Epistemic Contextualism and Relativism

Abstract: The understanding our own mind seems to be an interesting topic in philosophy. I recall reading Kant, he ran far away in the metaphysical space when chalanged complex problems. He used the “intuition” as a mean to justify things, much before the awareness of scientific genetics and such things that made it feasible for such a use. Not much else he could do, the 18th century access to scientific knowledge was just very limited. My view of instinct and intuition (...) are quite simple, perhaps a foolish view of such a complex and interesting phenomena. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a dialectical argument for a priori skepticism (i.e. the thesis that we can be skeptical about a priori knowledge). Then, we propose a framework that combines elements from inferential contextualism and logical conventionalism to offer a weak transcendental argument against a priori skepticism.

The structure of this article is very simple. In the first half, I will introduce a sophisticated way of reading Heidegger as a relativist; I draw here on the work of Kusch and Lafont. In the second half, I present the counter-argument. As I see it, Heidegger is not a relativist; but understanding the relations between his approach and a relativistic one is crucial for an evaluation of both his own work and the broader trajectory of post-Kantian thought.

The contextualistic account for the semantic behaviour of the term “know” - a position labelled as “epistemic contextualism” - combined with the widely accepted idea that “know” is a factive verb seems to lead to a very unpleasant conclusion: epistemic contextualism is inconsistent. In section 1 we first examine some aspects of the epistemological meaning of the contextualist semantics of “know”, then in section 2 we sketch the problem which leads to the supposed inconsistency of epistemic contextualism and in section (...) 3 we analyse some solutions that have been proposed to solve the problem which are, in our view, unsatisfactory. In section 4 we present our attempt of solution. (shrink)

There is a family of metaethical views according to which (i) there are no objectively correct moral standards and (ii) whether a given moral claim is true depends in some way on moral standards accepted by either an individual (forms of subjectivism) or a community (forms of relativism). This chapter outlines the three most important versions of this type of theories: old-fashioned subjectivism and relativism, contextualism and new wave subjectivism and relativism. It also explores the main advantages of these views (...) and the key objections to them. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that there is a significant but often overlooked metaphysical distinction to be made between contextualism and contrastivism. The orthodox view is that contrastivism is merely a form of contextualism. This is a mistake. The contextualist view is incompatible with certain naturalist claims about the metaphysical nature of concepts within whichever domain is being investigated, while the contrastivist view is compatible with these claims. So, choosing one view over the other will involve choosing to affirm or (...) deny a significant metaphysical claim. As such, a demarcation ought to be put in place between contextualism and contrastivism. (shrink)

Contextualism is the view that the extension of perspectival claims (involving e.g. predicates of personal taste or epistemic modals) depends on the context of utterance. Relativism is the view that the extension of perspectival claims depends on the context of assessment. Both views make concrete, empirically testable predictions about how such claims are used by ordinary English language speakers. This chapter surveys some of the recent empirical literature on the topic and presents four new experiments (total N=724). Consistent with contextualism (...) and inconsistent with relativism, the results suggest that the extension of perspectival claims depends on the context of utterance, not the context of assessment. (shrink)

En este capítulo, tratar el tema de las intuiciones basadas en las retractaciones, y argumentar que tales intuiciones no favorecen lo que llamar relativismo de apreciaci n (assessment relativism). Las intuiciones en que se basan las semanticas relativistas para los dominios del discurso en consideración conciernen a las retractaciones de afirmaciones pasadas que ocurren cuando el hablante ha cambiado su perspectiva (aunque los hechos independientes de las perspectivas del hablante sigan siendo los mismos).

This paper offers a novel account of practical factor effects on knowledge attributions that is consistent with the denial of contextualism, relativism and pragmatic encroachemt. The account goes as follows. Knowledge depends on factors like safety, reliability or probability. In many cases, it is uncertain just how safe, how reliably formed or how probable the target proposition is. This means that we have to estimate these quantities in order to form knowledge judgements. Such estimates of uncertain quantities are independently known (...) to be affected by pragmatic factors. When overestimation is costlier than underestimation, for instance, we tend to underestimate the relevant quantity to avoid greater losses. On the suggested account, high stakes and other pragmatic factors induce such “asymmetric loss functions” on quantities like safety, reliability and probability. This skews our estimates of these quantities and thereby our judgements about knowledge. The resulting theory is an error-theory, but one that rationlizes the error in question. (shrink)

This chapter proposes a version of epistemic contextualism, called inferentialist contextualism, as a promising research program within African epistemology. My suggestion should be seen against the background of the earlier debate between the seemingly incompatible positions of universalism and particularism. Whilst universalism has been charged with not allowing for diversity, of forcing African culture into the Procrustean bed of Western thought, particularism seems to block cross-cultural dialogue. A compromise is therefore called for. I argue that inferentialist contextualism can fill this (...) need. One promising feature is that whilst traditional epistemology always places the burden of justification on the subject of knowledge, inferentialist contextualism distinguishes between three different contexts: except for the traditional one, a second where the burden of proof is shared by both the subject and any fellow who might challenge the belief and a third context where the burden lies solely on the inquiring fellow. The notion of default entitlement depicts beliefs falling within this third context and will be elaborated in some detail here. I argue that inferential contextualism permits greater contextual variety than traditional epistemology without collapsing into relativism. (shrink)

The practice of social studies continues to be a complicated scientific endeavor. From an epistemological point of view, the social sciences, unlike the natural sciences, do not conform to the predominant definition of science. The existing differences among expositions of “science,” “inquiry,” and “studies” lie with the contested role of the intellectual who is embarked on understanding the social realm. The “maturity” of the social sciences is usually discussed in the context of objectivity and rationality. But continuing epistemological debates would (...) be insufficient without reference to the scholar as a human studying humans. The philosophy of science has focused mainly on the procedures of knowledge accumulation, neglecting social context and its implications for inquiry. To address this neglect, this essay sets out first to retrace doubts about the role of the scholar that emerged with the institutionalization of the social sciences at the outset of the twentieth century and then to rethink these issues in terms of recent scientific developments. What surfaces is a new, participatory role for scholars that demands responsible contextualization and a broader conception of causal stories. (shrink)

Keith DeRose and Stewart Cohen object to the fallibilist strand of pragmatic invariantism regarding knowledge ascriptions that it is committed to non-cancelable pragmatic implications. I show that this objection points us to an asymmetry about which aspects of the conveyed content of knowledge ascriptions can be canceled: we can cancel those aspects that ascribe a lesser epistemic standing to the subject but not those that ascribe a better or perfect epistemic standing. This situation supports the infallibilist strand of pragmatic invariantism (...) according to which knowledge semantically requires absolute certainty but this claim is often pragmatically weakened: it turns out that exactly those aspects of the conveyed content are cancelable that this view claims are pragmatic. I also argue that attributor contextualism and relativism do not have an alternative explanation of this phenomenon. (shrink)

Relativism and contextualism have been suggested as candidate semantics for “knowledge” sentences. I argue that relativism faces a problem concerning the preservation of beliefs in memory. Contextualism has been argued to face a similar problem. I argue that contextualists, unlike relativists, can respond to the concern. The overall upshot is that contextualism is superior to relativism in at least one important respect.

Orthodoxy in the contemporary debate on knowledge ascriptions holds that the truth‐value of knowledge ascriptions is purely a matter of truth‐relevant factors. One familiar challenge to orthodoxy comes from intuitive practical factor effects . But practical factor effects turn out to be hard to confirm in experimental studies, and where they have been confirmed, they may seem easy to explain away. We suggest a novel experimental paradigm to show that practical factor effects exist. It trades on the idea that people (...) retract knowledge attributions when practical factors shift. We also explain why the resulting data raise a serious challenge to orthodoxy. (shrink)

In “The Logic of Deep Disagreements,” Robert Fogelin claims that parties to a deep disagreement lack the common ground needed for arguments to work, making the disagreement impervious to rational resolution. Although Fogelin’s article received numerous responses, there has been no attempt to elucidate the epistemological theory behind Fogelin’s theses. In this article, I examine Fogelin’s theory of deep disagreements in light of his broader philosophy. The picture that emerges is that of relativism of distance, à la Bernard Williams. By (...) interpreting Fogelin’s theory as relativism of distance, it avoids some of the critiques that have been raised against it. (shrink)

A common objection to both contextualism and relativism about knowledge ascriptions is that they threaten knowledge norms of assertion and action. Consequently, if there is good reason to accept knowledge norms of assertion or action, there is good reason to reject both contextualism and relativism. In this paper we argue that neither contextualism nor relativism threaten knowledge norms of assertion or action.

The success of a few theories in statistical thermodynamics can be correlated with their selectivity to reality. These are the theories of Boltzmann, Gibbs, and Einstein. The starting point is Carnot’s theory, which defines implicitly the general selection of reality relevant to thermodynamics. The three other theories share this selection, but specify it further in detail. Each of them separates a few main aspects within the scope of the implicit thermodynamic reality. Their success grounds on that selection. Those aspects can (...) be represented by corresponding oppositions. These are: macroscopic – microscopic; elements – states; relational – non-relational; and observable – theoretical. They can be interpreted as axes of independent qualities constituting a common qualitative reference frame shared by those theories. Each of them can be situated in this reference frame occupying a different place. This reference frame can be interpreted as an additional selection of reality within Carnot’s initial selection describable as macroscopic and both observable and theoretical. The deduced reference frame refers implicitly to many scientific theories independent of their subject therefore defining a general and common space or subspace for scientific theories (not for all). The immediate conclusion is: The examples of a few statistical thermodynamic theories demonstrate that the concept of “reality” is changed or generalized, or even exemplified (i.e. “de-generalized”) from a theory to another. Still a few more general suggestions referring the scientific realism debate can be added: One can admit that reality in scientific theories is some partially shared common qualitative space or subspace describable by relevant oppositions and rather independent of their subject quite different in general. Many or maybe all theories can be situated in that space of reality, which should develop adding new dimensions in it for still newer and newer theories. Its division of independent subspaces can represent the many-realities conception. The subject of a theory determines some relevant subspace of reality. This represents a selection within reality, relevant to the theory in question. The success of that theory correlates essentially with the selection within reality, relevant to its subject. (shrink)

The Protagoras examines how community can occur between people who have nothing in common. Community, Protagoras holds, has no natural basis. Seeking the good is therefore not a theoretical project, but a matter of agreement. This position follows from his claim that “man is the measure of all things.” For Socrates community is based on a natural good, which is sought through theoretical inquiry. They disagree about what community is, and what its bases and goals are. But Plato illustrates the (...) seriousness of Protagoras’s position through the repeated breakdown of their conversation. The dialogue leads us to question both speakers’ assumptions about community. Socrates must face the problem that not everything can be brought to language. Protagoras must recognize that there is a basis of community even in what cannot be shared. Community is grounded in an event that is both natural and not up to us, and cultural and articulate. (shrink)

The term “know” is one of the ten most common verbs in English, and yet a central aspect of its usage remains mysterious. Our willingness to ascribe knowledge depends not just on epistemic factors such as the quality of our evidence. It also depends on seemingly non-epistemic factors. For instance, we become less inclined to ascribe knowledge when it’s important to be right, or once our attention is drawn to possible sources of error. Accounts of this phenomenon proliferate, but no (...) consensus has been achieved, decades of research notwithstanding. Alexander Dinges offers a fresh examination of this ongoing debate. After reviewing and complementing relevant data from both armchair and experimental philosophy, he assesses extant accounts of this data including semantic, metaphysical, pragmatic, doxastic as well as more recent psychological accounts. Against this background, he offers a novel psychological account based on the idea that non-epistemic factors affect estimates of probability. (shrink)

This article focuses on two developments in nineteenth-century (philosophy of) social science: Moritz Lazarus’s and Heymann Steinthal’s Völkerpsychologie and Georg Simmel’s early sociology of knowledge. The article defends the following theses. First, Lazarus and Steinthal wavered between a “strong” and a “weak” program for Völkerpsychologie. Ingredients for the strong program included methodological neutrality and symmetry; causal explanation of beliefs based on causal laws; a focus on groups, interests, tradition, culture, or materiality; determinism; and a self-referential model of social institutions. Second, (...) elements of the weak program were the blurring of explanatory and normative interests, an emphasis on freedom of the will, and antirelativism and antimaterialism. Third, later research projects keeping the label “Völkerpsychologie” followed the weak program. Fourth, in the 1880s and 1890s, Simmel tried to build on some of the elements of the strong program. Finally, and fifth, part of the explanation for why Simmel did not succeed in his attempt had to do with the social-political situation of German academia around 1900. (shrink)

In the remainder of this article, we will disarm an important motivation for epistemic contextualism and interest-relative invariantism. We will accomplish this by presenting a stringent test of whether there is a stakes effect on ordinary knowledge ascription. Having shown that, even on a stringent way of testing, stakes fail to impact ordinary knowledge ascription, we will conclude that we should take another look at classical invariantism. Here is how we will proceed. Section 1 lays out some limitations of previous (...) research on stakes. Section 2 presents our study and concludes that there is little evidence for a substantial stakes effect. Section 3 responds to objections. The conclusion clears the way for classical invariantism. (shrink)

Purists think that changes in our practical interests can’t affect what we know unless those changes are truth-relevant with respect to the propositions in question. Impurists disagree. They think changes in our practical interests can affect what we know even if those changes aren’t truth-relevant with respect to the propositions in question. I argue that impurists are right, but for the wrong reasons, since they haven’t appreciated the best argument for their own view. Together with “Minimalism and the Limits of (...) Warranted Assertability Maneuvers,” “The Pragmatic Encroachment Debate,” and “Anti-Intellectualism” (below), this paper constitutes my attempt to refute the entire pragmatic encroachment debate. As I show in this paper, there is an argument for impurism sitting in plain sight that is considerably more plausible than any extant argument for pragmatism. (shrink)

Opponents of epistemological constructivism traditionally accuse it of relativism, of the aspiration to serve society, but not the objective truth. In response to these charges, relying on the principles of the sociology of knowledge, the author investigates an issue of social legitimation of epistemological realism position. He considers opposition of Ancient Greek paideia projects (Isokrates vs. Plato). As a result of Plato's victory in this conflict, dispositions of metaphysical realism were shaped. The author comes to a conclusion that the aspiration (...) to serve the objective truth is the integral component of elitism ideology by Plato's metaphysics. The ideology of elitarism was complimentary to the monarchical regimes, they needed in each other. It provided social legitimation of philosophy as an institution designed to improve the minds and judge the truth. The research allows to understanding better not only modern discussions between realists and constructivists but also the sociocultural significance of metaphysical realism which became for many centuries a model of the Western philosophy per se. Противники эпистемологического конструктивизма традиционно обвиняют его в релятивизме, в стремлении служить обществу, а не объективной истинности. В ответ на эти обвинения, опираясь на принципы социологии знания, автор статьи исследует вопрос о социальной легитимации позиции эпистемологического реализма. Он анализирует содержание двух конкурирующих пайдетических проектов, Исократа и Платона, в аспектах соотношения и взаимосвязи ключевых понятий: добродетель, власть, истина. В результате победы платоновского проекта были оформлены диспозиции метафизического реализма. Автор приходит к выводу, что стремление к познанию объективной истины является неотъемлемым компонентом элитаристской идеологии в метафизике Платона. Идеология элитаризма была компли¬ментарна монархическим режимам. Она обеспечивала социальную легитимацию философии в качестве институции, призванной воспитывать умы и судить об истине. Данное исследование позволяет лучше понимать не только современные дискуссии между реалистами и конструктивистами, но и социокультурное значение мета-физического реализма, ставшего на многие столетия образцом западной философии как таковой. (shrink)

Статья посвящена выявлению оснований доксологии Матса Розенгрена – шведского философа, который пытается реабилитировать доксу в теории познания и рассматривает возможность построения «протагорейской гносеологии». Доксология – это вариант натурализованной конструктивистской теории познания, развивающийся на базе риторической версии философской антропологии, где формулируется реалистичная версия субъекта познавательной деятельности. Познание, с точки зрения доксологии, – это преобразование человеческими коллективами мира и себя, предпосылкой которого является освоение объективированных результатов своей предшествующей деятельности. В ходе исследования использованы методы интерпретации и критический метод философии с опорой на принципы (...) историзма, непротиворечивости и системности рассмотрения. Показано, что выражением доксологической позиции и доксологического стиля мышления является неософистическая трактовка тезиса Протагора о человекомерности. Согласно этой трактовке, человек – это человечество, а не индивид; мерой, общей для всех людей, является логос, который формирует природу человека и мира в целом. В основе доксологической трактовки познавательной деятельности лежит схема функционального круга логоса и доксы. Содержательные предпосылки доксологического стиля мышления Розенгрен находит в работах П. Бурдьё, Л. Флека, Э. Кассирера, К. Касториадиса, в которых продемонстрировано, как фактически способы восприятия, мышления и действия, и способы производства, объективации и освоения опыта человеческих коллективов могут взаимозависимо конструировать друг друга. (shrink)

Relativists about knowledge ascriptions think that whether a particular use of a knowledge-ascribing sentence, e.g., “Keith knows that the bank is open” is true depends on the epistemic standards at play in the assessor’s context—viz., the context in which the knowledge ascription is being as- sessed for truth or falsity. Given that the very same knowledge-ascription can be assessed for truth or falsity from indefinitely many perspectives, relativism has a striking consequence. When I ascribe knowledge to someone (e.g., when I (...) say that, at a particular time, “Keith knows that the bank is open”), what I’ve said does not get a truth-value absolutely, but only relatively. If this semantic thesis about the word “knows” and its cognates is true, what implications would this have for epistemology, the philosophical theory of knowledge? e present aim will be to engage with this mostly unexplored question, and then to consider how the epistemological conclusions drawn might bear on the plausibility of a relativist semantics for “knows”. (shrink)

In the literature on conspiracy theories, the least contentious part of the academic discourse would appear to be what we mean by a “conspiracy”: a secretive plot between two or more people toward some end. Yet what, exactly, is the connection between something being a conspiracy and it being secret? Is it possible to conspire without also engaging in secretive behavior? To dissect the role of secrecy in con- spiracies – and thus contribute to the larger debate on the epistemology (...) of conspir- acy theories – we dene the concepts of “conspiracy,” “conspirator,” and “secret,” and argue that while conspirators might typically be thought to commit to keeping secrets once their conspiracy is underway, the idea that conspiracies are necessarily secretive to start with is not as obvious as previously thought. (shrink)

Epistemic Contextualism is the view that “knows that” is semantically context-sensitive and that properly accommodating this fact into our philosophical theory promises to solve various puzzles concerning knowledge. Yet Epistemic Contextualism faces a big—some would say fatal—problem: The Semantic Error Problem. In its prominent form, this runs thus: speakers just don’t seem to recognise that “knows that” is context-sensitive; so, if “knows that” really is context-sensitive then such speakers are systematically in error about what is said by, or how to (...) evaluate, ordinary uses of “S knows that p”; but since it's wildly implausible that ordinary speakers should exhibit such systematic error, the expression “knows that” isn't context-sensitive. We are interested in whether, and in what ways, there is such semantic error; if there is such error, how it arises and is made manifest; and, again, if there is such error to what extent it is a problem for Epistemic Contextualism. The upshot is that some forms of The Semantic Error Problem turn out to be largely unproblematic. Those that remain troublesome have analogue error problems for various competitor conceptions of knowledge. So, if error is any sort of problem, then there is a problem for every extant competitor view. (shrink)

Epistemic contextualism is a recent and hotly debated topic in philosophy. Contextualists argue that the language we use to attribute knowledge can only be properly understood relative to a specified context. How much can our knowledge depend on context? Is there a limit, and if so, where does it lie? What is the relationship between epistemic contextualism and fundamental topics in philosophy such as objectivity, truth, and relativism? The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Contextualism is an outstanding reference source to the (...) key topics, problems, and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising thirty-seven chapters by a team of international contributors the _Handbook_ is divided into eight parts: Data and motivations for contextualism Methodological issues Epistemological implications Doing without contextualism Relativism and disagreement Semantic implementations Contextualism outside ‘knows’ Foundational linguistic issues. Within these sections central issues, debates and problems are examined, including contextualism and thought experiments and paradoxes such as the Gettier problem and the lottery paradox; semantics and pragmatics; the relationship between contextualism, relativism, and disagreement; and contextualism about related topics like ethical judgments and modality. The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Contextualism is essential reading for students and researchers in epistemology and philosophy of language. It will also be very useful for those in related fields such as linguistics and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

In this paper I consider the prospects for pluralism about knowledge, that is, the view that there is a plurality of knowledge relations. After a brief overview of some views that entail a sort of pluralism about knowledge, I focus on a particular kind of knowledge pluralism I call standards pluralism. Put roughly, standards pluralism is the view that one never knows anything simpliciter. Rather, one knows by this-or-that epistemic standard. Because there is a plurality of epistemic standards, there is (...) a plurality of knowledge relations. In §1 I argue that one can construct an impressive case for standards pluralism. In §2 I clarify the relationship between standards pluralism, epistemic contextualism and epistemic relativism. In §3 I argue that standards pluralism faces a serious objection. The gist of the objection is that standards pluralism is incompatible with plausible claims about the normative role of knowledge. In §4 I finish by sketching the form that a standards pluralist response to this objection might take. (shrink)

