Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T15:00:47.342Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

EPISTEMIC INVARIANTISM AND CONTEXTUALIST INTUITIONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2015

Alexander Dinges
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Epistemic invariantism, or invariantism for short, is the position that the proposition expressed by knowledge sentences does not vary with the epistemic standard of the context in which these sentences can be used. At least one of the major challenges for invariantism is to explain our intuitions about scenarios such as the so-called bank cases. These cases elicit intuitions to the effect that the truth-value of knowledge sentences varies with the epistemic standard of the context in which these sentences can be used. In this paper, I will defend invariantism against this challenge by advocating the following, somewhat deflationary account of the bank case intuitions: Readers of the bank cases assign different truth-values to the knowledge claims in the bank cases because they interpret these scenarios such that the epistemic position of the subject in question differs between the high and the low standards case. To substantiate this account, I will argue, first, that the bank cases are underspecified even with respect to features that should uncontroversially be relevant for the epistemic position of the subject in question. Second, I will argue that readers of the bank cases will fill in these features differently in the low and the high standards case. In particular, I will argue that there is a variety of reasons to think that the fact that an error-possibility is mentioned in the high standards case will lead readers to assume that this error-possibility is supposed to be likely in the high standards case.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 219 - 232
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bach, K. 2005. ‘The Emperor's New “Knows”.’ In Preyer, G. and Peter, G. (eds), Contextualism in Philosophy. Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth, pp. 51–90. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bach, K. 2008. ‘Applying Pragmatics to Epistemology.’ Philosophical Issues, 18: 68–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bach, K. 2010. ‘Knowledge In and Out of Context.’ In Campbell, J. K., O'Rourke, M., and Silverstein, H. (eds), Knowledge and Skepticism, pp. 105–36. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Baumann, P. 2011. ‘WAMs: Why Worry?’ Philosophical Papers, 40/2: 155–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blome-Tillmann, M. 2013. ‘Knowledge and Implicatures.’ Synthese, 190: 4293–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buckwalter, W. 2014. ‘The Mystery of Stakes and Error in Ascriber Intuitions.’ In Beebe, J. (ed.), Advances in Experimental Epistemology, pp. 145–73. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
Buckwalter, W. and Schaffer, J. 2013. ‘Knowledge, Stakes, and Mistakes.’ Noûs, 2013: 1–34.Google Scholar
Conee, E. 2005. ‘Contexualism Contested Some More.’ In Steup, M. and Sosa, E. (eds), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, pp. 62–6. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Davis, W. A. 2007. ‘Knowledge Claims and Context: Loose Use.’ Philosophical Studies, 132: 395–438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeRose, K. 2009. The Case for Contextualism: Knowledge, Skepticism, and Context, Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeRose, K. 2011. ‘Contextualism, Contrastivism, and X-Phi Surveys.’ Philosophical Studies, 156: 81–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dougherty, T. and Rysiew, P. 2009. ‘Fallibilism, Epistemic Possibility, and Concessive Knowledge Attributions.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 78: 123–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fantl, J. and McGrath, M. 2009. Knowledge in an Uncertain World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, R. 2001. ‘Skeptical Problems, Contextualist Solutions.’ Philosophical Studies, 103: 61–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerken, M. 2011. ‘Epistemic Focal Bias.’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 91: 41–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerken, M. 2012. ‘On the Cognitive Basis of Knowledge Ascriptions.’ In Brown, J. and Gerken, M. (eds), Knowledge Ascriptions, pp. 140–70. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, N. and Chemla, E. 2013. ‘Experimenting on Contextualism.’ Mind and Language, 28: 286–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacFarlane, J. 2005. ‘The Assessment Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions.’ In Gendler, T. S. and Hawthorne, J. (eds), Oxford Studies in Epistemology, Vol. 1, pp. 197–234. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, J. 2010. ‘Knowledge Ascriptions and the Psychological Consequences of Thinking about Error.’ Philosophical Quarterly, 60: 286–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, J., Juan, V. S., and Mar, R. A. 2013. ‘Lay Denial of Knowledge for Justified True Beliefs.’ Cognition, 129: 652–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pinillos, N. Á. 2012. ‘Knowledge, Experiments and Practical Interests.’ In Brown, J. and Gerken, M. (eds), Knowledge Ascriptions, pp. 192–219. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rysiew, P. 2001. ‘The Context-Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions.’ Noûs, 35: 477–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffer, J. 2004. ‘From Contextualism to Contrastivism.’ Philosophical Studies, 119: 73–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffer, J. and Knobe, J. 2012. ‘Contrastive Knowledge Surveyed.’ Noûs, 46: 675–708.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sosa, E. 1999. ‘How to Defeat Opposition to Moore.’ Philosophical Perspectives, 33: 141–53.Google Scholar
Sripada, C. S. and Stanley, J. 2012. ‘Empirical Tests of Interest-Relative Invariantism.’ Episteme, 9: 3–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanley, J. 2005. Knowledge and Practical Interests. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, T. 2005. ‘Contextualism, Subject-Sensitive Invariantism and Knowledge of Knowledge.’ Philosophical Quarterly, 55: 213–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar