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The Context-Insensitivity of ‘Knowing More’ and ‘Knowing Better’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Igor Douven
Igor Douven*
Affiliation:
Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
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Extract

This paper argues that if epistemological contextualism is correct, then not only have knowledge-ascribing sentences context-sensitive truth conditions, certain comparative and superlative constructions involving ‘know’ have context-sensitive truth conditions as well. But not only is there no evidence for the truth of the latter consequence, the evidence seems to indicate that it is false.

The position I aim to criticize has been defended by, most notably, Stewart Cohen, Keith DeRose, and David Lewis. While the contextualist theories offered by these authors differ in their details, the problem to be presented seems to arise irrespective of these details. And though in most of the illustrations below I rely on Lewis's account, I could have made essentially the same points in terms of any of the other accounts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , September 2004 , pp. 313 - 326
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2004

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