The aim of the 17 original papers here is to summarize and analyze Wittgenstein's thought. At the time these were being written, the Oxford/Intelex CDROM ($2040 on Amazon but available thru interlibrary loan and steeply discounted on the net) with 20,000 some pages of W's nachlass was not yet available, and only those fluent in German and willing to find and slog thru the incomplete Cornell microfilm were able to examine it. To this day it much of it remains untranslated (...) from the German typescripts and handwritten manuscripts. I note this at the outset as W's untranslated or unpublished writings often shed crucial light on his thought and few to this day have made substantial use of them. In addition there are huge problems with translation of his early 20 th century Viennese German into modern English. One must be a master of English, German, and Wittgenstein in order to do this and very few are up to it. Several of the current authors note unfortunate translation errors in the only available English editions and I have seen similar comments countless times. As is well known, W's thought changed dramatically between the publication of the Tractatus (TLP) in 1922 and the Philosophical Investigations(1953). The continuity or lack thereof between his early and late work is the subject of a vast literature and is taken up here by several authors. Ishiguro on the picture theory and Mounce on the logical system in TLP are good, but for me the endless discussions of exactly how he was mistaken in his early work is of as little interest as the mistakes in most previous philosophy. Ammereller on Intentionality is a good, if prosaic, summary of (mostly) the early and middle W on belief and interpretation which, like virtually everyone, totally fails to give an adequate overview of W's pioneering work. In giving the general outline of our innate evolutionary psychology (ie, roughly our personality) and showing how this describes behavior, W represents a major milestone in human thought. There are unmistakeable indications of this even in his early writings (eg, see p 40, 49-58 here) and it has been documented by Hacker (eg, see his paper in The New Wittgenstein) and others but without any comprehensive account to date.Overall an exceptional book for introducing W to a general philosophical audience. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019). (shrink)

While some form of evaluation has always been employed in science (e.g. peer review, hiring), formal systems of evaluation of research and researchers have recently come to play a more prominent role in many countries because of the adoption of new models of governance. According to such models, the quality of the output of both researchers and their institutions is measured, and issues such as eligibility for tenure or the allocation of public funding to research institutions crucially depends on the (...) outcomes of such measures. However, concerns have been raised over the risk that such evaluation may be threatening epistemic pluralism by penalizing the existent heterodox schools of thought and discouraging the pursuit of new ones. It has been proposed that this may happen because of epistemic bias favouring mainstream research programmes. In this paper, I claim that (1) epistemic pluralism is desirable and should be preserved; (2) formal evaluation exercises may threaten epistemic pluralism because they may be affected by some form of epistemic bias; therefore, (3) to preserve epistemic pluralism, we need some strategy to actively dampen epistemic bias. (shrink)

Epistemology and Relativism Epistemology is, roughly, the philosophical theory of knowledge, its nature and scope. What is the status of epistemological claims? Relativists regard the status of epistemological claims as, in some way, relative— that is to say, that the truths which epistemological claims aspire to are … Continue reading Epistemology and Relativism →.

I argue for a type of relativism that allows different people to have conflicting accurate representations of the world. This is contrary to the view of most Anglo-American philosophers, who would, with Paul Boghossian in Fear of Knowledge, deny that “there are many radically different, yet ‘equally valid’ ways of knowing the world.” My argument is not a metaphysical argument about the ultimate nature of the outside world, but a psychological argument about the mental processes of representation. The argument starts (...) from a few principles of naïve (or folk) psychology, but is later extended to apply to mechanisms that do not have a “psychology.” Finally, I briefly discuss the anti-relativist impulse in philosophy, with particular reference to Boghossian’s example of non-scientific beliefs regarding Lakota origins. I argue that both we and the Lakotas have good reason to reject such beliefs while still remaining relativists. Being a relativist does not mean that you get to believe whatever you like. (shrink)

This paper proposes a view on epistemic relativism that arises from the problem of the criterion, keeping in consideration that the assessment of criterion standards always occurs in a certain context. The main idea is that the epistemic value of the assertion “S knows that p” depends not only on the criterion adopted within an epistemic framework and the relationship between said criterion and a meta-criterion, but also from the collaboration with other subjects who share the same standards. Thus, one (...) can choose between particularist and methodist criteria according to the context of assessment. This position has the advantage of presenting a new perspective concerning both the criterion problem and the problem of inter-contextuality in the evaluation of different epistemic frameworks. (shrink)

