On the Knowability of Epistemic Contextualism: A Reply to M. Montminy and W. Skolits

Abstract

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 (Freitag 2011, 2012, 2013b). In M. Montminy's and W. Skolits' recent contribution to this journal (2014), 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.