Contextualism Defended

Introduction

There has arisen a debate in contemporary epistemology as to whether the verb ‘to know’ operates in the same manner as other contextual words, such as ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘there’, ‘here’, etc…. Even more though, it is debated whether such an interpretation would justify the view of epistemic contextualism from mere semantic contextualism. It does not seem immediately apparent that epistemic contextualism follows from semantic contextualism. In this paper, I will defend epistemic contextualism and show that it does, in fact, follow from semantic contextualism. And following from this, I will detail two opposing arguments against epistemic contextualism and show that they have little weight against the proposed thesis.

Epistemic Contextualism

At this point, it is necessary to further explain the conclusion defended, before outlining the argument for it. The conclusion is, “Epistemic contextualism is true”; very well, what does that mean? In this paper, epistemic contextualism (EC) is defined as

EC: For a given proposition p, if p is true within the context c that person q is operating within, and if q knows p to be true within c, then q is justified in saying that s/he knows p.

Such a view allows many skeptical hurdles to be leaped. For example, say Johnny is speaking to Mr. Skeptic on an average day. In the conversation, Johnny points and says, “Look! A dachshund!” and promptly bends over to pet the dog. Immediately, in an outrage, Mr. Skeptic replies, “A dachshund? How absurd! How is it that you know that you are not a brain in a vat, having just the right neurons triggered to make you think there is a dachshund before you? You aren’t justified in making such a statement!”

In this example, Johnny makes an epistemic claim. He claims to have knowledge that a dachshund is before him. It is clear that Johnny is operating within the context of a walk down the street, a run through the park, a day at the beach, or any other average context; Mr. Skeptic is operating within a separate one from Johnny. Namely, Mr. Skeptic is within the context of metaphysics and epistemology, or something of this sort. Under EC, neither person in this case is wrong, per say. Focusing on Johnny, though, let us insert the phrase “there is a dachshund before me” in substitution for p, from the above definition. If there is a dachshund before Johnny (in the context of being in the park, on the street, at the beach, etc…) and he knows that the dachshund is before him, then he is justified in saying that he knows that there is a dachshund before him. Thus, by EC, Johnny avoids Mr. Skeptics’ reply. With a further grasp of EC in hand, let us move forward.

Argument For Epistemic Contextualism

The argument I will use for EC is simple; in standard form it looks like this:

1. Semantic contextualism is true.

2. Knowledge is a context based word.

3. If (1) and (2), then epistemic contextualism is true.

4. :. Epistemic contextualism is true.

Already, at the very least, we have before us a valid argument. Firstly, I will show that premise (1) is true; secondly, and more in-depth, I will demonstrate (2); and thirdly, (3) and (4) will easily follow.

Premise One

A demonstration of semantic contextualism (SC) is quite simple. Consider this scenario: I walk into a pole on my way to class and exclaim, “My nose hurts!” Suppose that I am walking with my friend who says “My nose hurts?” I reply, “No, your nose doesn’t hurt, my nose hurts.” What we witness here is a confusion of context. The words “your” and “my” are context based. The proposition “nose hurting” is relational to the person who utters it. So, even though the proposition is true for me, it is not true if said by a bystander because it applies to me, not them. We can see here, then, that premise one is true.

Premise Two

As seen in the dachshund dilemma, there are spheres of psychological interest. Those uninterested in heavyweight truth claims do not have these claims coming before their mind when making knowledge statements. An average person who does not read philosophy does not use “knowledge” in the same way that a philosopher might. Put another way, knowledge is context sensitive.

Moreover, an example will lend a helping hand. Suppose I am uninterested in philosophy; instead of reading, I like to go out and play hide and go seek with my friends. While playing one night, I am wandering around a park seeking my hiding friends. Even more, say I am crawling through some bush that I saw my friend run into, and I exclaim, “I know you are there”, just before tagging her.

It is clear in this example, that the person had sufficient evidence within the context of playing hide and go seek to utter “I know”. Would a person under a different set of conditions and contexts be able to say the same? Quite possibly not (particularly if they are a skeptic). It seems from this that knowledge operates under the context in which it exists.

Premise Three and Four

Not much needs to be said of this, since EC is tightly connected to knowledge being contextual. What must be said is that if premise (1) and (2) are true, then it immediately follows that epistemic contextualism is true, for if epistemology is the theory of knowledge and if knowledge is context sensitive, then epistemological propositions are context sensitive. And, so, EC is true.

Objections

Having fully explained my argument for contextualism, let us now observe some objections to EC raised by Earl Conee.

The Objection From Loose Talk

Conee’s first objection in standard form is:

1. The unvarying standard for truth is high, but not unreachable.

2. Most people make claims of knowledge on a basis much weaker than (1).

3. Actualism differs from efficient ways of speaking.

4. If (1), (2), and (3), then contextualism is misleading.

5. :. Contextualism is misleading.

The objection purports that knowledge is a hard thing to have; it is not a thing of the masses. If one does not fulfill the closure principle, or something of the like, then one does not have knowledge. And, according to Conee, many people do not fulfill a standard by which truth is tested (what that standard might be is irrelevant).

Response

The first objection of Conee’s seems on first glance to just be restating what contextualism is and then just stating it is absurd. However, granting his objection, I will deny the first premise and the third premise, though I will only discuss the first, seeing as the denial of the third is directly correlated to the denial of the first.

Contextualism, in a sense, divides one’s life into a varied number of circles that may intersect, may be isolated, or may be almost identical. Examples of this are an individual’s work, an individual’s home, an individual’s hobby, etc…. The same individual circulates through these different contexts, and acts in accordance to their conditions. Now, to say that there is an “unvarying standard” by which one attributes knowledge between the circles seems unfounded. What is this unvarying standard? The closure principle? If so, I see no reason to think that a person is acting irrationally if they say they know that they have a right hand, so long as it is in the contextual circle. Given that they see and feel their hand, they have reason to believe it exists. Contextualism does not lead to subjectivism.

Objection From Strict Truth

The objection in standard form:

1. If EC is true, then there is a philosophic context where there is a single standard by which to judge beliefs.

2. If there is a philosophic context where there is a single standard by which to judge beliefs, then EC does very little to contribute to philosophy.

3. :. EC does very little to contribute to philosophy.

Here Conee notes that contextualism does not solve many issues in philosophy. He argues that EC may solve problems raised by skeptics for the average person, but as for any philosophic arguments against skepticism, it is lacking. And because of this, EC has very little explanatory power.

Response

Yet again, Conee does not raise a serious objection against EC; he provides a description of it and argues that it has little explanatory power for philosophers. Even if this is the case, EC accomplishes a big task–namely, that of allowing confidence in other areas of life free from heavyweight skeptical claims. Though it does not provide a direct response to skeptical issues, it does make a serious contribution in preserving average day events. And, as Stewart Cohen suggests, this does disprove EC, it just allows EC to be put up against other theories of knowledge to see which is stronger. Of course, there is not the time and space for that in this paper, but it can be confidently stated that Conee does not provide a sufficiently strong argument to deny EC.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it has been shown that semantic contextualism alongside knowledge as a context word leads to epistemic contextualism, the view that one is justified in believing propositions so long that it is true in the context they are operating in. From there, two objections from Conee were presented. The first, the objection from loose talk, was shown to have little weight against EC; the second has a similar misunderstanding as the first. It has sufficiently been shown that epistemic contextualism is a justified thesis to hold.