This book explores linguistic and philosophical issues presented by sentences expressing personal taste, such as Roller coasters are fun, or Licorice is tasty. Standard semantic theories explain the meanings of sentences by specifying the conditions under which they are true; here, Peter Lasersohn asks how we can account for sentences that are concerned with matters of opinion rather than matters of fact. He argues that a truth-theoretic semantic theory is appropriate even for sentences like these, but that for such sentences, (...) truth and falsity must be assigned relative to perspectives, rather than absolutely. The book provides a detailed and explicit formal grammar, working out the implications of this conception of truth both for simple sentences and for reports of mental attitude. The semantic analysis is paired with a pragmatic theory explaining what it means to assert a sentence which is true or false only relativistically, and with a speculative account of the functional motivation for a relativized notion of truth. (shrink)

I here respond to four SERRC commentators on my paper ‘Perspectivism, Deontologism and Epistemic Poverty’: Shira Elqayam, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Rik Peels and Hamid Vahid. I maintain that all accounts of epistemic justification must be constrained by two limit positions which have to be avoided. One is Conceptual Limit Panglossianism. The other is Conceptual Limit meliorism. Within these bounds one may offer an account of rationality or epistemic justification that is closer to Meliorism or Panglossianism. Remarked upon are my respondents’ considerations (...) on Alston, on suggestions for a separation between a more-subjective epistemic justification and a more-objective rationality, and objections to my position based on the assumption that we must embrace a very objective and truth-conducive concept of epistemic justification. (shrink)

The question as to whether Ian Hacking’s project of scientific styles of thinking entails epistemic relativism has received considerable attention. However, scholars have never discussed it vis-à-vis Wittgenstein. This is unfortunate: not only is Wittgenstein the philosopher who, together with Foucault, has influenced Hacking the most, but he has also faced the same accusation of ‘relativism’. I shall explore the conceptual similarities and differences between Hacking’s notion of style of thinking and Wittgenstein’s conception of form of life. It is a (...) fact that whether or not the latter entails epistemic relativism is still a controversial question. From my comparative analysis, it will emerge that there are stronger reasons to conclude that Hacking’s notion of style leads to epistemic relativism than there are to reach the same conclusion in the case of Wittgenstein’s conception of form of life. This point will be at odds with the anti-relativistic stance that Hacking has taken in his more recent writings. (shrink)

It has been frequently suggested that epistemic contextualists violate the knowledge norm of assertion; by its own lights contextualism cannot be known and hence not be knowingly stated. I have defended contextualists against this objection by showing that it rests on a misunderstanding of their commitments. In M. Montminy's and W. Skolits' recent contribution to this journal, their criticism of my solution forms the background against which the authors develop their own. The present reply ventures to demonstrate that their objections (...) are ineffective, since they rest on a confusion of two different ways in which contextualism is unknowable. The precise nature of the original problem will be clarified and my solution briefly restated. (shrink)

Peter Unger has challenged philosophical objectivism, the thesis that traditional philosophical problems have definite objective answers. He argues from semantic relativity for philosophical relativity, the thesis that for certain philosophical problems, there is no objective answer. I clarify, formulate and challenge Unger's argument. According to Unger, philosophical relativism explains philosophical idling, the fact that philosophical debates appear endless, philosophical disagreements seem irresolvable, and very little substantial progress seems made towards satisfactory and definite answers to philosophical problems. I argue, however, that (...) the reality of philosophical idling is doubtful and, ironically, undermined by philosophical relativism. I then raise problems for several steps in Unger's argument for philosophical relativity. I conclude by arguing that philosophical relativism can avoid self-defeat only by an ad hoc limitation of its scope. (shrink)

Process reliabilism says that a belief is justified iff the belief-forming process that produced it is sufficiently reliable. But any token belief-forming process is an instance of a number of different belief-forming process types. The problem of specifying the relevant type is known as the ‘generality problem’ for process reliabilism. This paper proposes a broadly relativist solution to the generality problem. The thought is that the relevant belief-forming process type is relative to the context. While the basic idea behind the (...) solution is from Mark Heller (1995), the solution defended here departs from Heller on a crucial point. Because of this departure, my solution avoids a serious problem with Heller’s solution. (shrink)

