, asserts that, in advancing the argument, the speaker advertises that she has evidence of a certain kind in support of premise A. This evidence supports A relative to the speaker’s background assumptions (Davies, 2000, 396).

But suppose the evidence does not support premise A relative to the hearer’s background assumptions. In this case, advancing the argument will not be effective in convincing the hearer of the truth of C, given that this evidence does not support

(at least) one of the argument’s premises for the hearer. From this, Davies concludes that there can be cases where one who doubts the truth of an argument’s conclusion would have background beliefs relative to which the evidence on offer for that argument’s premises ‘would be no evidence’ (Davies, 2000, 396 quoting Jackson,

1987, 111). Appealing to A would be, therefore, useless in convincing those who doubt the truth of the argument’s conclusion, and so the argument is said to beg the question (see Davies, 2000, 397 and Jackson, 1987, 112).

It is this account of begging the question which Davies takes to be related to the phenomena of transmission failure. From this discussion, Davies develops his

(first69) Limitation Principle:

69 Davies has a second Limitation Principle (see 2000, 409-412) which works to restrict warrant transmission in arguments which deal with ‘armchair’ (or a priori) justification, rather than the perceptual justification at play in MP.

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Davies’ Limitation Principle (LP): Epistemic warrant cannot be transmitted

from the premises of a valid argument to its conclusion if, [(i)] for one of

the premises, the warrant for that premise counts as a warrant only against

the background of certain assumptions and [(ii)] acceptance of those

assumptions cannot be rationally combined with doubt about the truth of

the conclusion (2000, 402).

Davies interprets the notion of ‘rational combination’ such that 'a thinker cannot rationally combine acceptance of A with doubt about B only when doubt about B immediately constitutes a reason for not accepting A' (2000, 403, original emphasis).

I will now explain how Davies uses LP to argue that transmission fails in MP.70

1.3 Why Transmission Fails in Moore’s Proof

We have previously said that, though MP is a deductively valid argument with plausible premises, MP seems to fail to comprise a convincing argument when it is interpreted as an argument against external world scepticism. I will assume that the reader agrees with this statement in the following discussion. Davies offers one way to explain what goes wrong in MP. This explanation focuses on the idea of transmission failure. Given Davies’ formulation of LP above, in order to see whether

MP satisfies LP we first need to investigate what background assumption one would have to have in order for one to have a warranted belief in (M1).

70 Davies’ Limitation Principle and what Wright calls his ‘information-dependence template’ seem to capture the same kind of transmission failure: ‘A body of evidence, e, is an information-dependent justification for a particular proposition p if whether e justifies p depends on what one has by way of collateral information, i. […] Such a relationship is always liable to generate examples of transmission failure: it will do so just when the particular e, p, and i have the feature that needed elements of the relevant i are themselves entailed by p (together perhaps with other warranted premises). In that case, any warrant supplied by e for p will not be transmissible to those elements of i' (Wright, 2003, 59). I focus on Davies’ Limitation Principle because it is explicitly concerned with Transmission failure within arguments. And, given that I want to extend the discussion of Transmission failure to AI, Davies’ formulation is simpler work with.

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Moore’s warrant in support of belief in (M1) is gained through his perceptual evidence in favour of this belief: the evidence of his senses supports beliefs in propositions such as (M1). But one’s perceptual evidence only counts as evidence in favour of the proposition ‘Here is a hand and here is another’ if one assumes that there is an external world, with external world objects in it (objects distinct to objects existing only in the mind of the believer). Thus, Davies takes the background assumption which is at work in an epistemological interpretation of MP to be: '(my not doubting) that there is an external world' (2000, 401). Call this A.

Davies claims that when one accepts A, one’s perceptual experiences add up to a very good warrant for believing premise (M1), ‘Here is a hand and here is another’

(2000, 401). Thus, for one of MP’s premises, (M1), the warrant for that premise counts as a warrant only against the background of certain assumptions (i.e. the assumption that an external world exists). As such, MP satisfies condition (i) of

Davies’ LP.

What of condition (ii) of Davies’ LP? The conclusion of MP is 'An external world exists'. Call this B. Does doubt about B immediately constitute a reason for not accepting A? Yes; for you cannot at the same time doubt that there is an external world whilst not doubting that there is an external world. These two claims directly contradict one another, so holding both simultaneously would be irrational.71 Hence, in the case of MP, doubt about B does immediately constitute a reason for not accepting A and so acceptance of A cannot be rationally combined with doubt about

71 This could be strengthened to say ‘It is impossible for one to hold both simultaneously’. But the weaker of these two claims suffices. I am indebted to David Liggins for raising this point.

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B. In this way, MP also satisfies condition (ii) of LP and can be said to fail to provide its conclusion with warrant.72

Going back to our necessary and sufficient conditions for Transmission of warrant, we can say that Transmission fails in MP given that condition (c) cannot be satisfied.

To recap, these conditions are as follows: S’s warrant for p (based on evidence e) transmits to p’s logical consequence q at time t1 if: (a) At t1, S is warranted in believing p based on e; (b) At t1, S knows that p entails q; (c) At t1, S is warranted in believing q in virtue of the satisfaction of (a) and (b).

Condition (c) cannot be satisfied by MP because S’s belief in the proposition ‘An external world exists’, (M3), cannot be warranted in virtue of the satisfaction of conditions (a) and (b). Davies’ diagnosis of MP highlights why this is the case: if one must assume (M3) in order for the evidence on offer for (M1) to count as a warrant for belief in (M1), then one cannot then use (M1) as a way to support belief in (M3). Doing so begs the question because one is assuming (M3) in order to warrant (M1), and then attempting to use (M1) in order to warrant (M3).

On the other hand, MP can still be said to satisfy the conditions for Epistemic

Closure. For, so long as one does assume (M3), one’s perceptual evidence will warrant belief in (M1), meaning that condition (a) is satisfied. And so long as one does recognise that (M1) entails (M3), condition (b) will be satisfied. And given that conditions (a) and (b) are taken to be necessary and sufficient for the satisfaction of

Epistemic Closure, MP can be said to uphold the Epistemic Closure principle.

72 That is, MP fails to provide S with either a first-time warrant (if the conclusion is not antecedently warranted for S) or an additional warrant (if the conclusion is antecedently warranted for S). See Moretti and Piazza (2013b) on the different types of warrant which can transmit.

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In other words, one can offer MP as an anti-sceptical argument and uphold Epistemic

Closure because, so long as one is warranted in believing (M1) (which one will be if one assumes (M3)) and so long as one knows that (M1) entails (M3), then one will have some warrant for belief in (M3). In which case, Epistemic Closure is satisfied.

But the warrant for (M1) cannot transmit to (M3) because this warrant requires one to assume (M3) at the outset. Using Pritchard’s terminology, though warrant is transferred in MP, warrant is not transmitted.

All this is not to say that Davies’ conception of transmission failure is undisputed.

For example, Helen Beebee (2001) argues that Davies is wrong to claim that MP fails to transmit warrant to its conclusion because, if you seriously doubted the truth of MP’s conclusion, then you would not take yourself to be warranted in believing the first premise of the argument to begin with. Jessica Brown agrees with this complaint when she states that ‘if one’s doubt about the conclusion prevents one’s sensory evidence from constituting warrant for the first premise [as it does in the case of the sceptic], then this cannot be a case in which one has a warrant to believe the premise but [that warrant] fails to transmit to the conclusion’ (Brown, 2005b, 6).

Davies responds to this worry by claiming that, in cases of question begging, we need to focus our attention on the situation of the speaker rather than that of the hearer (2000, 400, footnote 27). And the speaker would, presumably, take themselves to be warranted in believing the first premise of the argument. So, the question is whether this warrant successfully transmits to the conclusion of the argument. And the answer which Davies offers is that this warrant does not transmit given that acceptance of the background assumption which is needed for this warrant to count as a warrant for the first premise of MP is incompatible with doubt about the conclusion of MP. So the speaker, by making certain assumptions (assumptions

115 which need to be made in order for the premises of the argument to be warranted), assumes something which one would not accept if one doubted the truth of the conclusion. And in this way, the speaker dialectically begs the question against one who doubts the conclusion of the argument, and thus the argument fails to transmit warrant.73

2. Transmission of Warrant and the Argument from Ignorance

Whilst the phenomenon of transmission failure has been discussed in relation to the anti-sceptical MP, sceptical arguments such as AI have (so far) been left out of the discussion. My aim is to extend the present discourse on Epistemic Transmission and transmission failure to AI.

2.1 The Argument from Ignorance

In regards to MP, we have looked at whether or not one’s warrant for the first premise of this argument transmits to MP’s conclusion. According to Davies, it does not. In AI, S is not warranted in believing ~B. So, it may seem that the discussion of

Epistemic Transmission, and Transmission failure, as applied to AI should play on whether S’s lack of warrant for her belief that ~B transmits to her belief that H. But this is not a correct interpretation of what we should investigate when considering the idea of transmission failure in relation to AI. Firstly, this discussion would have to argue that a ‘lack of warrant’ can transmit, or fail to transmit, in an argument. But a ‘lack of warrant’ would appear to comprise a negative property, and I do not want

73 Note that Davies’ (2000) response to Beebee’s (2001) criticism is published in an earlier text because Beebee first aired this concern at a conference with Davies. Davies’ response was subsequently published in a book which was released before Beebee’s paper on Davies’ position. I am indebted to Helen Beebee for clarifying this.

116 to make such a substantial and contentious metaphysical assumption which I cannot defend.74

Discussing the idea of Epistemic Transmission and transmission failure in relation to

AI in this way also overlooks Davies’ claim that in cases of question begging, we need to focus our attention on the situation of the speaker rather than that of the hearer. So, the question is not whether S’s lack of warrant for her belief that ~B transmits to her belief that H. Rather, what is important here is, not S’s own warrant for her beliefs, but the speaker’s warrant or reasons for claiming that S does not know that ~B. What needs to be examined is whether the speaker, in this case the person who is offering AI as an argument against external world knowledge, has any warrant for AI’s premises, and whether this warrant transmits to AI’s conclusion. If this warrant does not transmit, then we can say that AI fails to transmit warrant to its conclusion and the non-sceptic is therefore not forced into submitting to the radical sceptical claim captured in (S3).

To help see this, we can look again at AI with the speaker’s point of view made more explicit. Where ‘I’ refers to the speaker’s point of view, AI can be read as:

(S1) I am warranted in believing that [S doesn’t know that ~B]

(S2) That S doesn’t know that ~B entails that S doesn’t know that H

(S3) I am warranted in believing that [S doesn’t know that H]

The question we now need to ask is whether the speaker’s supposed warrant for premise (S1) transmits to AI’s conclusion, (S3). If not, then AI can be said to fail to transmit warrant to (S3) and so does not satisfyingly justify its sceptical conclusion.

74 For a discussion on negative properties, see Armstrong (1978, especially section 14, part II).

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One way to interpret the scope of AI is to view this argument as one which demonstrates that we are never in a position to know even very mundane things concerning external world objects. That S cannot know that she has hands, given that she does not know that she is not a brain in a vat, is supposed to represent a general problem for our knowledge of the world. Thus, this reading of AI is intended as a context-unrestricted barrier to our knowledge of the world.

This means that the warrant on offer in support of (S1) must be warrant which provides such support in all epistemic contexts and for all epistemic subjects. The first part of my treatment of AI will therefore look at what can warrant (S1) in this context-unrestricted way. I will then examine whether this warrant transmits to AI’s conclusion.

2.2 The Argument from Ignorance as Invariantist Scepticism

When investigating what background assumptions may be needed in order to warrant premise (S1) on our context-unrestricted reading of AI, we are naturally drawn to

Michael Williams’ (1996) theoretical diagnosis of scepticism. Williams proposes that context-unrestricted (what he calls invariantist) scepticism rests on certain theoretically loaded assumptions. Once these assumptions are made explicit, argues

Williams, the invariantist sceptic cannot make use of them without offering positive reasons for why these background assumptions should be accepted. This is to place the burden of proof at the invariantist sceptic’s feet.75

Williams (1996) considers many forms of invariantist scepticism, but all, he argues, have certain epistemological assumptions in common. Such assumptions concern the

75 For a fuller discussion of Williams’ theoretical diagnosis of scepticism, see Part 3. I should also make it clear that I am not committed to the view that Williams’ theoretical diagnosis of scepticism works to undermine all forms of invariantist scepticism. My discussion is restricted to AI-style scepticism.

118 structure of justification and justifying inferences. Williams asserts that in challenging our knowledge of the world in its entirety, the invariantist sceptic wants us to attempt to trace this knowledge to a more fundamental kind of knowledge; a kind of knowledge which would be available to us even if we did not know anything about the external world. And what could this be if not experiential knowledge?

However, sceptical hypotheses are meant to demonstrate the impossibility of epistemically grounding our knowledge of the world on our experiential knowledge.

They do so by presenting us with possible cases where one’s experiential knowledge remains intact, but in which one cannot know anything about the external world.

And so an unbridgeable gap between our knowledge of the world and our experiential knowledge is revealed. The invariantist sceptic concludes that we are never in a position to know anything about the world; for this kind of knowledge is epistemically insecure and cannot be made secure by tracing it to another kind of knowledge altogether. But in asking us to be able to ‘trace’ one kind of knowledge onto another, more secure, kind of knowledge, the invariantist sceptic implicitly makes use of both a foundationalist conception of justification and realism concerning the objects of knowledge.

Foundationalism, at its core, asserts that all justified beliefs are split into two basic kinds: whilst some beliefs derive their justification from other beliefs, some beliefs are non-inferentially justified. Thus, justification has a specific structure, with some beliefs acting as the non-inferentially justified grounds upon which other beliefs derive their justification from. But, the invariantist sceptic not only endorses a foundationalist theory of justification (and so knowledge), she also adds to this a theory of what kinds of beliefs are capable of being the justificatory foundation of our knowledge of the world. This is, according to this sceptic, our beliefs about one’s

119 experiences. This is why sceptical hypotheses present such a threatening challenge to our knowledge of the world: the invariantist sceptic takes it that one’s belief concerning an external object p must, if it is to be justified, derive its justification from one’s experiences of p. But, the invariantist sceptic continues, hypotheses such as the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis demonstrate that one’s experiential beliefs are incapable of providing such necessary justification; for one could have such experiences even if there is no external object p whatsoever.

Therefore, the invariantist sceptic’s foundationalism purports that some beliefs

(beliefs concerning experience of external world objects) are intrinsically more secure than other beliefs (beliefs about external world objects). Given this epistemological status, which is fixed regardless of context, propositions are separated into either privileged or problematic classes. The invariantist sceptic takes it that our beliefs about the world form part of the problematic class of beliefs, and so must be justified via beliefs in the privileged class, i.e. beliefs about experiences.

This epistemic hierarchy adheres to what Williams calls the doctrine of Epistemic

Priority of experiential knowledge over knowledge of the world.76

Moreover, in talking about our ‘knowledge of the world’, and attempting to trace it to another more epistemically secure kind of knowledge, the invariantist sceptic implicitly accepts what Williams refers to as Epistemological Realism (see 1996, section 3). Epistemological Realism is realism about the objects of epistemological inquiry. It states that propositions have a fixed epistemic status, a status which is determined by the content of the proposition (such as whether it concerns external world objects or one’s experiences of such objects). And given this fixed status,

76 Williams takes the term ‘Epistemic Priority’ from Stroud. See Williams (1996, 76) and Stroud (1984, 140-141).

120 propositions which fall into one ‘kind’ can be examined as a whole. Thus, our

‘knowledge of external world objects’ and our ‘experiential knowledge’ constitute two distinct kinds of knowledge which are both susceptible to uniform theoretical analysis.

The invariantist sceptic then wheels out the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis as a general block to our knowledge of external world objects. For she takes it that this hypothesis demonstrates the impossibility of epistemically grounding one’s knowledge of one’s hands (an external world object) on one’s knowledge of one’s experiences of one’s hands: if a brain in a vat can have such experiences even though she does not have hands, one’s experiences of one’s hands cannot adequately support the belief that ‘I have hands’. And given that our knowledge of external world objects is said to constitute a kind of knowledge susceptible to uniform analysis, this result is taken to indicate that we cannot be said to have any knowledge of external world objects whatsoever. Invariantist scepticism is the result.

However, implicit in this line of reasoning is another background assumption. This is what Williams calls the Neutrality of Experience doctrine (1996, 73). This doctrine states that one’s experiences of p are evidentially neutral with respect to the propositions p and ~p (where p stands for some claim concerning the external world/an external world object). The brain-in-a-vat hypothesis brings this idea into focus by presenting us with a case in which one has all the same experiential evidence of one’s hands, but is actually a handless brain in a vat. Given this, the

121 sceptic takes it that one’s experiences of one’s hands is evidentially neutral with respect to both H and ~H.77 78

2.3 Transmission Failure in the Invariantist Argument from Ignorance

Using Williams’ theoretical diagnosis of invariantist scepticism, we can build a picture of how one can warrant premise (S1) of AI when AI is interpreted as an argument for invariantist scepticism.

The invariantist sceptic will argue that she is warranted in believing that S does not know that ~B (premise (S1)) because S’s experiences of her external environment are evidentially neutral with respect to B and ~B; her evidence of the world around her does not support belief in ~B to a greater degree than belief in B (from Neutrality of Experience). And given that the invariantist sceptic assumes that S’s beliefs in the external world must, if they are to be justifiably believed, derive their justification from her beliefs about experiences (from Epistemic Priority), S cannot be said to have a justified belief in ~B. Thus, S does not know that ~B. Moreover, because the invariantist sceptic takes it that knowledge claims have a fixed epistemic status (from

Epistemological Realism), S is taken to lack knowledge of ~B in all contexts and at all times.

