Pragmatic Contextualism

Abstract

Contextualism in epistemology has traditionally been understood as the view that “know” functions semantically like an indexical term, encoding different contents in contexts with different epistemic standards. But the indexical hypothesis about “know” faces a range of objections. This article explores an alternative version of contextualism on which “know” is a semantically stable term, and the truth‐conditional variability in knowledge claims is a matter of pragmatic enrichment. The central idea is that in contexts with stringent epistemic standards, knowledge claims are narrowed: “know” is used in such contexts to make assertions about particularly demanding types of knowledge. The resulting picture captures all of the intuitive data that motivate contextualism while sidestepping the controversial linguistic thesis at its heart. After developing the view, the article shows in detail how it avoids one influential linguistic objection to traditional contextualism concerning indirect speech reports, and then answers an objection concerning the unavailability of certain types of clarification speeches.

Third‐person knowledge ascriptions: A crucial experiment for contextualism

“…This is typically understood as a semantic claim that the variability in the truth conditions of knowledge ascriptions is explained in terms of the context‐sensitive semantics of the word “know[s].” However, some contextualists have argued that the context sensitivity of knowledge ascriptions is due to the pragmatic modulation of what is said (Pynn, ; Stainton, ). We are focusing on the empirical foundation that either understanding of contextualism relies upon, and so we remain neutral regarding these competing theoretical positions that concern the sources of context sensitivity of knowledge ascriptions.…”

Knowledge embedded

“…On one group of pragmatic views, such as Recanati's (2004Recanati's ( , 2010 'truth-conditional pragmatics' and Sperber and Wilson's (1986) relevance theory, 'know' would be likened to expressions that are standardly conceived to have contextually variable meanings, leading to a 'radical contextualist' account of 'know.' In this vein, Stainton (2010) and Pynn (2015) appeal to Recanati's notion of 'free enrichment' in defence of a pragmatic version of epistemic contextualism, not in defence of invariantism. 28 On another group of non-Gricean views, such as Chierchia's (2004) and Landman's (2000) grammatical views, 'know' would generate default implicatures as part of the semantic composition process in grammar, leaving no distinguished, implicature-free level of invariant semantic meaning for 'know.'…”

Taking Skepticism Seriously: How the Zhuang-Zi Can Inform Contemporary Epistemology

“…Others have called them 'pragmatic explanations of apparently semantic intuitions' (e.g., Davis 2007). For discussion of such views, see e.g., Unger 1975and 1986, DeRose 2009, Prades 2000, Rysiew 2001, Hawthorne 2004, Schaffer 2004b, Pritchard 2005, Brown 2006, Davis 2007, Pynn 2015. It is worth emphasizing that fictionalism is not a warranted assertability maneuver because it does not make any claims to the effect that we are warranted in asserting (potential) falsehoods because doing so allows us to convey truths.…”