Epistemic contextualists think that the extension of the expression ‘knows’ depends on and varies with the context of utterance. In the last 15 years or so this view has faced intense criticism. This paper focuses on two sorts of objections. The first are what I call the ‘linguistic objections’, which purport to show that the best available linguistic evidence suggests that ‘knows’ is not context-sensitive. The second is what I call the ‘disagreement problem’, which concerns the behaviour of ‘knows’ in (...) disagreement reports. These may not be the only objections to epistemic contextualism, but they are probably the most influential. I argue that the best current epistemic contextualist response to the linguistic objection is incomplete, and I show how it can be supplemented to deal with the full range of linguistic objections. I also develop a new solution to the disagreement problem. The upshot is that neither sort of objection gives us any reason to reject epistemic contextualism. This conclusion is, in a sense, negative—no new arguments for epistemic contextualism are advanced—but it’s a vital step towards rehabilitating the view. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the limitation of alternative concepts of knowledge, constructivism and realism. A necessity of their complementarity is grounded. The core of controversy between constructivism and realism is a belief about “the given”. The author follows R. Rorty who considers two meanings of a notion of “the given”: “making” and “finding”. The author shows that these different meanings of concept of “the given” are connected with different types of subject consciousness activity. Together with intentional ability of consciousness he considers (...) responsive ability. Both abilities were a subject of phenomenological analysis (E. Husserl, A. Reinach, B. Waldenfels). The author argues that there are certain connections between intentionality and interpretative function of knowledge, on the one hand, and between responsiveness and expressive function of consciousness, on the other hand. Developing the communicative concept of knowledge he shows the meaning of cognitive cycles «interpretation_expression» in the process of knowledge. -/- A consideration of cognitive process as a semiotic one allows to show that interpretation is provided by such kind of basic function of sign as indication, and expression is provided by the other function of sign as substitution, or presentation. The author shows that complementary of interpretation and expression is a consequence of two processes – finding a name and making a meaning. The conclusion about complementary of interpretation and expression leads to a belief about cognition cultures and their types. He shows a place of constructivism and realism in the context of typology of cognition cultures. (shrink)

In Scientific Controversies, Dominique Raynaud shows how organized debates in the sciences help us establish or verify our knowledge of the world. If debates focus on form, scientific controversies are akin to public debates that can be understood within the framework of theories of conflict. If they focus on content, then such controversies have to do with a specific activity and address the nature of science itself. Understanding the major focus of a scientific controversy is a first step toward understanding (...) these debates and assessing their merits. Controversies of unique socio-historic context, disciplines, and characteristics are examined: Pasteur’s germ theory and Pouchet’s theory of spontaneous generation; vitalism advocated at Montpellier versus experimental medicine in Paris; the science of optics about the propagation of visual rays; the origins of relativism (the Duhem-Quine problem). Touching on the work of Boudon, Popper, and others, Raynaud puts forward an incrementalist theory about the advancement of science through scientific controversies. The debates Raynaud has selected share in common their pivotal importance to the history of the sciences. By understanding the role of controversy, we better understand the functioning of science and the stakes of the contemporary scientific debates. (shrink)

It is argued that neither contextualism nor relativism can provide a satisfying semantics of knowledge ascriptions. According to contextualism, the truth conditions of knowledge ascriptions of the form “S knows that p” vary with the epistemic standards operative in the contexts of utterance. These epistemic standards are determined, in particular, by the speaker’s stakes with regard to p or the consideration of error-possibilities. It is shown that the absolute concept of utterance truth together with a knowledge rule of assertion lead (...) to certain unassertable truths in contextualism and to counterintuitive results with regard to certain cross-context knowledge ascriptions. Although utterance truth is relativized to contexts of assessment in relativist accounts of knowledge, relativism still makes inadequate semantic predictions. In particular, relativism runs into problems in cases where the context of assessment is lower than the context of utterance. It is finally argued that invariantist accounts, according to which the truth conditions of knowledge ascriptions do neither vary with the context of utterance nor the context of assessment, but are determined by objective features given in the situation in which the knowledge claim is made, are better suited for modelling the semantics of knowledge ascriptions. Besides the fact that stakes or the consideration of error-possibilities can have an influence on the belief in a proposition, they have no further bearing on the truth conditions of knowledge ascriptions. (shrink)

I investigate the implication of the truth-relativist’s alleged ‘ faultless disagreements’ for issues in the epistemology of disagreement. A conclusion I draw is that the type of disagreement the truth-relativist claims to preserve fails in principle to be epistemically significant in the way we should expect disagreements to be in social-epistemic practice. In particular, the fact of faultless disagreement fails to ever play the epistemically significant role of making doxastic revision rationally required for either party in a disagreement. That the (...) truth-relativists’ disagreements over centred content fail to play this epistemically significant role that disagreements characteristically play in social epistemology should leave us sceptical that disagreement is what the truth-relativist has actually preserved. (shrink)