The rest of AI then makes use of the Epistemic Closure principle in order to argue that, if S does not know that ~B, then S does not know that H. And given that AI is

77 Williams rejects both Epistemic Priority and Epistemological Realism (I will discuss this in detail in Part 3). But he does accept Neutrality of Experience (see 1996, 74). However, there are those who reject Neutrality of Experience. See for example, McDowell’s Epistemological Disjunctivism, which argues that S’s seeing that P (as opposed to it merely looking to S as if P) gives S an indefeasible reason for believing that P. Thus, S can know that P at time t1 on the basis of her seeing that P at time t1. The possibility of delusion does not therefore, for McDowell, undermine one’s ability to know. For in a case of delusion, it merely looks to S as if P – S does not actually see P. As such, McDowell would reject the possibility that one could see that P and yet form a false belief that P. See McDowell (1982) and Haddock and MacPherson (2008). Since a discussion of Epistemological Disjunctivism is not necessary for the ensuing discussion I will not discuss the pros and cons of such a position here. 78 I am indebted to Martin Davies for drawing my attention to the role of the Neutrality doctrine in warranting premise (S1) when AI is read as an argument for invariantist scepticism.

122 being read as an argument for invariantist scepticism, this sceptical result is said to hold for S (who represents any epistemic subject) at all times and in all kinds of epistemic context/situation.

We can now turn our attention to whether this invariantist reading of AI transmits warrant to its conclusion. To begin, we need to see whether condition (i) of Davies’

LP is satisfied for our invariantist reading of AI. This condition states that ‘for one of the premises, the warrant for that premise counts as a warrant only against the background of certain assumptions’ (Davies, 2000, 402). What is the warrant on offer for premise (S1) of AI? Presumably, the sceptic will take this to be something like: S cannot know that ~B because she cannot sufficiently justify her belief that ~B

(even if this belief is true).

As we have seen above, the invariantist sceptic thinks that S cannot justify her belief that ~B because the (invariantist) sceptic takes it that all of one’s beliefs concerning the external world must, if they are to be justifiably believed, derive their justification from experiential knowledge. But, importantly, experiential knowledge is insufficient to serve this purpose; for one could have all of one’s current experiences of the world and yet only form false beliefs about the world. Thus, the invariantist sceptic’s warrant for premise (S1) is only a warrant because: she takes it that our beliefs about, and so knowledge of, external world objects is epistemically grounded on our knowledge of experiences (from Epistemic Priority); she takes it that our experiences are evidentially neutral with regards to our beliefs about the world (from Neutrality of Experience); and, she takes it that our beliefs about the world are never sufficiently justified because, given the content of the propositions held within such beliefs, they must always ultimately seek their justification from experiential beliefs (from Epistemological Realism).

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Given these background assumptions, the invariantist sceptic will take it that she has warrant for premise (S1) of AI: that S cannot know that ~B because she has no evidence which sufficiently justifies this claim. Therefore, the invariantist sceptic’s warrant for premise (S1) of AI only counts as a warrant given her background assumptions: Epistemological Realism, Epistemic Priority and Neutrality of

Experience. Thus, invariantist AI satisfies condition (i) of Davies’ LP.

Now for condition (ii) of Davies’ LP. Take A to be the invariantist AI sceptic’s background assumptions: that of Epistemological Realism, Epistemic Priority and

Neutrality of Experience. And take C to be the invariantist AI sceptic’s conclusion,

‘S does not know that H’.79 If doubt about C immediately constitutes a reason for not accepting A, then condition (ii) of Davies’ LP will also be satisfied. So, does doubt about C immediately constitute a reason for not accepting A?

Yes. For accepting A is incompatible with ~C. According to A, the only justificatory grounds for one’s beliefs about, and hence knowledge of, the external world lie in one’s experiential knowledge; one’s beliefs about the external world must locate their justification from one’s experiential knowledge at all times and in all epistemic contexts; but experiential knowledge is insufficient to serve this purpose, for experiential knowledge cannot help one to rule out cases where one forms false beliefs concerning the world. But, doubting C is tantamount to claiming that there can be, or it is at least possible for there to be, cases where one does know something about the external world. And it would be contradictory to, in the same breath, claim that the only justificatory grounds for beliefs concerning the external world are insufficient but that one can, nonetheless, know something about the external

79 Because we are dealing with an invariantist reading of AI, this conclusion is meant to hold for S at all times (i.e., S is said to always lack knowledge of H).

124 world.80 Thus, doubt about C does immediately constitute reason for not accepting

A. As such, when one reads AI as an argument for invariantist scepticism, conditions

(i) and (ii) of Davies’ LP are satisfied and warrant is effectively blocked from transmitting from (the invariantist reading of) AI’s premises to its conclusion.

3. Restricting the Argument from Ignorance

However, there is another way to interpret AI. On this alternative interpretation, AI is viewed as an argument for context-restricted scepticism; scepticism which holds only in certain epistemic contexts. I will now outline this way to interpret AI, and show that this formulation succeeds in transmitting warrant from its premises to its conclusion.

3.1 Context-Sensitive Scepticism

Epistemological Realism and Epistemic Priority both capture context-invariant epistemological ideas. Epistemological Realism states that the content of a proposition contained within a belief determines its epistemic status; i.e. determines what it would take for such a belief to be properly justified. Because the content of propositions does not change from context to context, Epistemological Realism takes it that a belief’s epistemic status is fixed regardless of the contextual setting the belief has been formed in. Epistemic Priority then adds to this a theory of the epistemic relation between certain classes of belief. It states that beliefs about, and so knowledge of, inner experience are always epistemically prior to beliefs about, and so knowledge of, the external world. This hierarchy of justification is taken to be fixed, and thus not one susceptible to change given changes in epistemic context.

80 Assuming that holding a justified belief that p is necessary for knowledge that p.

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A context-restricted form of scepticism cannot, therefore, endorse either

Epistemological Realism or Epistemic Priority. However, the Neutrality of

Experience doctrine is compatible with a form of scepticism which restricts the sceptical result to a certain context of inquiry (allowing for knowledge of the external world in distinct epistemic contexts).81 In non-sceptical contexts of inquiry, the evidential neutrality of experiences does not undermine claims to know concerning the external world.82 Nonetheless, this doctrine can result in a loss of such knowledge when one is situated within an epistemic context in which all of one’s collateral knowledge and ordinary epistemic practices are stripped away. What one is left with, in this particular context, are certain experiences of the world and the question ‘Do such experiences, taken alone, support one’s beliefs about the world more than they support the negation of such beliefs?’ For example, in such a context, do one’s experiences of some external object p support belief in p to a higher degree than belief in ~p? Given that experiences are evidentially neutral, they will not by themselves support belief in p over belief in ~p. As such, within this context, one’s beliefs about external world objects will not be adequately justified. But this result is properly contained within this context because, in other epistemic contexts, our beliefs in external world objects will be supported by other means.

This means that there is a context-restricted form of external world scepticism which can be generated from the Neutrality of Experience doctrine alone. The AI sceptic is thus in a position to offer a context-restricted reading of her argument which states that, within a sceptical context of inquiry, she is warranted in asserting that S does not know that ~B. S’s experiences do not, by themselves, support belief in ~B over

81 This claim will be developed in greater detail in Part 3. 82 Why this is the case will also be discussed in greater detail in Part 3.

126 belief in B. The question to ask now is whether such a context-restricted reading of

AI does succeed in transmitting warrant. I will argue that it does.

3.2 Successful Transmission in the Restricted Argument from Ignorance

Davies’ LP states that ‘Epistemic warrant cannot be transmitted from the premises of a valid argument to its conclusion if, [(i)] for one of the premises, the warrant for that premise counts as a warrant only against the background of certain assumptions and

[(ii)] acceptance of those assumptions cannot be rationally combined with doubt about the truth of the conclusion’ (Davies, 2000, 402).

Regarding condition (i), our context-restricted reading of AI does satisfy this condition. The sceptic will offer the following claim in support of premise (S1) of

AI: S cannot know that ~B because she cannot sufficiently justify her belief that ~B

(even if this belief is true). This will count as a warrant in support of a context- restricted reading of (S1) when one endorses the view that there can be a distinctively sceptical context of inquiry in which Neutrality of Experience acts as the only epistemic constraint on our knowledge claims concerning the external world. In such a context, one will lack justification for one’s beliefs about the world precisely because one’s experiences of the world are evidentially neutral with respect to one’s beliefs about the world. And so premise (S1) will be warranted in such a context.

However, our context-restricted reading of AI does not satisfy condition (ii) of

Davies’ LP. For one can accept Neutrality of Experience and still rationally combine this with doubt about the truth of AI’s conclusion. That is, one can accept Neutrality of Experience and maintain that one is often in a position to be said to know that H.

Such a position is offered by Michael Williams’ Epistemic Contextualism. Williams

127 takes it that knowledge of H is possible in non-sceptical contexts of inquiry. Outside of the sceptical context, Williams takes it that the justificatory grounds for our knowledge claims concerning the external world is not reduced to our perceptual states. In which case, the evidential neutrality of our perceptual states is not sufficient to undermine our claims to know concerning the external world/external world objects (such as one’s claim to know that H).83 And given that both conditions of Davies’ LP are individually necessary for warrant to be effectively blocked in a valid argument, our context-restricted reading of AI can be said to transmit warrant to its conclusion because it does not satisfy condition (ii). Thus, unlike the invariantist reading of AI, AI can be offered up as a successful argument for external world scepticism when it is viewed as an argument for a context-restricted form of scepticism.

3.3 Upholding Epistemic Closure

We have said that an argument can be said to transmit warrant when it is possible to advance one’s knowledge (or set of justified beliefs) via this argument. If you are warranted in believing that p, and know that p entails q, and thereby, in virtue of these two facts, come to have a warranted belief in q, then transmission is upheld.

But Epistemic Closure can be upheld even in cases where transmission fails. MP provides such a case. One could have warranted beliefs in both MP’s first premise and conclusion, in line with Epistemic Closure. But, as Davies highlights, MP fails to transmit the warrant on offer for MP’s first premise to its conclusion. That this is so is because one must assume MP’s conclusion in order to have a warranted belief in MP’s first premise. And so this particular warrant does not transmit to MP’s conclusion.

83 Part 3 of this thesis will offer a detailed explication and clarification of Williams’ Contextualism.

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My treatment of AI can also be seen to preserve Epistemic Closure. My treatment of invariantist AI allows that the invariantist sceptic does have warrant for the premises and the conclusion of AI. This warrant is constituted by the invariantist sceptic’s acceptance of Epistemological Realism, Epistemic Priority and Neutrality of

Experience. Whilst these background assumptions work to warrant the sceptic’s beliefs in AI’s first premise and conclusion (in line with Epistemic Closure), the invariantist sceptic cannot use this argument to convince a doubter of the truth of

AI’s conclusion. That this is so is because someone who doubts invariantist AI’s conclusion will not be in a position to (rationally) accept the background assumptions which work to warrant invariantist AI’s premises. And so, though invariantist AI can uphold Epistemic Closure, it fails to transmit warrant and so fails to comprise a cogent sceptical argument.

Does this mean that the invariantist interpretation of AI begs the question in the way in which MP does? As we saw regarding MP, Davies takes it that MP’s conclusion must be assumed at the outset for one to be in a position to provide MP’s first premise with warrant. However, one need not antecedently assume invariantist AI’s conclusion in order to provide this interpretation of AI’s first premise with warrant.

In this way, invariantist AI doesn’t comprise an obvious case of begging the question though it can be diagnosed with transmission failure using Davies’ own theory. This may highlight a problem for Davies’ claim that transmission failure is the analogue, within the thought of a single subject, of the dialectical phenomenon of begging the question. My work on invariantist AI demonstrates that transmission failure may occur in arguments which do not beg the question, or at least do not beg the question in such an obvious sense as MP does.

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However, there is something dialectically strange about the invariantist interpretation of AI. This interpretation of the argument relies on background assumptions which could not be accepted by one who doubts invariantist AI’s conclusion. Moreover, AI does not present any grounds in support of these background assumptions or reasons as to why they should be accepted; they are simply presupposed by the invariantist sceptic in order to warrant AI’s first premise. Moreover, these background assumptions cannot be rationally combined with doubt about invariantist AI’s conclusion. Thus, invariantist AI will fail to convince the audience it is directed at; those who take it that we can (or it is at least possible for us to) know propositions such as H.

Alternatively, AI can be offered as an argument in favour of a context-restricted form of scepticism. This reading of AI can also be seen to preserve Epistemic

Closure. When our subject is situated within a sceptical epistemic context, the

Neutrality of Experience thesis undermines her ability to know that ~B and that H.

For in such a context, all of our subject’s beliefs concerning an external world object p must locate their justification from her perceptual experiences of p. And given that, within the sceptical context, all of our subject’s collateral knowledge and information is stripped away and she only has her experiences to go on, the evidential neutrality of her experiences is sufficient to undermine her ability to know both that ~B and that H (within this context).

However, when this subject is situated within more ordinary contextual settings, she is in a position to know both that ~B and that H. That this is so is because, outside of the sceptical context, the subject’s epistemic support for her beliefs concerning H

130 and ~B is not reduced solely to her perceptual experiences.84 And so, outside of the sceptical context the evidential neutrality of experience is not sufficient to undermine our subject’s knowledge that H and that ~B. Thus, depending on what context our subject is situated within, she either knows both that H and that ~B, or she knows neither that H nor that ~B. And so Epistemic Closure is preserved across contextual settings.

Thus, my new diagnosis of AI can preserve Epistemic Closure. This is true for both the invariantist and context-restricted interpretations of AI which I investigate.

4. Concluding Remarks

Part 2 of this thesis has demonstrated that only a context-restricted version of the

Argument from Ignorance succeeds in comprising a cogent argument for external world scepticism. This helps to undermine the legitimacy of an invariantist sceptical position and offers support for those who endorse a Contextualist response to AI.

However, the work I have done in Part 2 does not support a Semantic Contextualist interpretation and response to AI. As we saw in Part 1, Semantic Contextualism does not diagnose the sceptic with bringing in any contentious or false theoretical ideas about knowledge or justification. In fact, according to the Semantic Contextualist, the sceptic generates her sceptical conclusion from a simple (extreme) rise in the standards for truthful knowledge ascription: the specific mechanisms the sceptic utilises in doing this are said to be those that also determine standards for knowledge appraisal in more ordinary contextual settings. This means that Semantic

Contextualism does not draw any epistemically interesting distinction between

84 That a subject can know both that H and that ~B in non-sceptical contexts is something which is discussed in more detail in Part 3.

131 ordinary knowledge attributions/ordinary contexts of ascription and sceptical denials of knowledge/sceptical contexts of ascription. However, Part 2 shows that AI (in either its invariantist or context-restricted form) relies on ideas concerning justification which underscore a marked difference between sceptical denials of knowledge and ordinary claims to know.

Moreover, Part 2 demonstrates that it is not Epistemic Closure which decides whether or not AI is able to provide warrant to its sceptical conclusion, but

Epistemic Transmission. This means that we should not attack Epistemic Closure given that it can be used within arguments for external world scepticism, but look at the related role played by Epistemic Transmission. I will now turn my attention to an epistemic form of Contextualism, aspects of which were utilised in my treatment of

AI in Part 2.

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Part 3

Epistemic Contextualism’s Proper Defence of Everyday Anti-

Scepticism

0. Introduction

In this thesis, I explore Contextualist strategies for responding to external world scepticism, focusing on the kind of scepticism presented by the Argument from

Ignorance (AI). My aim is to investigate whether a form of Contextualism can respond to AI in a theoretically satisfying way which, specifically, does not result in a position which is overly concessive to scepticism. In Part 3, I will discuss

Williams’ distinct form of Contextualism, his Epistemic Contextualism. I will argue that this form of Contextualism, unlike the Semantic forms discussed in Part 1, does comprise a position which offers a theoretically satisfying response to external world scepticism which is not overly concessive to scepticism.

1. A Theoretical Diagnosis of Invariantist Scepticism

In Part 2, I use Michael Williams’s theoretical diagnosis of scepticism to illustrate what background assumptions one must make so that the warrant on offer for premise (S1) of AI counts as a warrant. I argue that the background assumptions one must make depends on the reading we give AI. If AI is taken to be an argument for invariantist scepticism (scepticism in all contexts and at all times) then one must assume Epistemological Realism, Epistemic Priority and Neutrality of Experience. I then reject this interpretation of AI, given that it fails to transmit warrant to its conclusion.

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However, this does not mean that we can reject AI altogether. For, there is another way to interpret the scope of AI. On this interpretation, AI is offered as an argument for a context-bound form of scepticism. This sceptical result is one which is anchored to a particular epistemic context; outside of this context of inquiry, scepticism does not hold. But within the sceptical context, our knowledge of the world (both ordinary and anti-sceptical) is undermined by AI.

Williams’ position is one which allows for such a context-sensitive form of scepticism. But is Williams’ position defensible? And does it retain enough of our anti-sceptical knowledge?

1.1 Discussion of the Components of Invariantist Scepticism

In Part 2, I show that the assumptions at work in invariantist scepticism are incompatible with what is required for warrant to transmit from AI’s premises to its conclusion. This, of course, leaves open whether invariantist scepticism has other ways of undermining our knowledge claims. To stay close to my concern, that of

Contextualism, I will forgo a discussion of alternative forms of argument for invariantist scepticism and now turn to consider how the remaining candidate for

Contextualism, Epistemic Contextualism, deals with invariantist scepticism.

Williams’ (1996) theoretical diagnosis of invariantist85 scepticism aims to show that sceptical arguments derive their force from theoretical ideas about knowledge which are not implicit in our ordinary conception of knowledge and which we do not have to accept. Williams takes it that the sceptic’s problem is ‘fully genuine, but only given certain theoretical ideas about knowledge and justification’ (1996, 37). His

85 Williams’ theoretical diagnosis of scepticism only deals with invariantist scepticism (that is, scepticism in all contexts and at all times). When talking about ‘scepticism’ or ‘the sceptic’ in this section, I am referring to invariantist scepticism and the invariantist sceptic.

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Epistemic form of Contextualism is then offered as an alternative position, one which disagrees with the invariantist sceptic about the nature of justification/knowledge.

