One of the most recent trends in epistemology is contrastivism. It can be characterized as the thesis that knowledge is a ternary relation between a subject, a proposition known and a contrast proposition. According to contrastivism, knowledge attributions have the form “S knows that p, rather than q”. In this paper I raise several problems for contrastivism: it lacks plausibility for many cases of knowledge, is too narrow concerning the third relatum, and overlooks a further relativity of the knowledge relation.

In his recent book Moral Skepticisms Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argues in great detail for contrastivism with respect to justified moral belief and moral knowledge. I raise three questions concerning this view. First, how would Sinnott-Armstrong account for constraints on admissible contrast classes? Secondly, how would he deal with notorious problems concerning relevant reference classes? Finally, how can he account for basic features of moral agency? It turns out that the last problem is the most serious one for his account.

There’s something deeply right in the idea that knowledge requires an ability to discriminate truth from falsity. Failing to incorporate some version of the discrimination requirement into one’s epistemology generates cases of putative knowledge that are at best problematic. On the other hand, many theories that include a discrimination requirement thereby appear to entail violations of closure. This prima facie tension is resolved nicely in Jonathan Schaffer’s contrastivism, which I describe herein. The contrastivist take on relevant alternatives is implausible, however, (...) and this then threatens to undermine contrastivism’s anti-skeptical results. (shrink)

In this introduction to the special issue of Social Epistemology on epistemological contrastivism, I make some remarks on the history of contrastivism, describe three main versions of contrastivism, and offer a guide through the papers that compose this issue.

I air three kinds of problem to which Sinnott-Armstrong's epistemological contrastivism seems to be exposed: (a) the theory gives an unplausible account of justification attributions; (b) the Pyrrhonism which results from its inability to identify relevant contrast classes bars us from epistemic responsibility; (c) contextualism does just as well as Pyrrhonism, despite Sinnott-Armstrong's arguments to the contrary.

In order to explain such puzzling cases as the Bank Case and the Airport Case, semantic contextualists defend two theses. First, that the truth-conditions of knowledge sentences fluctuate in accordance with features of the conversational context. Second, that this fluctuation can be explained by the fact that 'knows' is an indexical. In this paper, I challenge both theses. In particular, I argue (i) that it isn't obvious that 'knows' is an indexical at all, and (ii) that contrastivism can do the (...) same work as contextualism is supposed to do, without being linguistically implausible. (shrink)

I will here sharply oppose all the phases of the story Schaffer & Knobe tell. In Part 1 we will look at the supposed empirical case against standard contextualism, and in Part 2 we will investigate Schaffer & Knobe’s supposed empirical case for the superiority of contrastivism over standard contextualism.

Oxford Studies in Epistemology is a biennial publicaton which offers a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this important field.

This paper defends strict invariantism against some philosophical and empirical data that have been taken to compromise it. The defence involves a combination of a priori philosophical arguments and empirically informed theorizing. The positive account of the data is an epistemic focal bias account that draws on cognitive psychology. It involves the assumption that, owing to limitations of the involved cognitive resources, intuitive judgments about knowledge ascriptions are generated by processing only a limited part of the available information?the part that (...) is in focus. According to the epistemic focal bias account, the intuitive judgments about knowledge ascriptions that constitute contrast effects amount to false positives, whereas the intuitive judgments that constitute salient alternatives effects amount to false negatives. I conclude by considering how the basic epistemic focal bias account may be developed further by reference to relevant alternatives theory in epistemology, pragmatics in the philosophy of language, and dual process theory in cognitive psychology. (shrink)

The standard contextualist solution to the skeptical paradox is intended to provide a way to retain epistemic closure while avoiding the excessive modesty of radical skepticism and the immodesty of Moorean dogmatism. However, contextualism’s opponents charge that its solution suffers from epistemic immodesty comparable to Moorean dogmatism. According to the standard contextualist solution, all contexts where an agent knows some ordinary proposition to be true are contexts where she also knows that the skeptical hypotheses are false. It has been hoped (...) that contrastivist theories of knowledge can mirror the contextualist solution while avoiding this epistemic immodesty. I review the main problems for contrastive closure and argue that none of the arguments currently in the literature pose an insurmountable problem for the contrastivist solution. However, I argue that contrastivist theories of knowledge, like their contextualist rivals, are indeed committed to epistemic immodesty. (shrink)

This paper argues for a solution to a problem that contrastivism faces. The problem is that contrastivism cannot preserve closure, in spite of claims to the contrary by its defenders. The problem is explained and a response developed.

