Error possibility, contextualism, and bias

Abstract

A central theoretical motivation for epistemic contextualism is that it can explain something that invariantism cannot. Specifically, contextualism claims that judgments about "knowledge" are sensitive to the salience of error possibilities and that this is explained by the fact that salience shifts the evidential standard required to truthfully say someone "knows" something when those possibilities are made salient. This paper presents evidence that undermines this theoretical motivation for epistemic contextualism. Specifically, it demonstrates that while error salience does sometimes impact "knowledge" judgments as contextualism predicts, it does so in ways that are consistent with invariantism and does not require positing any additional contextualist semantics to explain. These results advance our understanding of the pathways by which error possibility affects "knowledge" judgments, answer a major challenge to invariantism, and suggest several methodological improvements for the study of knowledge attribution.

The replication crisis and philosophy

“…One representative example involves case judgments in support of leading theories in epistemology. Researchers have shown that subtle confounds in wording and probing in foundational cases can explain judgments about the word "knows" (Turri 2017) and that understanding the mechanisms that cause them can undermine aspects of their theoretical significance (Buckwalter, 2021). In these studies, researchers examined classic pairs of cases used to motivate epistemic contextualism.…”

“…As in science, this raises the possibility that judgments about cases are partially explained by previously unaccounted for factors that alter or constrain their theoretical significance. Some research in experimental cognitive science and experimental philosophy suggests that this may be common (Buckwalter, 2021;Chituc et al, 2016;Kneer & Machery, 2019;Rose et al, 2017;Turri, 2017). We often misdiagnose the reasons for judgments or misrepresent their causal structure when utilizing the method of cases.…”

Deciding Without Intending

“…For example, the evidence consists of a single experiment utilizing a single measure and narrative case. It is well known that multiple replication attempts involving a wide range of participants, measures, and materials can increase the likelihood that initial discoveries are reliable and generalizable (Open Science Collaboration 2015; see also Buckwalter, 2019;Buckwalter & Turri, 2018;Rose, Buckwalter & Nichols, 2017;Rose, Machery, Stich et at., 2019;Turri, 2017;Turri, 2018;Machery & Doris, 2017). Thus, it is reasonable to investigate this discovery in further detail before drawing strong theoretical conclusions.…”