Williams takes it to be extremely important to invariantist scepticism that the sceptic is aiming to assess all our knowledge of the world, all at once. The sceptic wants to investigate the totality of this knowledge. This is what Williams calls a Totality

Condition on a properly philosophical understanding of our knowledge of the world

(see 1996, 23 and Williams, 2004b, 462). And it is this which Williams takes to be

‘fundamental’ to the source of (invariantist) sceptical problems (1996, 91). For it leads to one of the sceptic’s most contentious and theoretically loaded ideas about knowledge. This is the idea that knowledge is susceptible to uniform analysis: the results from analysing one or a few instances of our knowledge of the world can be, according to the sceptic, extrapolated onto all such instances of knowledge.

Therefore, the sceptic thinks that the conclusions of her arguments, such as (the invariantist interpretation of) AI, can be extended to all instances of our knowledge of the world.

1.1.1 Epistemological Realism

The Totality Condition results in what Williams refers to as Epistemological

Realism. This is realism concerning the objects of epistemological inquiry. Williams says that Epistemological Realism is the idea that all instances of knowledge share some deep structural unity that allows all instances of this kind to be examined as a whole. Moreover, Epistemological Realism includes the idea that there are invariantist constraints on justification. On this picture, how a belief must be justified is determined by the propositional content of the belief. Because the content

135 of the belief does not change with context, neither does the epistemological status86 of the belief. But, it is not the details of the propositional content of the belief which are important. According to Williams, what determines the epistemic status of the belief is some ‘rather abstract’ features of the propositional content of the belief, such as whether the belief concerns ‘external objects’ or ‘experience’ (1996, 116).

This means that all beliefs about external world objects are taken to share a fixed, invariantist epistemic status. Thus, if it can be shown that one belief of this kind requires inferential justification (justifying via another belief) then all such beliefs of this kind will require the same kind of justification. The justificatory requirements and restrictions which apply to this kind of belief apply to it because the belief’s propositional content determines the epistemic status of the belief in question. As such, Epistemological Realism takes it that ‘every belief has an inalienable epistemic character which it carries with it wherever it goes and which determines where its justification must finally be sought’ (1996, 116).

But does our ordinary, pre-theoretical conception of knowledge or justification include the ideas at work in Epistemological Realism? If it doesn’t, then any sceptical argument/position which is seen to assume Epistemological Realism will be undermined, for invariantist scepticism is meant to arise from our ordinary, common-sense ideas about knowledge. This is, partly, where the power of sceptical problems supposedly comes from. For, if our common-sense ideas about knowledge or justification genuinely do promote sceptical worries, then we must either accept that such worries undermine our ability to know or we must do away with some

86 By ‘epistemological status’, I mean what it would take for the belief to be justified for it to be justifiably held by some subject.

136 common-sense ideas about knowledge and/or justification in order to get around the scepticism which results from these ideas.

This is what Williams calls the ‘Epistemologist’s Dilemma’ (see 1996, 22). The epistemologist who accepts the naturalness of the sceptic’s problem can either keep her ordinary conception of knowledge but lose such knowledge to the sceptic or she can reject scepticism but at the expense of denying some aspect of our ordinary ways of thinking about knowledge. Regarding this latter option, it is not clear how far away from scepticism it would be if we were to respond to scepticism by doing away with, or changing, some fundamental aspect of our ordinary ways of thinking about knowledge. So, conceding the naturalness of sceptical worries grants a lot to the sceptic.

Before proceeding, it would be well to discuss some misunderstandings of Williams’ position. For example, Brueckner takes Williams’ Epistemological Realism to be the thesis that the ‘epistemic status of a proposition is context-independent. Content determines status… and propositional content is context-invariant’ (Brueckner, 1994,

536). But, Brueckner asserts, if the ‘epistemic status’ in question concerns the proposition’s ‘justified’ or ‘unjustified’ status, then this would mean that

Epistemological Realism takes propositions to be the primary bearers of justification. This would mean that Epistemological Realism has it that a proposition will have the same status (justified or unjustified) in all contexts. The problem with this idea is that Foundationalism (the epistemic theory of justification which makes use of Epistemological Realism) should be construed as a position in which beliefs, not propositions, are the primary holders of the status of being justified or

137 unjustified. Given this, Brueckner thinks that a sensible Foundationalist will not accept Epistemological Realism.

However, this is not the correct interpretation of Williams’ Epistemological Realism.

Williams does state that Epistemological Realism is the thesis that the content of a proposition held within a belief determines this belief’s epistemic status. But this is not equivalent to the idea that the proposition itself is the holder of the property of being justified or unjustified. A proposition considered in complete abstraction cannot be either justified or unjustified. Rather, the content of the proposition determines what it would take for a belief which contains this proposition to be justified or unjustified. In short, Brueckner mistakes the idea that content alone determines the way in which a belief must be justified regardless of the context in which the belief is formed, for the idea that a proposition taken in complete abstraction is somehow said to hold the property of being justified or unjustified. It is the former idea which captures Epistemological Realism, and it is this idea which

Williams thinks invariantist scepticism presupposes.

Williams rejects Epistemological Realism because it is not entailed by our ordinary epistemic practices or ideas about knowledge/justification. Our ordinary epistemic practices do not in fact cohere with the idea that beliefs have an intrinsic, unchanging epistemic status which determines how, and if, they can be justified. Williams states that the way inquiry and justification precede in common life and in theoretical science is more complex than that captured by the invariantist epistemic relations posited by Epistemological Realism. The constraints on justification are many and various, and they shift with context in a way that is not reducible to rules. Williams

138 offers an account of the context-dependent factors which can all influence how, and if, a particular belief can be justified or known.87 These include topical, or disciplinary, constraints on justification which are determined by the subject under issue or the form the inquiry takes (1996, 117).88

For example, a belief will be justified in the context of doing research in paleoclimatology if, for example, this claim coheres with the best working model of ancient weather patterns, explains certain patterns in ancient rock formation, etc.

This claim could also be justified by a non-expert outside of the context of paleoclimatology research simply by citing the fact that knowledge of this claim came from a reputable text book on the subject. It is simply not true that such a claim will be justified in the same way in whatever context it is entered. The topical or disciplinary context will affect how, and whether, this claim can be justified.

Williams adds that there will also be context-dependent dialectical constraints on justification.89 These will be determined by developments in the dialect in question, such as what objections have been entered into the discussion. This means that, even within the same topical or disciplinary context, differences in what objections have

87 Williams allows that the content of a proposition will play some role in determining how it can be known or justifiably believed (1996, 117 and 328). But his point is that, contra Epistemological Realism, this is not the only factor which determines how a belief can be justified. Moreover, the other factors he cites are not, like the content of the proposition contained within the belief, context- independent. 88 Williams (2001) refers to these as methodological constraints. These are ones which exclude certain types of doubt in order to raise questions of some specific kind. 89 Williams (2001) refers to these as semantic constraints. He asserts that ‘holding many true beliefs, or not being subject to certain kinds of error, is a condition of making sense, thus of being in a position to raise questions at all…To be intelligible at all – and not just to be reasonable – questioning may need a lot of stage setting’ (2001, 159-160, original emphasis). In this way, the context in question may require certain propositions being exempted from doubt in order to be able to generate intelligible inquiries within that context.

139 been raised may affect what how one can justify a claim to know made within this context.

Take, for example, two inquiries into the paleoclimotological evidence for ancient weather patterns concerning the claim that a pattern in a rock formation is evidence that there was ‘a short ice-age in the area about one thousand years ago’ (call this P).

In one inquiry, someone has raised the possibility that the rock formation could be the result of flooding in the area. This is a relatively new idea, so not one being discussed in every paleoclimotological inquiry. Given that it has been raised in one of the inquiries, the researchers in this inquiry may have to look for new evidence which backs up their belief that P. But, if this possibility has not been raised in the other inquiry, then the researchers here may all find the original evidence (the pattern in the rocks) to be adequate evidence for belief in P. What justifies belief in P is thus susceptible to developments in the dialectic at play, over and above what kind of investigation one is in.

There are also situational constraints which might reflect the worldly, and not just dialectical, situation. Situational factors concern the reliability aspect of justification:

‘…facts about the actual situations in which claims are entered or beliefs held are crucial too. This is because, in claiming knowledge, we commit ourselves to the objective well-groundedness of our beliefs’ (Williams, 2001, 162). Thus, aspects of one’s external surroundings also shape the contextually determined constraints on justification. In discussing situational factors, Williams offers Wittgenstein’s remark that ‘“My having two hands is, in normal circumstances, as certain as anything I could produce in evidence for it”’ (Williams, 1996, 117, quoting Wittgenstein, 1969,

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§250). That this claim could potentially act as a basic belief (in the sense of not needing further justification) depends not only on what kind of topic one’s discourse is on, or what objections have been raised, but the situation one is in.

Lastly, there are contextually variable economic constraints on justification.

Economic constraints are affected by how important it is that we come to a conclusion. They will affect, for example, how many, and how remote, the error possibilities which are relevant in the context in question. Williams states that calling these economic constraints helps to ‘stress the point that there is typically no purely epistemological answer to the question of what level of epistemic severity is contextually reasonable’ (Williams, 2001, 161).

In this way, it is not true that the content of a claim alone determines how, and if, it is justified. This is determined by multiple contextual factors as well. For this reason, our normal epistemic practices do not support Epistemological Realism. The way we view and deal with knowledge and justification offers a far more complex picture of the constraints on justification than Epistemological Realism allows for. How, and if, a belief can be justified, and so constitute knowledge, will be determined in part by contextual factors that are not included in Epistemological Realism’s context- invariantist picture which only considers the role of the content of the proposition contained in the belief in question.

1.1.2 Epistemic Priority

Furthermore, Williams argues that the sceptic combines Epistemological Realism with another contentious doctrine. This is the doctrine of the Epistemic Priority of

141 knowledge of experience over knowledge of the world. Epistemological Realism alone only says that the propositional content of a belief determines its context- independent epistemic status. This in turn means that there are certain invariant epistemic relations holding between beliefs. For example, if the content of a belief about the external world determines that it must be justified via some other kind of belief, then this relation between these two kinds of beliefs holds no matter what context they are raised in. But Epistemological Realism itself doesn’t say what these epistemic relations are. What needs to be added is a picture of what kinds of beliefs are capable of playing each role (e.g., a theory of what kinds of beliefs, if any, can act as justifiers for beliefs about the external world).

This is what Epistemic Priority90 brings with it. The sceptic thinks that, to get our general explanation of worldly knowledge, we must look to ground our knowledge of the world onto another kind of knowledge which we would have even if we knew nothing about the external world. The only thing that’s left when we take our worldly knowledge off the table is experiential knowledge. Experiential knowledge must, according to the sceptic, be the thing which grounds our knowledge of the world.

The sceptic, in assuming Epistemological Realism and Epistemic Priority, assumes a substantive form of Foundationalism. Williams states that one could be a formal

Foundationalist if one takes justification to depend on terminating

90 Stroud explains Epistemic Priority by saying that ‘To say that things of one sort are ‘epistemically prior’ or prior in the order of knowledge to things of another sort is to say that things of the first sort are knowable without any things of the second sort being known, but not vice versa. Things of the second sort are therefore in that sense less directly known than, or known only on the basis of, things of the first sort’ (Stroud, 1984, 141).

142 beliefs/judgements which are themselves non-inferentially justified. But the sceptic adds more to this idea. She adds in a theory of what kinds of beliefs can act as the basic, foundational beliefs and what kinds of beliefs act as those needing to be justified via the basic beliefs. Williams calls this a substantive form of

Foundationalism (1996, 114).

The sceptic’s substantive Foundationalism, given its acceptance of Epistemological

Realism and Epistemic Priority, takes there to be an invariant epistemic hierarchy.

This hierarchy has our beliefs about experience playing the role of basic beliefs from which our beliefs about the external world must derive their justification from. This epistemic picture is not suspect to change given any change in one’s epistemic situation or context. That these kinds of beliefs can invariantly play these roles is determined by Epistemological Realism’s claim that the content of a belief determines its set, context-independent epistemic status alongside Epistemic

Priority’s claim that our beliefs concerning experience are epistemically prior to our beliefs concerning the world.

1.1.3 Neutrality of Experience

However, the sceptic must also add in the idea that our experiences of the world, and so our experiential knowledge, cannot sufficiently justify, or lend any justification to, our beliefs about the world. This idea is implicit in sceptical hypotheses. For example, the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis is meant to demonstrate that one’s experiential knowledge cannot justify one’s beliefs about the external world. The reason for this is that experiences are taken to be compatible with both the truth and falsity of one’s beliefs about the external world. And so, even if one were a brain in a

143 vat, with all the same experiential knowledge intact, all of one’s beliefs about the external world would be false. As such, one’s experiential knowledge cannot evidentially support one’s beliefs about the external world. In other words, experience is evidently neutral (1996, 73-74); one’s experiences of p are evidentially neutral with respect to p and ~p. Williams calls this the doctrine of the Neutrality of

Experience (1996, 73). Taking Neutrality of Experience, and combining it with

Epistemological Realism and Epistemic Priority, results in a context-invariant sceptical picture of our epistemic situation.

Nonetheless, Williams does not take Neutrality of Experience to be problematic if it is separated from Epistemic Priority. Epistemic Priority is what ‘gives this conceptual point [that of Neutrality of Experience] its sceptical bite’ (1996, 74). The idea of Neutrality of Experience results from the fact that there is a logical gap between claims about one’s experience and claims about external reality. This is why one’s experiential knowledge/beliefs are compatible with both the truth and the falsity of one’s beliefs about the external world. But Williams asserts that no purely logical gap between statements about experience and statements about reality can get you to invariantist scepticism, for no purely logical point has any epistemological significance. It is not the logical gap which gets us to scepticism, but the thought that we are inevitably stuck on one side of it. The logical gap only gets us to a problem for our knowledge of the world if it is assumed that there must be some kind of dependence of our knowledge of reality on our experiential knowledge; which is to say, only if one assumes Epistemic Priority.

And Williams argues that one cannot validly move from the idea of the Neutrality of

Experience to the idea of Epistemic Priority without simply assuming Epistemic

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Priority along the way. Epistemic Priority is, at least in part, motivated by the idea that one’s experiential knowledge could remain intact even if one lacked any knowledge of the external world, but not vice versa. When the sceptic asserts that claims about the world ‘go beyond’ claims about experience, this must mean that claims about the world ‘transcend the appropriate evidence’: that claims about the world transcend the evidence available in support of them (1996, 75). But here it has simply been assumed that the evidence for knowledge claims about the world must derive from our experiential beliefs. For, it is only if one assumes that our evidence for our claims about the world derives from our experiential beliefs that one can claim that one’s beliefs about the external world transcend the evidence available for them. This has moved us from the mere logical gap between these two kinds of claims to an acceptance of Epistemic Priority without offering any argument for why claims about the world should be epistemically grounded on claims about experience. The mere fact that we could have experiential knowledge without any knowledge of the external world does not demonstrate that our beliefs about the world should or must be justified, at all times, via our experiential claims.

The sceptic may argue that her point is that we could know all sorts of things about how things appear without knowing anything whatsoever about how things are, and not vice versa (1996, 77). This argument demonstrates an asymmetry in our justificatory situation concerning our beliefs about experience and beliefs about the external world: one could have a well justified belief for a claim about how an external object appears, without any corresponding justification for one’s belief about the external object itself.

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Williams responds here by arguing that these points, at most, establish what he calls the autonomy of experiential knowledge: ‘that it is possible to have experiential knowledge without having any objective knowledge, but not the other way around’

(1996, 77). But, argues Williams, this is not equivalent to showing that experiential knowledge is the ultimate epistemic basis for our knowledge of the world. That knowledge of the world always brings experiential knowledge ‘in its train’ does not demonstrate that the justification for the former must always be derived from the latter (1996, 77). In moving from the causal asymmetry between beliefs about the world and experiential beliefs to the idea of Epistemic Priory, one is attempting to derive a highly contentious epistemological point from a causal truism.91 The causal and justificatory asymmetry between these two kinds of beliefs does nothing to show that one kind of belief needs to be epistemically grounded on the other. The only reason to think that this is so is if one has already accepted the epistemic hierarchy posited by Epistemic Priority.

Williams concludes his theoretical diagnosis of invariantist scepticism with the claim that such scepticism rests upon Epistemological Realism, Epistemic Priority and

Neutrality of Experience. Moreover, Williams takes it that the philosophical quest to understand knowledge of the world as such incorporates acceptance of these three doctrines. I will now discuss Williams’ comments on the traditional Epistemological project as a search for reflective understanding, and why he takes this philosophical project itself to presuppose Epistemological Realism and Epistemic Priority.

91 Note that Williams does not necessarily accept that there is a causal asymmetry between knowledge of the world and knowledge of experience. His point is that, even if there were a causal asymmetry here, this would not entail Epistemic Priority.

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1.2 Reflective Understanding

Hume’s comments on scepticism suggest a position which views sceptical arguments as being both un-answerable and yet untenable; that they ‘admit of no answer and produce no conviction’ (Hume, 2007, 131). In the concluding remarks of Volume 1 of his A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume claims that:

‘…the understanding, when it acts alone, and according to its most general

principles, entirely subverts itself, and leaves not the lowest degree of

evidence in any proposition, either in philosophy or common life. We save

ourselves from this total scepticism only by means of that singular and

seemingly trivial property of the fancy, by which we enter with difficulty

into remote views of things, and are not able to accompany them with so

sensible an impression as we do those which are more easy and natural’

(Hume, 1911, 252-253).

Scepticism is, for Hume, the inevitable result of a reflective, philosophical engagement with our knowledge of the world. Whereas ordinary life concerns practical activity, philosophy concerns reflective understanding. And it is the supposed objective nature of this philosophical, reflective understanding which results in scepticism. Whilst practical interests and concerns can force us to accept things on less than ideal, or even adequate, evidence, once we take on a purely philosophical interest in our knowledge of the world, these constraints are cast aside and we can see more clearly that what we thought we knew we do not know at all. In this way, Hume takes it that, while the pursuits of ordinary life are carried out in an

‘engaged’, ‘internal’ and ‘subjective’ outlook, the philosophical examination is carried out from a ‘detached’, ‘external’ and ‘objective’ outlook (see Williams, 1996,

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172). In this way, the philosophical outlook involves a purely theoretical undertaking.