Contextualists claim two important virtues for their view. First, contextualism is a non-skeptical epistemology, given the plausible idea that not all contexts invoke the high standards for knowledge needed to generate the skeptical conclusion that we know little or nothing. Second, contextualism is able to preserve closure concerning knowledge – the idea that knowledge is extendable on the basis of competent deduction from known premises. As long as one keeps the context fixed, it is plausible to think that some closure (...) principle can be articulated that will survive scrutiny. Opponents of contextualism often try to gain an advantage over it by claiming that their view mimics these virtues of contextualism as well as having other virtues. A recent example of the same is termed ‘contrastivism," as presented by Jonathan Schaffer. I will argue that the representation made is chimerical, that in fact contrastivism has no hope of mirroring these twin virtues of contextualism. (shrink)

Contrastivism is the idea that knowledge is question-relative: to know is to be able to answer a contextually salient question. Constrastivism's main selling point is that it promises to respect ordinary speakers' judgments about knowledge claims made in various contexts. I show that contrastivism fails to fulfill this promise, and argue that the view I call epistemic pluralism does much better in this respect.

A number of philosophers have recently defended “contrastivist” theories of knowledge, according to which knowledge is a relation between at least the following three relata: a knower, a proposition, and a contrast set. I examine six arguments that Jonathan Schaffer has given for this thesis, and show that those arguments do not favour contrastivism over a rival view that I call “evidentiary relativism”. I then argue that evidentiary relativism accounts for more data than does contrastivism.

I offer a critical treatment of the contrastivist response to the problem of radical scepticism. In particular, I argue that if contrastivism is understood along externalist lines then it is unnecessary, while if it is understood along internalist lines then it is intellectually dissatisfying. Moreover, I claim that a closer examination of the conditions under which it is appropriate to claim knowledge reveals that we can accommodate many of the intuitions appealed to by contrastivists without having to opt for this (...) particular brand of epistemological revisionism. (shrink)

Most philosophers of language with an interest in epistemology would have said, until very recently, that an utterance of (1) semantically expresses a proposition that is true if and only if Holmes ( h ) and the proposition that Mary stole the bicycle ( p ) are related by the binary relation of knowing (K xy ), so that the logical form of (1) is K hp . But in the past few years, a few plucky epistemologico-linguists, most notably Jonathan (...) Schaffer, have tried to defend a contrasting view that has come to be known as “contrastivism”. (shrink)

Baumann (2008a) raises three main concerns for epistemic contrastivism. These lead him to a more complicated re-conception of knowledge, involving varying numbers of argument places for varying sorts of arguments. I will argue that these complications are unneeded. The more elegant and uniform contrastive treatment can resolve all of Baumann’s concerns, in a straightforward way.

In "Knowing the Answer" I argued that knowledge-wh is question-relative. For example, to know when the movie starts is to know the answer p to the question Q of when the movie starts. Berit Brogaard and Jesper Kallestrup have each responded with insightful critiques of my argument, and novel accounts of knowledge-wh. I am grateful to them both for continuing the discussion in so thoughtful a way.

Knowledge ascriptions are contrast-sensitive. One natural explanation for this is that the knowledge relation is contrastive ( s knows that p rather than q ). But can the binary view of knowledge ( s knows that p ) explain contrast-sensitivity? I review some of the linguistic data supporting contrast-sensitivity, and critique the three main binary explanations for contrast-sensitivity. I conclude that the contrast-sensitivity of knowledge ascriptions shows that knowledge is a contrastive relation.

How must knowledge be formed, if made in the image of assertion? That is, given that knowledge plays the normative role of governing what one may assert, what can be inferred about the structure of the knowledge relation from this role? I will argue that what one may assert is sensitive to the question under discussion, and conclude that what one knows must be relative to a question. In short, knowledge in the image of assertion is question-relative knowledge.