Williams’ issue with Hume’s account stems from the envisaged meaning of

‘detachment’. In one way, forming a detached outlook involves stepping away from all economic, or practical, constraints. This may result in a purely theoretical inquiry, but Williams asserts that this will not get us to scepticism, for a purely theoretical inquiry is not, in and of itself, an epistemological inquiry (1996, 193). We can, after all, partake in purely theoretical investigations into, for example, physics or history without such inquiries collapsing into scepticism.

This gives us the second way we can understand the idea of ‘detachment’; namely, as a form of the Totality Condition as the demand to assess the totality of our knowledge claims in one go, which needlessly presupposes Epistemological

Realism. But, argues Williams, by sliding from the former notion of detachment to the latter, the sceptic (or traditional epistemologist) creates the impression that once we abandon all practical constraints on knowing, we are left with certain epistemic constraints that are inherent in our concepts (concepts such as ‘justification’) alone.

In other words, the sceptic takes it that once we remove all practical constraints on knowing, we are left with purely epistemic constraints on our knowing which the concepts of justification/knowledge generate themselves. Williams’ response to this idea is that:

‘If knowledge and justification depend on the ways that specific beliefs and

judgements are embedded in particular contexts, and if contextual factors

include our interests, collateral knowledge and worldly situation (known or

not), there will be no possibility of reflecting on “knowledge” in

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abstraction from everything we know, including things we know about the

world. There will be no possibility of reflective understanding if, in taking

the crucial step back, we deprive ourselves of anything to reflect on. This is

why epistemological realism is indispensable [to the traditional

epistemologist]. There must be, as I have said, a realm of autonomous

epistemological fact – for example, as constituted by context-invariant

relations of epistemological priority – if the radical detachment from

worldly knowledge envisaged by the traditional epistemologist is to leave

him with anything to assess’ (1996, 194, emphasis added).

Williams takes himself to have good reasons to believe that our ordinary epistemic practices are deeply contextually embedded in the sense stated in the above quote. He often cites Wittgenstein in support of this idea. For example,

Williams cites Wittgenstein’s comment that ‘My having to hands is, in normal circumstances, as certain as anything I could produce in evidence for it. That is why I am not in a position to take the sight of my hands as evidence for it’

(Wittgenstein, 1969, §250, quoted in Williams, 1996, 70). Williams states that

Wittgenstein here is pushing towards a conception of the relations of epistemic priority which is contextual in nature and so away from the conception of relations of epistemic priority at work in Foundationalism (1996, 70). For a claim such as ‘I have two hands’ may function like a foundational basic statement in one context (and so not require further evidential support) but, in a distinct context, may be contestable and so stand in need of evidential support

(see 1996, 117-118). The status assigned to this statement is never determined by content alone.

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Thus, Williams rejects invariantist scepticism given its reliance on Epistemological

Realism and Epistemic Priority.92 But, he takes his theoretical diagnosis to illuminate how justification actually works and so what the proper theory of justification, and so the proper theory of knowledge, should look like. This is captured by his epistemic form of Contextualism. Epistemic Contextualism is the antithesis to

Epistemological Realism. It asserts that the objects of epistemological inquiry do not have any deep structural unity which binds them all together. For this reason, there is no such thing as ‘knowledge of the external world’, though we may often know all sorts of things about the external world.

2. Williams’ Epistemic Contextualism

Williams’ form of Contextualism asserts that our everyday certainties (such as one’s belief that one has two hands) and sceptical doubts are both context-bound. In this way, Williams’ position makes room for a context-bound kind of scepticism, which is correct but only correct within the sceptical context of inquiry. And given the contextual nature of justification, and hence of knowledge, this context-bound scepticism is compatible with us knowing all sorts of things about the external world outside of the sceptical context. So, how exactly is justification to be understood from Williams’ Contextualist perspective?

92 Williams (1996) takes all forms of invariantist scepticism to rely on Epistemological Realism and Epistemic Priority. This includes under-determination style scepticism, Agrippan style regress arguments, scepticism concerning knowledge of the external world, of other minds, of historical facts, etc. I, however, do not commit myself to this claim. My focus is only on AI-style scepticism concerning our knowledge of the external world. This may help to make my position more plausible than Williams’. For, some have complained about the intended scope of Williams’ theoretical diagnosis, arguing that he fails to show that all such forms of invariantist scepticism really do make these presuppositions. For example, see Stevenson (1993), Black (1994), Faulkner (2003), and Hookway (1993).

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2.1 Responsibility, Reliability and Entitlements

An important aspect of Williams’ Contextualist picture of justification is its default- and-challenge structure. Williams says that his view of justification essentially concerns two aspects. One of these is the idea of epistemic responsibility: that a person’s beliefs are justified to ‘the extent that they are the result of epistemically responsible belief-management’ (Williams, 2013, 41). The other aspect of justification concerns reliability: to be justified, ‘a belief must be the outcome of a reliable method or procedure, one that makes the belief (more) likely to be true’

(2013, 41). Williams says that to count as a case of justification, a belief must be justified in both ways. So, a belief, for it to be properly justified, must be the ‘result of a reliable procedure, responsibly held’ (2013, 41).93

Williams adds to this idea by arguing that there does not need to always be ‘some positive property on which a claim’s positive epistemic status supervenes. A claim may be justified—responsibly held to or entered--if, in the circumstances, there is nothing to be said against it. On this view, the “architecture” of everyday justification conforms to what Robert Brandom calls a “default and challenge structure”’ (see 2013, 60).

93 Williams’ theory therefore contains both externalist and internalist elements. According to Williams’ understanding of internalism, for one to know that p, the essential conditions which must be met for one to have such knowledge require that one knows/justifiably believes that such conditions are met (1996, 294). Externalism, on the other hand, is the thesis that denies, with respect to some essential conditions on knowing, that knowing that p requires knowing/justifiably believing that those conditions are fulfilled (see 1996, 96 and 294). This in effect drives a wedge between knowing that p and knowing that one knows that p. To know the former, some conditions will have to be met. But to know the latter, these conditions will have to be known to be met. Given that Williams’ position incorporates both externalist and internalist elements, his position is, overall, externalist in nature. For example, the idea of reliability is externalist in nature; for S to be justified in believing that p, this belief must be the outcome of a reliable method or procedure but S need not be in a position to know that this procedure is reliable, nor perhaps even be cognitively aware of the procedure which results in her belief that p, in order for this condition to be met by S. On the other hand, the responsibility aspect of knowledge/justification is internalist in nature; for S’s belief in p to be responsibly held her belief must be the result of epistemically responsible belief management, and this is something which S will have to explicitly engage in.

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Brandom’s discussion concerns the default and challenge structure of entitlements.

The idea of an entitlement is, according to Williams, taken from Wittgenstein, who talked of certain apparently empirical propositions which lie apart from the route travelled by inquiry (see Williams 2013, 43 and Wittgenstein, 1969, §88 and §341-

343). Such propositions are referred to as ‘hinge propositions’, from Wittgenstein’s remarks that:

‘[...] the questions that we raise and our doubts depend upon the fact that

some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on

which those turn.

That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that

certain things are in deed not doubted.

But it isn't that the situation is like this: We just can’t investigate

everything, and for that reason we are forced to rest content with

assumption. If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put’

(Wittgenstein, 1969, §§341-3, original emphasis)

Such propositions are exempt from doubt so long as we want to investigate a certain line of inquiry at all. Thus, they are not said to be assumptions, but rational non- evidential presuppositions because their holding-fast makes the inquiry possible to begin with (Williams, 2013, 44). Examples of such propositions are taken from

Moore, such as his claim that he knows that the Earth existed long before his birth and that he knows that he has two hands (see Moore, 1959, 33 and 146, and

Wittgenstein, 1969, §84 and §250).

In his discussion of epistemic entitlements, Brandom asserts that one can have a default entitlement to a claim such that the entitlement is innocent until proven guilty

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(Brandom, 1994, 177). Default entitlement means that one does not have to earn entitlement to one’s beliefs; they are default justified until appropriately challenged.

Once a default entitlement is properly challenged, it will no longer be default entitled. But, importantly, the challenge itself must be properly motivated; challenges raised against such entitlements themselves stand in need of warrant or justification (1994, 177). This means that, when a challenge is not properly motivated, it can fail to undermine the entitlement it is aimed at. The kind of structure of entitlement which Brandom says these considerations highlight is a default-and-challenge structure of entitlement. This structure states that a default entitlement is legitimate until one presents it with an appropriate (e.g., properly justified) challenge. Once this happens, the assertions which were previously supported by this entitlement will be undermined unless the speaker can demonstrate

(e.g., explicitly justify) her commitment to the entitlement (1994, 178).

This picture of the nature of entitlements and challenges is highly influenced by comments from Wittgenstein’s On Certainty (1969). In a lengthy analysis of

Wittgenstein’s ideas in response to scepticism, Pritchard states that, on

Wittgenstein’s picture, ‘one explicitly claims to know something because there is some contextually relevant challenge to what is claimed – a doubt, broadly speaking

– which this claim to know is designed to meet’ (Pritchard, 2011, 525). In support of this idea, Pritchard refers to Wittgenstein’s comment that:

‘It is queer: if I say, without any special occasion, “I know” – for example,

“I know that I am now sitting in a chair”, this statement seems to me

unjustified and presumptuous. But if I make the same statement where

there is some need for it, then, although I am not a jot more certain of its

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truth, it seems to me to be perfectly justified and everyday’ (Wittgenstein,

1969, § 553, quoted in Pritchard, 2011, 525-256, emphasis added).

When will there be a need to make a claim such as ‘I know that I am now sitting on a chair’? Presumably, where a ‘legitimate challenge’ has been raised regarding what one claims as known (Pritchard, 2011, 526). For example, say a challenge is raised against S’s claim to know that p. In response to such a challenge, S will need to present reasons for thinking she knows that p. These reasons must be, according to

Wittgenstein, more certain than what S claims to know and which deal with the specific challenge raised (see Pritchard, 2011, 526). Thus, challenges themselves determine what reasons are appropriate to offer in defence of one’s knowledge claim.

However, there are constraints on when a doubt or challenge to a belief can be rationally entered. Doubts and challenges are not free, in the sense of not requiring motivation. If a doubt/challenge is entered without motivation, then they are

‘incoherent’ (2011, 527). Pritchard gives the example of a blind man doubting your claim to know that you have two hands, compared to a sighted man who doubts the same thing. Pritchard states that, whilst the blind man’s doubt is rational, the sighted man’s doubt is not. This is because the blind man has ‘specific grounds available to him to make such doubt rational’: for example, the blind man cannot see for himself how many hands you have, and we can assume that he doesn’t know this through some other route such as testimony (2011, 527).

However, the sighted man can see for himself that you have two hands. In this case, if the sighted man’s own visual perceptions of your hands it not enough to satisfy him that you know that you have hands, it seems nothing else will. So, this sighted

154 man’s doubt is irrational and his challenge is unmotivated (2011, 527). This underlines Wittgenstein’s claim that ‘My having to hands is, in normal circumstances, as certain as anything I could produce in evidence for it. That is why

I am not in a position to take the sight of my hands as evidence for it’ (Wittgenstein,

1969, § 250, emphasis added).

In this way, Williams takes it that challenges themselves impact the kinds of reasons one can offer in defence of one’s claim to know. But before such challenges are offered, certain claims will themselves be default justified, or ‘entitled’ in

Brandom’s terminology. Williams says that it is in the ‘spirit of Wittgenstein’ to treat entitlement ‘without specific evidential work—default justification—as a pervasive feature of our ordinary epistemic practices, which does not attach to any particular class or kind of beliefs’ (Williams, 2013, 61, emphasis added).

However, this does not mean that entitlement comes ‘for free’ (2013, 61). For the right to this kind of default justification is, according to Williams:

‘…acquired by acculturation and training. For example, default perceptual

entitlements depend on our acquiring recognitional capacities: or as Sellars

says, reliable discriminative reporting dispositions. Acquiring such

dispositions is part of becoming an accredited epistemic subject. We are

default justified in the matter of simple perceptually based beliefs because

we are reliable’ (2013, 61-62).

Thus, for Williams, one can have default justification for a claim when one’s claim is reliably formed and responsibly held. It will be responsibly held if, for example, one can recognise and respond to appropriate challenges. And, within an ordinary (i.e.

155 non-sceptical) context, most (perhaps all) of one’s perceptually based beliefs will be default justified.

Given that Williams’ position is Contextualist in nature, he takes it that, before an appropriate challenge is raised, there will be many beliefs within a certain context which are default justified and can function as ‘regress stoppers’ within that context

(2013, 61). Williams says that this means his default-and-challenge view of justification can be viewed as formally Foundationalist, for it takes justification to depend on terminating beliefs/judgements which are themselves non-inferentially justified (2013, 61). But, importantly, Williams’s position is not substantively

Foundationalist in the way the invariantist sceptic’s is. The default-and-challenge structure of justification is hostile to substantive Foundationalism because it is hostile to the idea of epistemic kinds; kinds of beliefs which are intrinsically and invariantly suited to playing one sort of role or another. On Williams’

Contextualism, which beliefs/propositions can play the role of regress stoppers will be a highly context-dependent matter.

Does this mean that, on Williams account, any belief whatsoever can be default justified? Suppose that Williams takes it to be possible for any belief, even highly implausible ones, to be default justified within a particular epistemic context. For example, take the belief that ‘there are witches’. Williams may maintain that, within the context of investigating claims that certain women are witches in the year 1580, it may be that this belief would be default justified. This may strike one as highly implausible. But, even if the belief ‘there are witches’ is default justified for one in the context of investigating possible cases of witchcraft in 1580, this does not mean that this inquiry will result in knowledge. Given that there are no witches (in virtue of the fact that witches do not exist, now or in 1580), any belief which designates

156 someone as a witch or presupposes that there are witches will not count as knowledge because it will not fulfil the truth condition for knowledge.

However, given the contextual factors at play in a witch hunt in 1580, it may be that one would be default justified believing this in such an investigation. If this belief were to be legitimately challenged then the default justification for this belief would be undermined. And it seems that such a belief could be very easily challenged. In which case, it would be easy to undermine this belief. This may help to lessen the initial implausibility of suggesting that even the belief ‘there are witches’ could be default justified for one in a particular inquiry.

2.2 The Sceptical Challenge

Williams’ default-and-challenge conception of justification means that he takes challenges themselves to be subject to certain constraints. He states that some challenges are asked with an air of implying that you don’t know any such thing; other challenges are raised as ways of acquiring explanations. But, says Williams, both challenges and requests for explanations need to be well motivated, otherwise ‘I will have no idea what I am supposed to explain’ (2013, 62, original emphasis).

So, when I say ‘Look, there’s a goldfinch’ and someone asks of me ‘How do you know it’s a goldfinch?’94 Williams says that this challenge will presuppose a specific informational deficit which I am invited to fill in (2013, 63). So, if this person meant

‘How do you know it’s a goldfinch and not a chaffinch?’, then I can respond by saying ‘By the red patch in its head’. The problem with sceptical challenges, at least in their invariantist forms, is that they don’t presuppose specific informational deficiencies like this. They are asking about the existence of a generic object (not its

94 This example is first discussed by Austin in his paper ‘Other Minds’ (1979).

157 character) and so, states Williams, seem to demand an epistemic response: something like ‘Because I can see it’ (2013, 63). But this can then easily lead to the sceptical position that, because your senses cannot rule out mass deception, you don’t really know anything about the external world by means of the senses at all.

There can be challenges concerning generic objects which are perfectly in order.

Williams says that this is so when these challenges are properly motivated:

‘[For example] “How did you know there was someone there?” “I caught a

glimpse of his hand.” “But it was awfully dark.” “I have good night vision:

I eat lots of carrots.” Everyday challenges to (or requests for explanation

of) perceptual claims and beliefs involving generic objects depend on

reasonable and situationally specific non-perceiving hypotheses’ (2013,

63).

But the invariantist sceptic’s challenge isn’t concerned with how I know that there is a hand on this particular occasion; this sceptic wants to know how I can ever come to know something like this. To this Williams says that,

‘as the [invariantist] skeptic uses it, the “How do you know?” question

involving a generic object is a Trojan horse for the idea of epistemically

unified “domains of discourse,” each with its characteristic justificational

architecture and associated restricted epistemic basis. The skeptic can now

wheel out his generalized non-perceiving hypotheses [such as the brain-in-

a-vat hypothesis]. We need to keep the horse outside the walls’ (2013, 63).

In other words, the sceptic’s challenge for us to explain how we can know something like ‘Here is a hand and here is another’ masks the implicit acceptance of certain epistemic unified kinds of knowledge, or belief, which include ideas concerning the

158 appropriate epistemic relations required to justify such beliefs. But this is just

Epistemological Realism and Epistemic Priority all over again.

Given this, Williams goes on to say that when the invariantist sceptic asks us ‘How do you know that here is a hand’, we can offer up the response ‘Because I see that there is one’ (see 2013, 63). But, importantly, this should not be taken as a step towards a general explanation of how we can come to know such things as ‘Here is a hand and here is another’. Rather, this should be offered ‘as a dismissal of the question’ (2013, 63, original emphasis). And this dismissal is legitimate because, in saying this in response to the invariantist sceptic’s question about how one can know anything about the external world, you are saying that there is nothing to explain.

That is, there is no ‘knowledge about the external world’ which one can explain as a unified whole. Williams states,

‘To borrow an example from Jerry Fodor, to be asked to explain knowledge

of the external world is like being asked to explain everything that happens

on Tuesday. To find this request sensible, you would have to have strange

views about the days of the week. To find the Cartesian skeptic’s question

sensible, you have to have strange views about knowledge (and much else

besides)’ (2013, 64).

2.3 Methodological Necessities

Another crucial aspect of Williams’ Epistemic Contextualism is the idea of a methodological necessity. Methodological necessities are related to Wittgenstein’s idea of a hinge proposition. Williams takes methodological necessitates to be, not assumptions, but commitments which are prerequisites for doing certain investigations at all. In this way, a methodological necessity in, for example, history

159 is a commitment which one must make if one wants to be able to partake in a historical investigation.

For example, Williams states that acceptance of ‘the existence of the world timeout of mind’ is a methodological necessity of doing history (Williams, 1996, 130).

Williams argues that one would not be doing a more careful historical examination if one were to start doubting this proposition; in this case, one would be changing the subject from history to (sceptical) epistemology (Williams, 1996, 122). In this way, doing history requires a commitment to this proposition; a commitment which exempts it from doubt within the context of this particular kind of investigation. This means that, when situated within this context, one’s beliefs will be subjected to the kinds of disciplinary/topical, situational and dialectical constraints which structure an investigation of this kind. However, within this context, this methodological necessity is exempt from doubt altogether.

And there will be methodological necessities at work even in very informal, non- specialised forms of inquiry. This is because, even in everyday settings, asking certain questions logically exempts asking others (1996, 123). It is not that we are psychologically unable to entertain certain doubts in everyday settings (as Hume thinks we are). Williams takes it that exemption from doubt is a matter of methodology; we have to exempt certain propositions from doubt even when in an everyday, informal inquiry for us to be able to partake in this enquiry at all. An example of a methodological necessity in an ordinary (non-specialist) investigation of one’s external surroundings may be something like ‘There is an external world/external world objects’.

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Importantly, this is not the same as assuming that such propositions are true. When one assumes that a claim is true or false, one assumes that this claim is true or false simpliciter; the truth or falsity of a claim like this one does not change with context.

But, on Williams’ account, a proposition, regardless of whether it is true or false, may act as a methodological necessity in one epistemic context but not in another depending upon what must be presupposed in order for that inquiry to get off the ground to begin with. Methodological necessities are, in this way and unlike truth or falsity, interest-relative.

The resulting picture of justification, and knowledge, is a complex one in which the methodological necessities in distinct forms of inquiry (either specialised or informal) decide which propositions must be exempt from doubt, and so what kinds of challenges and questions can be appropriately raised. If one is in a context of inquiry concerning history, then it is inappropriate to demand that one be able to respond to the challenge of proving that one knows the existence of the world timeout of mind. Thus, one need not deal with this challenge in such a context. And the same can be said for more ordinary, everyday inquiries into the external world. If

I want to know what time the next train leaves from platform 4, part of my contextual setting includes methodological necessitates which are excluded from doubt, and so restricts what sorts of challenges/problems can legitimately be raised.

Methodological necessities themselves are the source for default entitlements because ‘they determine the direction of inquiry’ (Williams, 2001, 160, original emphasis). In this way, methodological necessities decide which beliefs within an epistemic context can be default justified, if any. But the methodological necessities themselves are not default justified. Methodological necessities are not beliefs but

161 rather factual commitments which must be in place for an inquiry to go ahead. In this way, they are below the level of belief and are neither justified nor un-justified.

This is why Williams likens them to Wittgenstein’s hinge propositions: for an investigation to get off the ground, the hinges must stay put. But to form a belief about or a doubt concerning a hinge would itself alter the position of the hinge proposition. In this way, introducing a doubt concerning a methodological necessity induces a shift in epistemic context. Thus, to doubt a methodological necessity within the context of a historical investigation, such as the existence of the world timeout of mind, does not result in a more rigorous inquiry into history. To doubt this methodological necessity would work to pitch one into a different epistemic context altogether, one concerned with (sceptical) epistemology.

In this way, exempting methodological necessities from doubt is not about lowering the level of scrutiny within one’s inquiry, but concerns the ‘angle’ of scrutiny (2001,

160). Thus, even though a historical investigation has methodological necessities in place in which are not in place in an investigation concerning sceptical epistemology, this does not mean that the investigation into sceptical epistemology is somehow epistemically superior.

Does this mean that any proposition can act as a methodological necessity within a certain context of inquiry? Again, Williams does not make this explicitly clear.

However, he does allow that false propositions can act as methodological necessities, but that inquiries guided by them do not have to result in knowledge (Williams,

1996, 125). As such, even a proposition such as ‘There are witches’ could act as a methodological necessity within a particular inquiry. But beliefs formed within this inquiry would not necessarily be known. Presumably, given Williams’ comments on

162 default justification, beliefs formed within this inquiry, such as ‘S is a witch’, will be default justified within this context but will, nonetheless, fail to count as pieces of knowledge. This is because such beliefs are false and so do not satisfy the truth condition for knowledge.

3. How Can One Know that H and that ~B?

A remaining question is, on Williams’ Contextualism, how exactly can one know that H and that ~B? In his critique of Williams’ position, Brueckner (1994) points out a lacuna in Williams’ position which concerns Williams’ account of how one can know the negation of sceptical hypotheses such as B. This is an issue which more recent work by Williams claims to have clarified, so I will turn directly to this work.

To begin, let’s look at how Williams accounts for knowledge that H in ordinary

(non-sceptical) contexts of inquiry. Williams offers a theory of observation knowledge which he says is deeply inspired by Sellars (Williams, 2001, 173).

Williams states that Sellars’ insight into such knowledge is that ‘observation reports are non-inferential because, as a result of training, they can be made on cue. In an appropriately trained observer, they are elicited – causally – by some aspect of the environment. In this way, they do not depend on inference from evidence’ (2001,

174).

So, Williams thinks that an appropriately trained observer can acquire direct, non- inferential justification for her observational beliefs from her external environment.

For example, assuming I am such a well-trained observer, my perceptual experience of the redness of the vase directly justifies my belief that ‘The vase is red’. As such, my perceptual beliefs, in such a context, will be default justified until appropriately challenged.

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This is the reliabilist aspect of observational knowledge. Our perceptual faculties and reasoning capacities must be reliably formed. In which case, babies and small children may not be able to acquire such observational knowledge. But Williams adds more to his theory of observational knowledge. He says that ‘observation reports express knowledge because (i) they function as reasons for further judgements, and (ii) they are subject to evaluation and may require defence. We must, when necessary, be able to justify our reports, even though our entitlement to make them does not depend on prior justifying inference’ (2001, 174).

This is the responsibility aspect of Williams’ account of observational knowledge.

One can acquire observational knowledge of the red vase by being a well-trained observer and directly gaining perceptual justification for one’s belief that ‘The vase is red’. But this will only amount to knowledge if, were one’s claim to know/observation report challenged, one could justify one’s claim to know/observation report.

Williams says that an observation report is reasonably entered ‘as a reason for further judgements because it is ‘an instance of a general mode of behaviour which, in a given linguistic community, it is reasonable to sanction and support’’ (2001,

175, quoting Sellars, 1997, 74). By this, I take it that Williams means that, in a given linguistic community, there will be certain observation reporting behaviours which can be reasonably supported by the community (i.e., an observer’s report can be taken at face value and accepted by members of her community) and reasonably sanctioned by the community (i.e., the same report could be reasonably challenged or questioned by members of her community). Williams goes on to say that:

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‘The reasonableness of such sanctioning will reflect the community’s

experience with the sort of things that people can be trained to report

reliably on. In the context of such a reporting practice, reports issuing from

a properly trained reporter will enjoy default positive justificational status.

It will be reasonable to accept them unless there are reasons for not doing

so: for example, the reporter was not well placed to see what he claims to

have seen, the light was fading, or whatever’ (2001, 175).

Taking my belief that ‘The vase is red’, in ordinary (i.e. non-sceptical) contexts of inquiry, my belief will enjoy a default epistemic status. It will be default justified for me because I have formed a reliable reporting disposition concerning things such as basic object identification (that what I am seeing is a vase, and not a cup) and basic colour identification (I can see it is red, even though I cannot say exactly what shade of red it might be). The justification for my claim initially comes from my perceptual experience of the vase, but this justification becomes default justified for me because

I am a reliable observer who can, when needed, defend my claim/report and because the report was made in good conditions (such as good lighting conditions, from a reasonable distance, etc.). As such, my justification for ‘The vase is red’ is initially non-inferentially gained from my perceptual experiences of the redness of the vase.

But, this justification only yields proper knowledge of this proposition if I am a well- trained, reliable reporter concerning such claims, and I can defend this claim/report against appropriate challenges.

This theory of worldly knowledge means that someone cannot have only basic observational knowledge. This is because Williams combines his account of observational knowledge with other kinds of knowledge, such as knowledge concerning the meanings of concepts used in observation reporting and knowledge

165 about one’s own reliableness. That is, in reporting that ‘The vase is red’, if I am a reliable reporter then I will know exactly what I mean by these terms and will know how (or at least that I may have to) defend this report against possible appropriate challenges. So, my worldly knowledge is, for Williams, intimately connected to other sorts of knowledge. This means that basic observational knowledge cannot be the foundation of knowledge in the way the substantive Foundationalist sees it as being. For it may be impossible to separate out these apparently distinct ‘kinds’ of knowledge, which the substantive Foundationalist (i.e. the invariantist sceptic) wants to do.

The above point raises the question of how we can gain any knowledge to begin with. The invariantist sceptic will think that we acquire knowledge of how things appear simply by taking in perceptual information from our senses. We, according to this sceptic, then infer from this how things must be in themselves. The picture here is one of a hierarchy of kinds of knowledge, one epistemically and chronologically building on from the other. But Williams says that we do not gain knowledge in such a piecemeal fashion, but are trained in epistemic practices by others who are already trained. In this way, the whole system is acquired over time, not bit by bit. Williams stats that ‘…the capacity for knowledge is a shared and socially transmitted accomplishment’ (2001, 176). It is more like learning the rules of chess: you must learn them all to know any of them (2001, 176).

This is Williams’ account of how one can know propositions such as H. It states that my justification for my belief that H is gained via my perceptual contact with my external environment. That it looks to me, and feels to me, that I have two hands is justified not because I infer it from my evidence: my evidence directly, non- inferentially backs up this claim. I can properly be said to know H if, in making this

166 report, I am not only reliably trained to make it but I am in good external conditions

(such as good lighting) and I am well placed to respond to appropriate challenges to this claim. If these conditions are met, my belief that H is default justified. And given that this belief is true, I, within this context, know that H.

Needless to say, this default justification for H can be undermined. The sceptic can undermine this default justification by bringing in carefully chosen defeaters to such knowledge: sceptical possibilities, such as the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis (2001, 186).

Once entered, such a defeater will presumably undermine my default justification for

H because this hypothesis raises a certain challenge to my claim to know which I cannot respond to. The challenge here is for me to defend my right to make such a claim, in the apparent face of a counter-possibility in which I would, it seems, have the same disposition to report that H even though I do not in this case have any hands. And so long as we think that this challenge is appropriate, then this challenge genuinely undermines my default justification for H by undermining my responsibility in holding this belief. Once the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis has been raised and has undermined my justification for H, I am pitched into a sceptical context in which I can neither be said to know that H or that ~B.

This interpretation of how we can come to gain justification for one’s belief that H deals with a criticism from Brueckner (1994). Brueckner interprets Williams’

Contextualism as one in which experience is taken to be irrelevant to the justification of external world beliefs (1994, 545). Against this, Brueckner offers an example of an individual who has visual, auditory, tactile and olfactory sense-experiences of a dog sitting on their lap but who believes that there are no dogs in the vicinity. Surely,

Brueckner states, this subject’s sense-experience is relevant to the epistemic status of his belief that there are no dogs in the vicinity (1994, 546). This would undermine

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Williams’ position if it were one which took experience to be irrelevant to the justification of one’s beliefs about worldly objects.

However, I have shown that Williams does take experience to be relevant to the justification of such beliefs. Williams takes it that we have knowledge of an ordinary claim concerning the external world (such as ‘The vase is red’) when we have a reliably formed and responsibly held belief in this claim. Importantly, Williams takes our experiences of the world to (in ordinary contexts) provide us with non-inferential justification for our beliefs concerning the world. Brueckner’s complaint here is based on a misunderstanding of Williams’ position. Whilst Williams rejects the invariantist sceptic’s specific assumptions concerning the role of experience in justifying external world beliefs (assumptions which stem from an implicit acceptance of Epistemological Realism and Epistemic Priority) he does not take experience to be irrelevant to the justification of such beliefs in ordinary contexts.

How does my interpretation of Williams’ account explain how one can gain justification for, and so know that, ~B in ordinary epistemic contexts? For Williams, the default and challenge structure of justification means that ‘epistemic entitlement is the default status of a person’s beliefs and assertions. One is entitled to a belief or assertion… in the absence of appropriate ‘defeaters’: that is, reasons to think that one is not so entitled’ (Williams, 2001, 149). So, unless your tacit acceptance of ~B is appropriately challenged, this proposition will remain default justified for you in the ordinary epistemic context. This is the case because the default and challenge structure of justification lets us deny the thought that entitlements must be earned by taking specific positive steps in each situation in which entitlement is claimed.

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To be clear, Williams would not allow that one’s knowledge of ~B in the ordinary context of inquiry can be explicit knowledge. For Williams, it seems that all knowledge of the negation of sceptical possibilities is necessarily tacit. This is because, for Williams, the problem with explicitly laying claim to knowledge of ~B is that, by explicitly claiming such knowledge, one changes the epistemic context from an ordinary one to one engaged with the sceptical problem. And Williams takes it that one cannot know anything about the external world in such a context.

Given this, he states that his position is one in which one cannot claim to know that one is not a brain in a vat, or even claim that one is not a brain in a vat. As such,

Williams states that so long as I know mundane facts about the world, ‘I [tacitly] know that various sceptical possibilities do not obtain. Claiming is another matter’

(Williams, 1996, 352). The reason why Williams takes it that one’s knowledge of ~B must be implicit is because he takes it that explicit attempts to claim to know ~B work to change one’s epistemic context, putting in place the very context of inquiry in which such knowledge is (temporarily) lost: the sceptical context of inquiry. To fully understand this aspect of Williams’ position, we must now turn to a discussion on Williams’ ideas concerning the instability of knowledge.

3.1 The Instability of Knowledge, Epistemic Closure and Context

Shifting

So far, I have not spoken about the role of Epistemic Closure within Williams’

Contextualism. Williams is committed to Epistemic Closure, though he takes it that apparent failures in Closure will arise given the ‘instability of knowledge’

(Williams, 1996, see section 8.8).

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The instability of knowledge concerns the idea that the epistemic status of a belief can change (given changes in contextual setting) even where the original grounds or support for this belief remain the same. This instability captures how knowledge can either be gained or destroyed given one’s contextual setting, where this setting includes, for Williams, both facts about one’s doxastic and external environment.

Given changes in one’s contextual setting, a belief which previously counted as a piece of knowledge can fail to count as a piece of knowledge even if this belief continues to be reliably formed. This is because, in changing the context, this belief may ‘acquire new inferential relations to other beliefs, which either strengthen its position or weaken it’ (1996, 352).

However, any loss of knowledge is only temporary. For, when one is again situated within a more ordinary (or, at least, non-sceptical) epistemic context, one can be said to know all sorts of things about the external world, such as H. For Williams, so long as this belief is not philosophically reflected on, this belief can count as a piece of knowledge. Philosophically reflecting on this belief can undermine it either by connecting it to more problematic beliefs, or by inducing a ‘decisive presupposition shift’ (1996, see 352-253).

For example, in philosophically reflecting on my belief that H, I may come to realise that it is logically possible that I am the victim of massive deception concerning all my beliefs about the external world. The brain-in-a-vat hypothesis serves as one example of this: I may believe that H but, whilst reflecting on this belief, realise that, if I were a brain in a vat, I would continue to believe that H and continue thinking that I am justified in forming this belief even though, in such a case, I do not actually know that H. In this way, connecting H to further problematic beliefs of mine can, temporarily, destroy my knowledge of H.

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On the other hand, Williams says that focusing on knowledge which is necessarily tacit may be enough to produce a shift in the relevant presuppositions (by this I take it that he means the relevant methodological necessities) (1996, 353).95 For example, in ordinary contextual settings, my belief that H will be unproblematically supported by my perceptual experiences of the world. Moreover, I can implicitly know that ~B in such a context because my true belief that ~B is, within this context, default justified. But, argues Williams, by explicitly laying claim to my knowledge that I am not a brain in a vat, I will induce a presupposition shift.

Why would explicitly laying claim to knowledge of ~B effect a shift into a new context of inquiry? This relates to Williams default-and-challenge picture of justification. ~B is default justified for one within an ordinary (non-sceptical) context of inquiry but, by explicitly laying claim to such knowledge, one invites the possibility of this knowledge claim being (appropriately) challenged. Williams states that:

‘…when we lay claim to knowledge, we surely do more than announce

what we believe: we imply that what we say can be relied on. So, the

sceptic may argue, he doesn’t (unreasonably) impose the question “How do

you know?.” Rather, we invite it by the mere fact of laying claim to

knowledge, even if neither we nor anyone else has doubts, reasonable or

otherwise, about what we claim to know’ (1996, 61, original emphasis).

In other words, claiming to know that ~B invites the challenge of “How do you know that ~B?” And the context in which such a challenge, or an attempt to meet it,

95 Williams admits that he does not know ‘whether simply making a piece of tacit knowledge explicit is ever enough to effect a decisive shift in contextual presuppositions’ but he seems to accept this idea nonetheless because he ‘finds something appealing in the idea of the instability of knowledge, for it ties in well with the Humean perception that scepticism is unstable’ (1996, 353).

171 is appropriate just is the sceptical context. As such, claiming to know that ~B pushes one into the sceptical context; the very context in which one does not know that ~B.

However, this does not mean that Epistemic Closure in undermined. For within the sceptical context, one lacks knowledge that ~B and lacks knowledge that H.