How should one understand knowledge-wh ascriptions? That is, how should one understand claims such as “I know where the car is parked,” which feature an interrogative complement? The received view is that knowledge-wh reduces to knowledge that p, where p happens to be the answer to the question Q denoted by the wh-clause. I will argue that knowledge-wh includes the question-to know-wh is to know that p, as the answer to Q. 1 will then argue that knowledge-that includes a contextually (...) implicit question. I will conclude that knowledge is a question-relative state. Knowing is knowing the answer, and whether one knows the answer depends (in part) on the question. (shrink)

How should one understand knowledge-wh ascriptions? That is, how should one understand claims such as ‘‘I know where the car is parked,’’ which feature an interrogative complement? The received view is that knowledge-wh reduces to knowledge that p, where p happens to be the answer to the question Q denoted by the wh-clause. I will argue that knowledge-wh includes the question—to know-wh is to know that p, as the answer to Q. I will then argue that knowledge-that includes a contextually (...) implicit question. I will conclude that knowledge is a question-relative state. Knowing is knowing the answer, and whether one knows the answer depends (in part) on the question. (shrink)

How should the contrastivist formulate closure? That is, given that knowledge is a ternary contrastive state Kspq (s knows that p rather than q), how does this state extend under entailment? In what follows, I will identify adequacy conditions for closure, criticize the extant invariantist and contextualist closure schemas, and provide a contrastive schema based on the idea of extending answers. I will conclude that only the contrastivist can adequately formulate closure.

Does what you know depend on what is at stake for you? That is, is the knowledge relation sensitive to the subject’s practical interests? Subject sensitive invariantists (Fantl and McGrath, 2002; Hawthorne, 2004, ch. 4; Stanley, forthcoming) say that the answer is yes. They claim to capture the contextualist data without the shifty semantics. I will argue that the answer is no. The knowledge relation is sensitive to what is in question for the attributor, rather than what is at stake (...) for the subject. There is no substitute for the contextualist semantics. (shrink)

Does G. E. Moore know that he has hands? Yes, says the dogmatist: Moore’s hands are right before his eyes. No, says the skeptic: for all Moore knows he could be a brain-in-a-vat. Yes and no, says the contrastivist: yes, Moore knows that he has hands rather than stumps; but no, Moore does not know that he has hands rather than vat-images of hands. The dogmatist and the skeptic suppose that knowledge is a binary, categorical relation: s knows that p. (...) The contrastivist says that knowledge is a ternary, contrastive relation: s knows that p rather than q. (shrink)

Much of the extant discussion focuses on the question of whether contextualism resolves skeptical paradoxes. Understandably. Yet there has been less discussion as to the internal structure of contextualist theories. Regrettably. Here, for instance, are two questions that could stand further discussion: (i) what is the linguistic basis for contextualism and (ii) what is the parameter that shifts with context?

Contextualism treats ‘knows’ as an indexical that denotes different epistemic properties in different contexts. Contrastivism treats ‘knows’ as denoting a ternary relation with a slot for a contrast proposition. I will argue that contrastivism resolves the main philosophical problems of contextualism, by employing a better linguistic model. Contextualist insights are best understood by contrastivist theory.

Suppose that Ann says, “Keith knows that the bank will be open tomorrow.” Her audience may well agree. Her knowledge ascription may seem true. But now suppose that Ben—in a different context—also says “Keith knows that the bank will be open tomorrow.” His audience may well disagree. His knowledge ascription may seem false. Indeed, a number of philosophers have claimed that people’s intuitions about knowledge ascriptions are context sensitive, in the sense that the very same knowledge ascription can seem true (...) in one conversational context but false in another. This purported fact about people’s intuitions serves as one of the main pieces of evidence for epistemic contextualism. (shrink)

Knowledge ascriptions seem context sensitive. If Ann and Ben are wondering who stole the diamonds, and Ann finds Claire’s fingerprints all over the safe, then Ann may say: 1. I know that Claire stole the diamonds Ben would likely agree. Ann’s claim would seem true. Yet if Ann and Ben are wondering instead what Claire stole from the safe, and Ann finds Claire’s fingerprints all over the safe, then Ann should not yet say 1. If she said this, Ben would (...) likely disagree. Her claim would seem false. (shrink)

General contrastivism holds that all claims of reasons are relative to contrast classes. This approach applies to explanation (reasons why things happen), moral philosophy (reasons for action), and epistemology (reasons for belief), and it illuminates moral dilemmas, free will, and the grue paradox. In epistemology, contrast classes point toward an account of justified belief that is compatible with reliabilism and other externalisms. Contrast classes also provide a model for Pyrrhonian scepticism based on suspending belief about which contrast class is relevant. (...) This view contrasts with contextualism, invariantism, and Schaffer's contrastivism. (shrink)

Contrastivism is the claim that the knowledge relation is ternary, it relates three relata: a subject, a proposition, and a class of contrastive propositions. The present paper is a discussion of Jonathan Schaffer's arguments in favour of contrastivism. The case is made that these are unconvincing: the traditional binary account of knowledge can handle the phenomena that ternarity is claimed to handle in a superior way.