Depending on one’s contextual setting, one either knows both that H and (implicitly) knows that ~B or one lacks knowledge of both propositions. Thus, Epistemic

Closure in upheld across contextual settings. Given this, the non-envatted subject’s and the envatted subject’s situations are symmetrical: the ordinary person knows lots of things about her environment and knows what these entail – that she is not a brain in a vat; the brain in a vat knows little to nothing about her external environment and does not know that she is not a brain in a vat. So, on either case there is no ‘threat to closure here’ (1996, 325). And the fact that knowledge of ~B is necessarily tacit reflects that, given that Williams’ position is externalist in nature, knowing that p and knowing that one knows that p are distinct. One can know that ~B but, once one explicitly engages with this tacit knowledge, thereby coming to believe that one knows that one knows that ~B, one shifts into the sceptical context in which one’s knowledge that ~B is lost.

Williams argues that apparent failures of Closure are better construed as examples demonstrating the instability of knowledge. That is, there can be cases where one reflects on their knowledge of H, realises that this entails that ~B, but takes it that they do not know that ~B. Rather than representing a genuine case of Closure failure,

Williams says that this is an example of the instability of knowledge. Williams argues that such cases involve a tacit shift in presuppositions when moving from a proposition which we take ourselves to know, to one of its known logical consequences (1996, 329). In such a case, our original knowledge of H and our tacit

172 knowledge of ~B are destroyed when, in making this connection, we shift into a new epistemic context in which both pieces of knowledge are lost. The apparent appearance of Closure failure is created when we fail to notice this change in context, and continue (falsely) believing that we know that H even when we come to realise that we do not know that ~B.

The sceptical loss of knowledge is thus, for Williams, context-bound. Scepticism’s ability to undermine our erstwhile knowledge is theoretically tied to a particular context of inquiry which is shaped by the methodological necessities at play, and the kinds of questions and doubts which can be legitimately raised within this context.

But, outside of this context, sceptical worries have no ability to undermine our epistemic position. Scepticism is therefore correct, but only correct within the confines of a particular context.

At this point, readers will no doubt begin to wonder whether, when all has been said and done, Williams’ Epistemic Contextualism does or does not end up with the same difficulties as Semantic Contextualism. How can Williams isolate scepticism so as to uphold ordinary claims to know? And to what extent does Williams’ position allow for knowledge claims concerning the negation of sceptical hypotheses to be truthfully uttered?

4. Clarifying the Sceptical Context of Inquiry

I will now offer a deeper analysis and clarification of the sceptical context of inquiry.

Exactly how this context is to be fleshed out is something which Williams does not explicitly discuss. This section will therefore fill a lacuna in Williams’ own account.

In order to pinpoint exactly how the sceptical context should be viewed on William’s position, I will offer three possible characterisations of the sceptical context of

173 inquiry. I will demonstrate the problems which two of these possible characterisations face, problems which help to clarify how we should ultimately understand the sceptical context on Williams’ account. Thus, this section will help to guard against possible misunderstandings of Williams’ position and help us to go on and compare his position with Semantic forms of Contextualism.

4.1 Possible Formulations of the Sceptical Context: (1) The Traditional

Philosophical Context

Though Epistemological Realism and Epistemic Priority have been rejected by

Williams’ Contextualist view of justification, one might think that Williams takes these ideas about justification (alongside the Neutrality thesis) to be in play in the sceptical context of inquiry. After all, Williams does not take it that the propositions which stand fast in a certain context of inquiry have to be true (see Williams, 1996,

125). Likewise, Williams may think that the methodological necessities at work in a particular context do not need to include only true ideas about knowledge/justification in order for them to act as legitimate constraints in that context. As such, it may be the case that Williams’ position allows for a context in which Epistemological Realism is at work, even though Epistemological Realism is false.

Let’s call this possible way of characterising the sceptical context of inquiry the

Traditional Philosophical context. According to this conception of the sceptical context, Epistemological Realism, Epistemic Priority and Neutrality of Experience comprise the underlying contextual constraints on our knowledge/knowledge claims.

If this is how Williams’ intends us to view the sceptical context, then he would have to think that Epistemological Realism is a doctrine which can be bound to a specific

174 context without affecting our knowledge/knowledge claims entered into other epistemic contexts. This would have to be the case if the results obtained within the sceptical context are said not to undermine our knowledge claims entered in distinct contexts of inquiry. But is this the correct way to characterise the sceptical context on Williams’ Contextualist account of justification?

Brueckner (1994), for one, interprets Williams’ Contextualism as one in which the sceptical context just is the Traditional Philosophical context. Brueckner asserts that, within the sceptical context of inquiry, Foundationalist presuppositions come into play. And once in effect, these presuppositions destroy both one’s ordinary knowledge and one’s knowledge of anti-sceptical claims such as ~B (Brueckner,

1994, 543). And what are the Foundationalist presuppositions? Brueckner says that these are Epistemological Realism and Epistemic Priority (presumably alongside

Neutrality of Experience) (see 1994, 536).

Brueckner takes it that, in the sceptical context, one accepts this Foundationalism and in so doing, one’s justification for one’s beliefs about the external world is lost.

According to Brueckner, one’s justification is lost in the Traditional Philosophical context in the same way one’s justification for a perception-based belief would be lost if one was labouring under the theory that all of one’s perceptions are hallucinations somehow caused by Elvis Presley (1994, 543). As such, it is not that

Foundationalism is true in the sceptical context. But, by labouring under the

Foundationalist theory in the sceptical context, one’s knowledge of the world is undermined.

Moreover, this is the conception of the sceptical context of inquiry which Pritchard takes to be on offer in Williams’ position. Pritchard takes it that the sceptical context

175 is one in which there is a ‘context-invariant epistemic structure that can be discerned via philosophical reflection’ (Pritchard, 2011, 540). As we have seen from Williams’ theoretical diagnosis of invariantist scepticism, this context-invariant epistemic structure is captured by the combination of Epistemological Realism and Epistemic

Priority. Thus, on Pritchard’s interpretation, the sceptical context just is the context in which Epistemological Realism and Epistemic Priority, alongside Neutrality of

Experience, work as the underlying methodological necessities.

Williams himself makes several comments which, on first inspection, seem to imply that he takes the sceptical context to be best fleshed out in the aforementioned way.

For one, Williams states that the ‘only context in which I have any reason to take seriously the possibility that I am a brain in a vat is that provided by the traditional epistemological project’ (Williams, 1996, 354, emphasis added). And the traditional epistemological project just is, for Williams, the one which calls for an assessment of the totality of our knowledge of the world conceived of as knowledge of an objective world, from a detached external standpoint. And it is this type of general assessment of our ‘knowledge of the world’ which Williams takes to presuppose

Epistemological Realism, Epistemic Priority and Neutrality of Experience. Here

Williams seems to suggest that the sceptical context is best fleshed out in the way posited by the Traditional Philosophical context: as a context of inquiry in which

Epistemological Realism, Epistemic Priority and the Neutrality thesis all act as the proper constraints on our knowledge claims concerning the world.

In a later work, Williams states that:

‘Of course, if we are doing philosophy, so that skepticism is in the air, such

ordinary certainties [for example, my having two hands] may seem to

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waver in the face of the mere logical possibility that a non-perceiving

hypothesis is true. However, mere possibilities can (reasonably) cause

everyday certainties to waver only if we have already signed on to the

conception of a “justificational architecture” that I want to repudiate as

more trouble than it is worth’ (Williams, 2013, 62).

And what is the justificational architecture? It is captured by the form of

Foundationalism which utilises Epistemological Realism and Epistemic Priority:

‘Substantive foundationalism holds that there are kinds of beliefs that are naturally fitted for regress stopping. The idea of a justificational architecture for particular regions of discourse is substantively foundationalist in just this way’ (2013, 61).

Again, this could be interpreted as suggesting that Williams’ account views the sceptical context of inquiry to be one underpinned by the presuppositions of substantive foundationalism: Epistemological Realism, Epistemic Priority and

Neutrality of Experience.

However, this is an incorrect interpretation of how we should understand the sceptical context of inquiry. In making such comments, Williams is not concerned with clarifying how we should understand the sceptical context on his Contextualist theory. Rather, these comments should be interpreted as ones in which Williams is discussing invariantist, not context-bound, scepticism. His Contextualist theory cannot incorporate any epistemic contexts in which Epistemological Realism is at work. This is because his Epistemic Contextualism is designed to be the antithesis to

Epistemological Realism: whilst Epistemological Realism is the thesis that a belief’s epistemic status is set by the content of the proposition held within the belief (and so does not change with context), Epistemic Contextualism claims that a belief,

177 abstracted from all contextual factors, has no intrinsic epistemic status to call its own. Epistemological Realism and Epistemic Contextualism are incompatible.

Williams’ Contextualism may allow for false presuppositions concerning knowledge/justification to act as contextual constraints in certain epistemic contexts.

But Epistemological Realism is not only false; it is logically incompatible with

Epistemic Contextualism. It does not seem possible to formulate a context-restricted version of Epistemological Realism, for the very idea behind this thesis is invariantist in nature. And given the incompatibility between Epistemic

Contextualism and Epistemological Realism, it is hard (if not impossible) to see how one epistemic context could make use of Epistemological Realism as a presupposition/methodological necessity. Given the very nature of Epistemological

Realism, it is something which either helps to structure every context of inquiry or none of them at all.

Pritchard also raises two problems for this way of construing the sceptical context on

Williams’ account. One problem concerns Williams’ claim that those contexts which employ methodological necessities which are false would not necessarily result in knowledge (see Williams, 1996, 125). This suggests that, if the sceptical context makes use of Epistemological Realism as a methodological necessity, and

Epistemological Realism is false, then the sceptical context would not discover anything true about our epistemic positon even within the confines of this particular context of inquiry (see Pritchard, 2011, 541). But Williams’ position is one which allows for the sceptical context to undermine our erstwhile knowledge. Williams’ position seems to want to accommodate the ‘prima facie pull which philosophers feel towards scepticism’ (2011, 541). Moreover, Pritchard states that ‘it isn’t at all clear that we can make sense of the thesis of epistemological realism as being a

178 methodological necessity, especially given that it is such a highly theoretical claim’

(2011, 541). This is because methodological necessities are more akin to ‘’solidified’ chunks of common sense, rather than contentious philosophical and theoretical theses’ (2011, 541).96

As such, Williams’ Epistemic Contextualism should not be construed as a position which views the sceptical context of inquiry as a context in which Epistemological

Realism is at work. The ‘Traditional Philosophical’ interpretation of the sceptical context does not capture the form which context-bound scepticism will take on

Williams’ account. We should therefore abandon this possible interpretation of the sceptical context and look at another possible way to understand this particular context.

4.2 Possible Formulations of the Sceptical Context: (2) The Priority

Context

Williams’ theoretical diagnosis of invariantist scepticism opens two further possible interpretations of the sceptical context of inquiry. The next interpretation I will look at suggests that the sceptical context is one in which Neutrality of Experience is at work alongside a context-restricted version of Epistemic Priority.

Epistemic Priority, we’ll recall, is the thesis that justification is hierarchically structured. Certain kinds of belief act as the foundational beliefs upon which other kinds of beliefs derive their justification from. Concerning our knowledge of the world, the sceptic takes it that such knowledge is open to doubt in a way in which our knowledge of experience is not. Thus, Epistemic Priority asserts that our experiential beliefs act as the foundational beliefs upon which our beliefs concerning

96 As we will see, the conception of the sceptical context which I offer and endorse, The Neutrality context (see Part 3, section 4.3), can overcome both worries outlined by Pritchard.

179 the external world must, inevitably, derive their justification from.97 Therefore, our knowledge of experience is said to be epistemically prior to our knowledge of the external world.

In relation to invariantist scepticism, Epistemic Priority is taken to be a fixed structural truth regarding justification. The invariantist sceptic takes the epistemic hierarchy posited by this doctrine to be true regardless of what epistemic context/situation one is in. So, the invariantist sceptic thinks that our knowledge of experience is always epistemically prior to our knowledge of the external world. But by abandoning Epistemological Realism in favour of Epistemic Contextualism, there may be another way to interpret Epistemic Priority. On this alternative interpretation,

Epistemic Priority could represent one possible way for our knowledge/justification to be structured amongst many. It could be that, in the sceptical context of inquiry, our knowledge/justification is structured in the way captured by Epistemic Priority but, once outside of this context, our knowledge/justification adheres to different structural relations (depending on what kind of context we are in).

In this way, it may (on first appearances) be possible to formulate a context- restricted version of Epistemic Priority. Using this idea, one could suggest that

Epistemic Priority is the contextually correct structure of epistemic relations regarding our knowledge of the world and our knowledge of experiences when one is situated within a sceptical context. Once outside of this context, Epistemic Priority no longer represents the correct justificational structure. But when one is situated within the sceptical context, Epistemic Priority genuinely reflects how our beliefs about the world must be justified, if they are to amount to knowledge of the world.

97 More precisely, Epistemic Priority would seem to be the thesis that states that one’s experiences act as the justificatory foundations one for one’s beliefs about how things appear to be (one’s perceptual beliefs) which in turn act as the justificatory foundations for one’s beliefs concerning the external world itself.

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We can call this alternative interpretation of the sceptical context of inquiry, the

Priority context.

Again, Williams makes comments which appear to lend support to this way of understanding the sceptical context of inquiry on his account. Williams suggests that his Contextualism be viewed as a form of formal Foundationalism. Substantive

Foundationalism takes there to be different ‘kinds’ of belief (and so different ‘kinds’ of knowledge), which are partitioned off into privileged and problematic groups. The beliefs within the privileged group (in this case, our beliefs concerning our experiences of the world) act as the context-invariant foundations for beliefs within the problematic group (in this case, our beliefs concerning the external world).

Formal Foundationalism, on the other hand, sees justification as depending on terminating beliefs/judgements which are foundational. But, it does not allow for fixed kinds of beliefs which play the role of terminating beliefs.

Williams suggests that his Epistemic Contextualism, which makes use of a default- and-challenge account of justification, can be viewed as such a version of formal

Foundationalism: ‘Given a default and challenge model, at any given time there will be lots of unchallenged beliefs which, at least pro tempore, function as regress stoppers. Accordingly, the model might be thought of as formally foundationalist’

(Williams, 2013, 61). Therefore, Williams’ theory might be construed as a position in which beliefs about one’s experiences act as the terminating beliefs in the sceptical context of inquiry, even if such beliefs do not play this role in any other epistemic context.

However, the Priority context represents another incorrect way to understand the sceptical context of inquiry on Williams’ account. The Priority context cannot

181 represent how we should flesh out the sceptical context of inquiry because Epistemic

Priority itself brings Epistemological Realism in its wake, and Epistemological

Realism is incompatible with Epistemic Contextualism. That is, Epistemic Priority and Epistemological Realism are so intimately connected that they cannot be adequately separated. In this way, any epistemic context which makes use of

Epistemic Priority (even a supposed context-restricted version of this doctrine) ultimately collapses into one which brings Epistemological Realism into play.

The reason Epistemic Priority ultimately brings Epistemological Realism in its wake is due to the fact that Epistemic Priority, even in its (supposed) context-restricted form, works by partitioning our beliefs into particular ‘kinds’ based on propositional content. We saw that the ‘restricted’ version of Epistemic Priority works by structuring our putative knowledge into particular groups, our ‘knowledge of the world’ and our ‘knowledge of experience’, and asserting that in the sceptical context the former group must be justified via the latter, if beliefs in the former are to amount to knowledge. This restricted reading of Epistemic Priority may not take such ‘kinds’ of knowledge to necessarily exist outside of the sceptical context. But within this context, this doctrine works only by partitioning off such knowledge into two distinct groups and asserting that one needs to be justified via the other.

However, we have seen that the idea that our knowledge can be separated into distinct ‘kinds’ based on propositional content is essential to the idea of

Epistemological Realism: an idea which we have rejected given that it is both false and incompatible with the theory of justification we are working with: Epistemic

Contextualism. Even if this idea is restricted to one epistemic context, it is still making use of ideas about knowledge/justification which we should be extremely wary of, given that we are constructing a version of Epistemic Contextualism.

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Moreover, it is not clear that we can restrict the idea that there are distinct ‘kinds’ of knowledge, each kind being determined by abstract aspects of the propositional content of the beliefs in question, to just one epistemic context. That there are such kinds, differentiated by propositional content alone, is an idea which overlooks all contextually variable aspects of knowledge/justification. Propositional content is a totally context-insensitive aspect of such beliefs. So, this idea, that in the sceptical context there are two different kinds of knowledge (kinds determined only by the propositional content of the beliefs in question) is a thoroughly anti-Contextualist idea.

To make this particular reading of the sceptical context work, we would have to formulate a context-bound version of Epistemic Priority which does not implicitly make use of Epistemological Realism. This version of Epistemic Priority would need to be one in which the structure of justification posited by Epistemic Priority is not in any way related to any intrinsic epistemic status of the beliefs in question, or has anything to do with sorting beliefs into ‘kinds’ based on content (given that such ideas are essential to Epistemological Realism). If tenable, this would give us a version of Epistemic Priority which does not bring Epistemological Realism in its wake; a form of Epistemic Priority which rejects the idea, implicit in

Epistemological Realism, that there are ‘kinds’ of knowledge susceptible to uniform theoretical analysis. However, if no such ‘kinds’ of knowledge exist, it seems odd to say that we can still, in this context, sort beliefs into such categories and then assign them particular roles. If no such ‘kinds’ of knowledge genuinely exist, how are we to even begin partitioning beliefs into this structure?

Perhaps one could respond to this worry by arguing that the theoretical unity between all such beliefs in these two categories (i.e., beliefs about the external world

183 and beliefs about experience) captures, not an epistemic unity, but an ontological one. This is Buchanan’s (2002) suggestion. Buchanan argues that what unites all beliefs about the external world on the one hand, and all beliefs about experience on the other, is not some shared epistemological status but a shared ontological integrity. On the one hand, beliefs about the external world are united in virtue of the fact that they involve reference to external objects. And beliefs about experience are united in virtue of the fact that they involve reference to some internal object, such as sensations, memories, desires, etc.

The idea here is that knowledge of the world constitutes a genuine kind of knowledge because all such instances of knowledge concern the existence of the world and its objects which, importantly, do not rely on the mind for their existence.

This is in contrast to knowledge of the mind, which concerns knowledge of objects which do rely on the mind for their existence (such as thoughts, memories, beliefs, desires etc.) (2002, 70). Thus, knowledge of the world, on Buchanan’s theory, is knowledge of those objects which exist independently of anyone’s mind. And this way of construing knowledge of the external world does not mention how any beliefs about the external come to be known, meaning that no epistemic element is present.

Perhaps this idea could be used as a way to overcome the present worry for the

Priority context. If we can separate out these two kinds of beliefs in a way which does not make use of the contentious and false ideas implicit in Epistemological

Realism, then perhaps we could have a context-restricted version of Epistemic

Priority which does not bring Epistemological Realism in its wake. In which case, this interpretation of the sceptical context would at least be compatible with

Epistemic Contextualism.

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However, even this way of construing Epistemic Priority, with its ontological, rather than epistemic, way of separating out two different ‘kinds’ of knowledge, runs into problems. For one, if these two classes of knowledge are simply based on some ontological, rather than epistemological, difference, why should we think that beliefs about the internal must justify beliefs about the external, even within the sceptical context? Epistemic Priority is an epistemological thesis: it states that our beliefs about the world are open to a kind of doubt which our beliefs about experience are not open to, and thus our beliefs about experience are epistemically more secure than, and hence epistemically prior to, our beliefs about the world. This explains why the sceptic thinks that our beliefs about the world must be justified via our beliefs about experience. But, if we abandon this epistemic position in favour of one which separates out these two kinds of knowledge purely on ontological grounds, the reason to suppose that one kind of belief must be justified via another kind of belief is also lost.

Moreover, separating out these two ‘kinds’ of knowledge on the basis of some shared ontological category means that we should have the option, even in the sceptical context, to justify one belief about an external object via another belief about an external object. One might think that justifying a belief about an external object via another belief about an external object is circular, because each belief is in the same ontological category and we are asking how we can know anything in the category at all. But in asking how we can know anything in the category at all, we seem to be looking for a shared epistemic basis of all the beliefs within that category.

In which case, we are bringing epistemic, and not just ontological, unity back into the picture.

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So, even if, in the Priority context, one’s beliefs about the world are partitioned off into a category separate from one containing one’s beliefs about experience, we still might wonder why the category containing one’s beliefs about experience are epistemically prior to the category containing one’s beliefs about the world. Is this just something the context-bound sceptic insists on, despite this not being reflected in our ordinary (or other specialised) epistemic practices? Williams himself claims that Epistemic Priority is ‘highly contentious’ and is in no way ‘supported by the uncontroversial’ (Williams, 1996, 75). It is false and is not ‘implicit in either common sense or the human condition’ (1996, 211). So, why accept, even in the unique sceptical context, the claim that our beliefs about experience are epistemically prior to beliefs about the world?

Given these difficulties, I will also reject the present interpretation of the sceptical context of inquiry. The Priority context ultimately collapses into one in which ideas from Epistemological Realism are at work. Epistemic Priority itself is too intimately connected to the idea of Epistemological Realism for the two theses to be adequately separated. Given this, it does not seem that we can formulate a properly context- bound version of Epistemic Priority. As such, we should also reject this possible way of interpreting the sceptical context of inquiry. I will offer one more possible way to understand the sceptical context of inquiry which does, I argue, capture how

Williams’ Contextualism should construe the sceptical context.

4.3 Possible Formulations of the Sceptical Context: (3) The Neutrality

Context

There is one last interpretation of the sceptical context which I will consider. On this interpretation of the sceptical context, both Epistemological Realism and Epistemic

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Priority are abandoned and the Neutrality of Experience thesis is taken to be sufficient to generate a context-bound form of external world scepticism. Using work by Pritchard, I will demonstrate that the kind of scepticism generated by this particular way of construing the sceptical context of inquiry is an underdetermination-based form of scepticism. I will call this formulation of the sceptical context the Neutrality context.

The Neutrality of Experience thesis claims that one’s experiences of p are evidentially neutral with respect to p and ~p. In this way, one’s experiences as of p are compatible with the falsity of p; with ~p being true. The sceptical brain-in-a-vat hypothesis draws attention to the supposed intuitive force of this idea. This hypothesis asks one to imagine being a brain in a vat, having one’s perceptual states electrochemically fed to one. It seems entirely conceivable that such a being could have all the same perceptual experiences that I am now having. For example, I am having visual, tactile and auditory experiences as of typing on my computer- keyboard. And presumably, given the correct electrochemical input, my brain-in-a- vat counterpart could have the same perceptual experiences. In this way, my perceptual states (of, say, p) are perceptually indistinguishable from my brain-in-a- vat’s perceptual states (of p).

Nonetheless, whilst my belief that I am typing on a computer-keyboard (an external world object) is true, my brain-n-a-vat counterpart’s belief that she is typing on her computer-keyboard is false; given that she is a handless brain-in-a-vat, she neither has hands to type with or (we can imagine) is actually situated in an environment with computer-keyboards present. But, the line goes, my brain-in-a-vat counterpart will, nonetheless, believe as firmly as I do that she is typing on her computer- keyboard because she is having visual, tactile and auditory experiences with the

187 same perceptual content as I am having. Thus, one’s experiences as of p (such as ‘I am typing on my computer-keyboard’ or ‘I have hands’) are evidentially neutral with respect to p and ~p when the proposition p concerns some claim about an external world object: it is possible for one to have perceptual experiences as of p, and p be false (~p be true).

It is important to note that perceptual states are evidentially neutral with respect to beliefs about external world objects, but not with respect to beliefs about one’s current phenomenal states. That is, my experiences as of seeing a red object in front of me are not neutral in regards to the belief that ‘I am seeing a red object on the table’, call this belief R: I could not have such experiences, and my belief that R be false. However, I could have such experiences and my belief that ‘There is a red

(external world) object on the table’, call this R*, be false. The brain-in-a-vat hypothesis itself generates a conceivable scenario in which this would be in the case: where one could have experiences as of there being a red object on the table, and yet one’s belief that there is a red object on the table is false (for there is no red object and no table). So whilst one’s perceptual experiences as of there being a red object on the table rationally ground one’s belief that R over ~R, these experiences do not rationally ground one’s belief that R* over ~R*. In this way, one’s perceptual experiences are evidentially neutral with respect to belief R* but not with respect to belief R. As such, one can know that R on the basis of these experiences but cannot know that R*on the basis of these experiences.

This captures the central idea at work in an underdetermination principle offered by

Pritchard (2016b): concerning S’s perceptual knowledge, the Underdetermination

Principle states that ‘If S knows that p and q describe incompatible scenarios, and yet

S lacks a rational basis that favors p over q, then S lacks knowledge that p’

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(Pritchard, 2016b, 30). In other words, underdetermination captures the idea that our perceptual experiences do not epistemically favour ordinary beliefs about external world objects (such as R*) over the negation of such beliefs (~R*). This leads

Pritchard to assert that ‘…the rational support provided by our perceptual experiences does not seem to epistemically favor our ordinary perceptual beliefs over the kind of scenarios depicted by radical sceptical hypotheses’ (2016b, 29).

That is, one’s rational support for perceptual beliefs is underdetermined with respect to sceptical hypotheses.

In this way, the Neutrality thesis generates a form of underdetermination-based scepticism. This form of scepticism can be captured by the following set of claims

(adapted from Pritchard, 2016, 32): (1) One cannot have (perceptually-based) rational support that favours one’s belief in an external world object, such as p, over the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis; (2) If one cannot have (perceptually-based) rational support that favours one’s belief in an external world object, such as p, over the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis, then one does not know that p; (3) One does not knows that p. And the sceptic can motivate (2) by appeal to the Underdetermination

Principle (2016b, 32).

This sceptical result is restricted to a solitary epistemic context on Williams’ account because Williams will take it that, outside of this particular context, one can, and does, have rational support that favours one’s belief that p over the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis. Thus, one can be in a position to know, and will often know, p (and other propositions concerning external world objects) when one is situated outside of the sceptical context. This is because, according to Williams’ Contextualist view, the rational support for one’s belief that p outside of the Neutrality context will not totally depend on one’s perceptual experiences of p. We have seen from Williams’

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Contextualist position that the underlying structure of justification is susceptible to contextual variation such that Williams’ need not accept that one’s beliefs concerning external world objects are always justified on the basis of one’s perceptual experiences.

However, if one is situated within an epistemic context where one’s evidential base is reduced to perceptual experiences then, given the truth of the Neutrality of

Experience thesis, one will lack justified beliefs in, and hence knowledge of, external world objects. Thus, in this particular epistemic context, scepticism reigns. But this sceptical result will not impact the truth of knowledge claims concerning external world objects entered in distinct epistemic contexts, where one’s evidential base is not diminished to just one’s perceptual experiences. Thus, even though the

Neutrality context does result in scepticism, this scepticism is properly contained within this particular epistemic context.

That Williams’ form of Contextualism is stuck with this (albeit it, contextually- contained) form of scepticism is entailed by his acceptance of Neutrality of

Experience. As such, his position is not one which is able to completely do away with scepticism as arising from the Underdetermination Principle. According to

Pritchard, this principle trades on the idea that that the rational support we have for our beliefs about the external world is ‘even in the best case, troublingly weak, in that it is compatible with widespread falsity in those beliefs’ (2016b, 55). Pritchard refers to this idea as the ‘insularity of reasons’ thesis: that ‘…the rational support our worldly beliefs enjoy, even in the best case, is compatible with their widespread falsity’ (2016b, 3). Pritchard takes it that an intellectually satisfying response to the kind of scepticism arising from the Underdetermination Principle would be one

190 which demonstrates that we do in fact have the rational support for our worldly beliefs which the Underdetermination Principle demands (2016b, 59).

And, interestingly, this is exactly what Williams thinks we do have when we are situated in non-sceptical contexts of inquiry. The contextually variable structure of justification allows for one to have a rational basis for favouring belief in a proposition concerning an external world object, p, over ~p (or some incompatible proposition, q) when one is situated in contexts where one’s epistemic base is not reduced to one’s perceptual experiences. But, within the Neutrality context, the rational basis for believing p over ~p is lost: given that one’s perceptual experiences are neutral with respect to p and ~p, and given that, within the Neutrality context, all one has to go on is one’s perceptual experiences, within this context one does not have a rational basis for favouring belief in p over belief in ~p. Thus, within the

Neutrality context, one does not and cannot know that p. So, whilst Williams’

Contextualism is, given his acceptance of Neutrality of Experience, stuck with this underdetermination-based form of scepticism, he can, at least, insulate this sceptical result from distinct epistemic contexts.

Moreover, this interpretation of the sceptical context deals with two worries which

Pritchard (2011) discusses in relation to his interpretation of the sceptical context of inquiry (equivalent to the Traditional Philosophical context). One issue which

Prichard raises is that, if the sceptical context is said to utilise epistemological theses or ideas which Williams argues are false (such as Epistemological Realism), then it would be difficult to see how such a context could generate a supposedly true conclusion about our epistemic situation; even one which is said to be confined within that context. But the present interpretation of the sceptical context, the

Neutrality context, does not utilise an epistemological thesis or idea which is false on

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Williams’ account. Williams takes Neutrality of Experience, unlike Epistemological

Realism, to say something true about our epistemic situation. In which case, a sceptical context which can generate its scepticism from Neutrality of Experience alone would be one which says something true about our epistemic situation, even if this sceptical result only pertains within this particular context.

The second issue which Pritchard discusses relates to the idea that methodological necessities should not be highly theoretical claims. This causes an issue for interpretations of the sceptical context which take highly theoretical theses, such as

Epistemological Realism, to be at play. However, the idea behind Neutrality of

Experience is not intended to be a highly theoretical claim. That our experiences are evidentially neutral is meant to capture a fairly intuitive idea: that we could have an experience of p even though p is false. That this is so will be obvious to anyone who is aware of the possibility of hallucinations or perceptual manipulation by other means (such as when an object which is far away may misleadingly appear to be smaller than an object which is closer). Given, then, that Neutrality of Experience is not a highly theoretical claim, this way of conceptualising the sceptical context also overcomes Pritchard’s second issue. Thus, the present conception of the sceptical context, the Neutrality context, is motivated by the fact that it can deal with the issues raised by Pritchard.

5. Epistemic Contextualism Versus Semantic Contextualism

Now that I have clarified what the correct account of the sceptical context of inquiry is on Williams’ position, I will compare his Contextualist view with the Semantic

Contextualist positions which were discussed in Part 1, focusing on their respective concession to scepticism. In Part 1 I argued that Semantic Contextualism is overly

192 concessive to scepticism concerning the external world in four main respects: (1) knowledge attributions of the form ‘I know/S knows that ~B’ are invariably false;

(2) the sceptical context is extremely easy to install; (3) scepticism is said to result from entirely ordinary epistemic practices and; (4) the sceptical context is taken to be an entirely legitimate context of ascription. I will now argue that Williams’ position is superior to Semantic Contextualism in all four respects.

5.1 Can One Truthfully say ‘I know that/S knows that ~B’?

The fact that, for Williams, one’s knowledge of ~B is necessarily tacit seems to land

Williams’ Contextualism in the same boat, at least in one respect, as the Semantic forms of Contextualism I discuss in Part 1. Semantic Contextualist’s cannot allow for knowledge claims of the form ‘I know that/S knows that ~B’ to come out as true.

This is because any such claim will automatically initiate a rise in the standards for knowledge ascription, rendering any claim to know ~B false and any claim to lack knowledge of ~B true.

In the same way, by making knowledge of ~B necessarily tacit, Williams’

Contextualism cannot allow for claims of the form ‘I know ~B’ to come out as true.

He states that any such knowledge will affect a presupposition shift into a context of inquiry where sceptical possibilities are both logically possible and epistemically relevant. This means that the epistemic subject is pitched into the sceptical context of inquiry, the very context where all of one’s erstwhile knowledge of the world and

(tacit) knowledge of the negation of sceptical possibilities is lost. So, once one says

‘I know that ~B’, this very claim will, on Williams’ account, affect a shift into an epistemic context in which such a claim to know can only be falsely uttered.

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However, this does not mean that Williams’ form of Contextualism is, in this respect, equally concessive to scepticism as Semantic Contextualism. An important difference between these two kinds of Contextualist position is that, whilst Semantic forms of Contextualism are attributor-centred, Williams’ Epistemic Contextualism is subject-centred.

According to Semantic Contextualism, the truth conditions for knowledge attributing/denying claims depend on the standards for knowledge at work in one’s context of ascription. But, being an attributor-centred position, the relevant context of ascription is the attributor’s context. So, when the attributor of knowledge, A, attempts to say of another subject, S, that ‘S knows that ~B’, it is A’s context of ascription which sets the epistemic standards which S must reach in order for A’s knowledge ascription to come out as true. A’s assertion itself will raise the epistemic standards at work in A’s own context of ascription, and so render A’s claim (that ‘S knows that ~B’) false. Likewise, if A and S are the same individual, and A attempts to say of herself that ‘I know that ~B’, the standards for knowledge at work in A’s context will rise so as to falsify this knowledge claim. So, A cannot truthfully say either ‘I know that ~B’ or ‘S knows that ~B’.

However, on Williams’ Epistemic Contextualist account one can truthfully say that

‘S knows that ~B’ when S is a distinct individual to the speaker/attributor of knowledge and S is located within an ordinary context of inquiry. This is because his account is subject-centred. As long as our epistemic subject, S, is in an ordinary context of inquiry then S is in a position to know that ~B. Given that the attributor’s context of inquiry can be distinct to the subject’s, even if the attributor is not situated in an ordinary epistemic context, she can still truthfully say of S that ‘S knows that

~B’ because the relevant contextual setting for this claim is set by S’s context of

194 inquiry. And so long as S is in an ordinary context of inquiry (and does believe that

~B and ~B is true) then A can truthfully say of S that ‘S knows that ~B’.

Nevertheless, S cannot truthfully say this of herself. This is precisely because, if S were to explicitly lay claim to knowledge of ~B, then S would affect a presupposition shift and pitch herself into the very kind of epistemic context in which such knowledge is lost, and so in which such a knowledge claim would be false. Thus, though Williams’ position is also one which cannot allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions of the form ‘I know that ~B’, it can, unlike Semantic

Contextualism, allow for truthful knowledge ascriptions of the form ‘S knows that

~B’ so long as S represents someone other than the speaker and S is located within an ordinary (i.e. non-sceptical) epistemic context.

As such, Williams position does not result in claim (1): knowledge attributions of the form ‘I know/S knows that ~B’ are invariably false. Williams’ position can allow for claims of the form ‘S knows that ~B’ to come out as true when S is situated within a non-sceptical context and S is a distinct individual to the speaker who utters this knowledge ascription. However, Williams’ position still fails to allow for claims of the form ‘I know that ~B’ to come out as true; uttering this claim will pitch one into the sceptical context of inquiry where one’s knowledge is (temporarily) lost. In this particular respect, Williams’ position is less concessive to scepticism than Semantic

Contextualism is, but only marginally so.

5.2 How Easy is it to Install a Sceptical Context?

Williams admits that, on his account, claiming to know ~B or claiming that one doesn’t know ~B will both effect a shift into the sceptical context of inquiry:

‘explicit mention of sceptical alternatives, whether by way of assertion or denial, is

195 apt to change the context of inquiry… projecting [the speaker] into a context in which any and all knowledge of the external world comes into question…’

(Williams, 1996, 355). This means that an epistemic subject can easily pitch herself into a sceptical context of inquiry. All she need do, in order to bring about such a context, is lay claim to knowledge of ~B or claim to lack such knowledge.

Again, on the face of it, this aspect of Williams’ account seems to be the same as that of Semantic Contextualism. This is given that Semantic Contextualism is also a position in which knowledge claims (either assertions or denials of knowledge) featuring sceptical hypotheses automatically result in the raising of standards for attributing knowledge. This rise in standards is itself enough to bring in a sceptical context of ascription in which knowledge claims concerning the external world

(including ~B) are false.

However, given that Williams’ Epistemic Contextualism is a subject-centred position, rather than an attributor-centred position like Semantic Contextualism, his position is also less concessive to scepticism in this respect. This is because

Williams’ position can allow for one speaker to say of another subject that that subject does know that ~B, so long as the subject in question is situated within an ordinary (i.e. non-sceptical) context. Thus, on Williams’ position it is not any claim to know ~B which can bring about a sceptical context of inquiry. When A says of S that ‘S knows that ~B’ no change in epistemic context will occur. If A says of herself that ‘I know that ~B’, then a sceptical context will be generated by this knowledge claim.

This means that Williams’ position, given that it is subject-centred rather than attributor-centred, is again less concessive to scepticism than Semantic

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Contextualism for it can allow for some knowledge claims concerning ~B to be uttered which do not bring a sceptical context into play. We can say that Williams’ position does not result in claim (2): the sceptical context is extremely easy to install.

However, it does result in the weaker claim (2*): the sceptical context is moderately easy to install. And, again, given that (2*) is weaker than (2), Williams’ position is less concessive to scepticism than Semantic Contextualism in this respect.

5.3 Does Context-Restricted Scepticism Arise from Ordinary Epistemic

Practices?

Semantic Contextualism offers a very simplistic account of the varying contexts of knowledge ascription. It postulates one scale of epistemic standards, going from lax to severe, which affect the truth or falsity of knowledge ascribing sentences. For example, if A were to say of S that ‘S knows that p’, this knowledge ascription will be either true or false depending on the epistemic standards which S must reach, which are determined by A’s context of ascription. The higher the standards for knowledge, the less likely this claim will come out as true.

On this simple account, the sceptical context of ascription represents one extreme end of the scale of epistemic standards. When one is in a sceptical context, the standards for knowledge ascription are pushed to their upper limit. This rise in epistemic standards is so extreme, almost no knowledge ascription concerning the external world can come out as true within this context. Thus, Semantic

Contextualism views scepticism as simply the result of an extreme rise in the standards for truthful knowledge ascription. This rise in standards is not the result of any defective or illegitimate manipulation of the epistemic standards. Our ordinary epistemic practices, according to Semantic Contextualism, can themselves result in

197 such an extreme context of ascription because this context of ascription is a legitimate aspect of the simple scale of epistemic standards which Semantic

Contextualism posits.

Williams’ position is more complex. He offers a theoretical diagnosis of invariantist scepticism, in which he argues that invariantist scepticism is the result of improper constraints on knowledge/justification. In this way, Williams makes it clear that on his account invariantist scepticism is not the result of ordinary epistemic practices or procedures, but is the result of a faulty quest for a general understanding of our knowledge of the world. But what about context-bound scepticism? Here, Williams’ position is less concessive to scepticism than Semantic Contextualism as well.

This is because Williams’ account of context-bound scepticism views this kind of scepticism as being the result of a kind of reflection on our ordinary epistemic practices, rather than being the result of such practices. The sceptical context on

Williams’ account is, in a sense, a second order context of inquiry because it is the result of stepping back from all ordinary aspects of inquiry in order to try and gain a more detached view of knowledge. This detached view can only result in invariantist scepticism if Epistemological Realism and Epistemic Priority are presupposed. But, so long as such doctrines are thoroughly rejected, this detached external viewpoint results in a context-bound form of scepticism. Given the unusual nature of the sceptical context on Williams’ account, this form of context-bound scepticism is properly insulated from all other epistemic contexts. The sceptical context is not situated on some ordinary scale of epistemic standards, but represents a context in which all normal epistemic practices are suspended and a much more detached viewpoint is taken up.

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Williams’ characterisation of context-bound scepticism is, for this reason, one which is less concessive to scepticism because context-bound scepticism is not, for

Williams, the result of ordinary epistemic practices. It is the result of a very unusual investigation. Williams, for example, states that ‘What Wittgenstein’s remarks can make us wonder, however, is what results obtained in the extraordinary context of philosophical reflection imply about knowledge claims entered elsewhere. My suggestion is that unless we concede epistemological realism, they imply nothing’

(Williams, 1996, 158, emphasis added). Here Williams is not only remarking on his complete rejection of invariantist scepticism, but on the strangeness of the sceptical context of inquiry. This context is said not only to be ‘extraordinary’, but the results of the sceptical context are, on Williams’ position, completely insulated from all other epistemic contexts because of the unusual nature of this particular context of inquiry.

Williams (2004b) focuses on this aspect of his position in arguing for the superiority of his Contextualist response to scepticism over Semantic Contextualist responses to scepticism.98 The focus of this paper concerns how Williams’ Contextualist position and the Semantic Contextualist positions differ in answering the question ‘in what way exactly is the philosophical examination of knowledge unrestricted, and how does its unrestricted character lead knowledge to (seem to) evaporate?’ (Williams,

2004b, 457). Semantic Contextualism asserts that the philosophical context is unrestricted in the sense of including an extreme and highly unusual high-standard of knowledge or justification. Williams calls this the High Standards Strategy (HSS)

98 See also Williams (2001), where he criticises Semantic Contextualism’s characterisation of how scepticism undermines our knowledge of the world, and details his criticisms of David Lewis’s Contextualism, specifically Lewis’s formulations of his Rule of Attention and his Rule of Actuality and Rule of Resemblance. See also Williams (2004a) where he compares Epistemic Contextualism’s and Semantic Contextualism’s way of responding to the question ‘Why do we take sceptical hypotheses seriously?’

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(2004b, 457). Williams’ preferred strategy for responding to this question focuses on the unusual generality of the sceptic’s/philosopher’s question/s, which Williams calls the Spurious Generality Strategy (SGS) (2004b, 457).

According to HSS, there is nothing unintelligible or objectionable about the high- standards of knowledge/justification at work in sceptical contexts. As such, HSS is quite tolerant of scepticism (2004b, 462). But Williams thinks that this is too concessive to scepticism, for sceptical doubts are ‘much more peculiar, and much less intuitive’ than HSS allows for (2004b, 462). Williams asserts that SGS is much less tolerant when it comes to the idea of ‘doing epistemology’ than HSS is, for the

‘main idea of [SGS] is that sceptical doubts are not really intuitive at all, so that the philosophical examination of human knowledge is radically discontinuous with ordinary epistemic procedures’ (2004b, 462).

Williams also rejects HSS because of its commitment to what he calls the

‘Continuity Thesis’ (CT) (2004b, 469). CT is the thesis that sees sceptical doubts as

‘essentially continuous with ordinary doubts, the only difference being that they encompass error-possibilities that are too remote to be taken seriously in everyday situations’ (2004b, 470). HSS is committed to CT in that it thinks that the standards for knowing are directly proportional to the range of defeaters relevant to the context, with more remote and extreme defeaters pushing the standards for knowledge up. But, according to HSS, there is nothing particularly different about the defeaters at play in the sceptical context, other than the fact that these defeaters are very remote (2004b, 470).

But Williams thinks that we should be suspicious of CT. Firstly, if CT were true it would make sense for us to be more worried by less remote (more ordinary)

200 defeaters because they are easier to take seriously, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. This suggests that when we are in the philosophical context, more is going on that simply a rise in epistemic standards (2004b, 470). Secondly, we can raise the epistemic standards within a context of inquiry which is non-philosophical (e.g. history, physics) indefinitely, without ever bringing in sceptical defeaters (2004b,

470). According to Williams, this all supports the idea that when we go from discussing, say, history to epistemology, we do not raise the standards but change the subject (2004b, 471).

Thus, unlike Semantic Contextualism, Williams’ Epistemic Contextualism does not concede point (3): scepticism is said to result from entirely ordinary epistemic practices. According to Williams’ position, but not according to the Semantic

Contextualist positions, the sceptical context and the context-bound scepticism which arises in it are not the result of ordinary epistemic practices. Williams’

Epistemic Contextualism is, in this respect, much less concessive to scepticism that

Semantic Contextualism is.

5.4 Is the Sceptical Context a Legitimate Context?

But what of point (4)? Does Williams’ Contextualism result in the claim that the sceptical context is an entirely legitimate context of ascription?

Concerning point (4), Semantic Contextualism results in this claim because of its concession to scepticism regarding point (3). In other words, because Semantic

Contextualism views scepticism as being the result of ordinary epistemic practices,

Semantic Contextualism does not take the sceptical context to be illegitimate or faulty in any way. It is regarded as a strange epistemic context in virtue of the fact that it represents an extreme rise in epistemic standards. But this extreme context of

201 ascription is one which is legitimatised by the Semantic Contextualist’s simple, linear view of the scale of epistemic standards for knowledge ascription.

Williams’ position is again, slightly more complex when it comes to this issue.

Though he builds a concession to context-bound scepticism into his account, he does repeatedly bring to attention the strangeness of this particular epistemic context. The sceptical context is not illegitimate in the sense of presupposing false ideas about knowledge/justification, in the way in which invariantist scepticism is. However,

Williams nonetheless views the sceptical context as being different to other contexts of inquiry. This is not only because of the sceptical context’s ability to undermine our erstwhile knowledge of the world, but because (as I discuss in the previous section) this context represents a departure from all normal epistemic practices.

That the sceptical context of inquiry (what I have called the Neutrality context) represents a departure from normal epistemic practices and norms is due to the fact that, within this context, all contextually variable constraints on our knowledge claims are lifted. All that is left within this unique context is the claim that, in order for one to know that p, one must have a rational basis which supports belief in p over belief in ~p coupled with the Neutrality of Experience thesis. But rather than liberating scepticism, this freedom from other constraints is debilitating, for it is precisely the constraints at work in other contexts of inquiry which allow us to defend particular knowledge claims. Though the demand for supporting reasons is at play in all contexts of inquiry, the consequences of the sceptical context are

(relatively) harmless because target beliefs usually come supplemented with collateral beliefs and other contextually determined epistemic constraints/practices.

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The sceptical context is, therefore, strange in this respect because it steps back from all ordinary epistemic practices; it is, in a sense, a context in which our epistemic position is diminished to its barest essentials. And this does not mean that this context represents a more fundamental context over and above other contexts of inquiry. The results obtained within the Neutrality context do not have any epistemic bearing on the results obtained in any other context of inquiry, precisely because, on

Williams’ position, each context of inquiry is epistemically independent.

In this way, Epistemic Contextualism does a better job of containing the sceptical result. Semantic Contextualism must concede that scepticism undermines high- standards knowledge ascriptions concerning the external world. And so one could take this result to indicate that, on the Semantic Contextualist account, scepticism wins by demonstrating that all truthful knowledge claims concerning the external world are only true when the epistemic standards are lax enough: in this sense, the

‘epistemological high ground’ seems to belong to the sceptic (Pritchard, 2016a, 6).

But Williams’ Epistemic position does not view the sceptical context as representing higher epistemic standards than other epistemic contexts of inquiry. The sceptical context, on Williams’ position, arises given that, within this context, almost all of our ordinary epistemic practices are stripped away.

Thus, Williams’ position does not say that the sceptical context of inquiry is illegitimate, but he does do more to distinguish this context of inquiry from all other epistemic contexts than Semantic Contextualism does. Given this, Williams’ position does a better job of properly containing the scepticism which arises within the sceptical context; unlike Semantic Contextualism, Epistemic Contextualism does not grant the sceptic the epistemological high ground.

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Thus, Williams’ position does result in claim (4): the sceptical context is taken to be an entirely legitimate context of ascription. However, Williams would want to expand on (4) by drawing attention to the fact that his account, though it makes room for a sceptical context of inquiry, does a much better job than Semantic

Contextualism of capturing and explaining the unusual nature of the sceptical context and of containing the scepticism which arises within this context. For this reason, Williams’ form of Contextualism is superior to Semantic forms of

Contextualism in this respect, even though Williams’ position also allows for a distinctively sceptical epistemic context.

6. Concluding Remarks

Whilst Semantic forms of Contextualism may unproblematically be able to uphold

Epistemic Closure, they have been shown, in Part 1, to be overly concessive to scepticism. Williams’ Contextualism, however, can uphold Epistemic Closure whilst offering a position which drastically reduces the significance of scepticism.

Scepticism, on Williams’ account, is properly contained within one epistemic context. Moreover, Williams’ position is less concessive to scepticism in the four ways outlined above: it can uphold some truthful knowledge ascriptions of the form

‘S knows that ~B’; the sceptical context is not overly easy to install; scepticism is not viewed as the result of entirely ordinary epistemic practices and; the sceptical context, though legitimate on Williams’ position, is at least properly characterised as a peculiar and unusual epistemic context.

For these reasons, Williams’ position has been shown to be superior to Semantic

Contextualism in relation to its characterisation of, and response to, external world scepticism. I have therefore demonstrated sufficient reason to endorse Epistemic

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Contextualism, as a response to external world scepticism, over Semantic

Contextualism.

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Conclusion

At the start of my thesis, I stated that I wanted to investigate Contextualist responses to the sceptical Argument from Ignorance (AI), focusing on such theories' ability to offer a response to external world scepticism which is not overly concessive to the sceptic. I have demonstrated that Semantic Contextualism fails to provide such a position. This was elucidated by the fact that Semantic Contextualism is committed to, or results in, the following four claims: (1) knowledge attributions of the form ‘I know/S knows that ~B’ are invariably false; (2) the sceptical context is extremely easy to install; (3) scepticism is said to result from entirely ordinary epistemic practices and; (4) the sceptical context is taken to be an entirely legitimate context of ascription. Claims (1), (2), (3) and (4) are offered as sufficient reason to reject

Semantic Contextualism as a viable response to the sceptical Argument from

Ignorance.

Williams’ alternative Epistemic Contextualist position is shown to be, overall, much less concessive to scepticism. Moreover, Williams’ position is supported by the fact it can offer a deeper diagnosis of both an invariantist and context-restricted reading of AI. My new diagnosis of AI demonstrates that an invariantist interpretation of AI fails to transmit warrant, and so supports a dismissal of AI in its invariantist form.

However, by using elements of Williams’ theoretical diagnosis of invariantist scepticism and Epistemic Contextualism, I have shown that, when AI is read as an argument for context-restricted scepticism, it does succeed in transmitting warrant to its conclusion. Semantic Contextualism, on the other hand, does not deliver the theoretical tools needed to investigate the role of transmission of warrant in AI. The result of the discussion of transmission of warrant in relation to AI therefore

206 confirms both Williams’ theoretical diagnosis of, and Contextualist response to, external world scepticism over its Semantic rival.

Not only is Williams’ Epistemic form of Contextualism less concessive to scepticism than Semantic forms of Contextualism, it also provides a better understanding of knowledge and justification than Semantic Contextualism (which is ultimately just a theory of knowledge ascriptions) in virtue of the formulation of justification which

Epistemic Contextualism entails. Thus, without needing to rely on contested linguistic theses (as Semantic Contextualism does99) or contested logical theses

(such as a denial of Epistemic Closure), Epistemic Contextualism comprises a substantial and convincing account of both our ordinary and anti-sceptical knowledge.

However, it was also demonstrated that Williams’ Contextualism is ultimately stuck with one context of inquiry in which scepticism is correct; in which all knowledge claims concerning external world objects can only be falsely laid claim to. Williams’ own theoretical diagnosis of scepticism cannot undermine this form of scepticism because, as was demonstrated in Part 3 section 4.3, this form of scepticism stems from the idea that our experiences of worldly objects underdetermine our claims concerning external world objects. Williams’ own endorsement of the Neutrality of

Experience thesis means that he cannot undermine scepticism within the sceptical context of inquiry, where this scepticism is viewed as being generated from the idea that, where our epistemic base is reduced to perceptual experiences, our claims about external world objects lack rational support given that such experiences are evidentially neutral in regards to our claims about such objects. Thus, Williams’

99 See Part 1, sub-section 1.3.1.1, where I discuss the difference between Contextualist and Invariantist accounts of the truth-values of knowledge ascriptions.

207 position accepts scepticism, but only within the confines of the sceptical context of inquiry.

Williams could only completely eradicate scepticism from his position if he were willing to lose his commitment to the Neutrality of Experience thesis. One epistemic position which rejects this thesis is Epistemological Disjunctivism. This position states that S’s seeing that p (as opposed to it merely looking to S as if p) gives S an indefeasible rational basis for believing that p over ~p. Epistemological

Disjunctivism thus rejects Neutrality of Experience because it rejects the idea that one’s perceptual experiences of p are evidentially neutral with respect to belief in p and ~p.

Given that Epistemic Contextualism upholds the Neutrality of Experience thesis whilst Epistemological Disjunctivism rejects this thesis, it seems, at least on the face of it, that these two kinds of position are mutually incompatible.100 Thus, this thesis effectively demonstrates the limits of Williams’-style Epistemic Contextualism’s ability to contain external world scepticism. Williams’ position, unlike the Semantic forms of Contextualism discussed in Part 1, offers a theoretically satisfying diagnosis of, and Contextualist response to, the sceptical problem. The reason why his position cannot undermine scepticism within the confines the sceptical context of

100 However, Pritchard (2016b) offers a ‘biscopic’ anti-sceptical proposal which combines a form of Epistemological Disjunctivism with a Wittgensteinian conception of the structure of rational evaluation. The latter works with Wittgenstein’s comments concerning hinge-propositions and the fundamental limits of rational evaluation; that the logic of rational evaluation requires that, within any rational evaluation of one’s beliefs, certain commitments (the hinge propositions) must stand outside the realm of rational evaluation. Given that Williams’ Contextualism itself offers a view very much inspired by, and incorporating ideas from, Wittgenstein’s comments on hinge propositions, Pritchard’s work may open up a way to combine a form of Williams’-style Epistemic Contextualism with a form of Epistemological Disjunctivism. However, the tenability of such a position will have to remain the subject of future work. As it stands, this thesis has adequately established the benefits and limits of Contextualism as an anti-sceptical position.

208 inquiry has now been properly elucidated. Moreover, the limits of the form of scepticism allowed for on Williams’ position have been adequately demonstrated.

209

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