Two Purposes of Knowledge-Attribution and the Contextualism Debate

In 1990 Edward Craig published a book called Knowledge and the State of Nature in which he introduced and defended a genealogical approach to epistemology. In recent years Craig's book has attracted a lot of attention, and his distinctive approach has been put to a wide range of uses including anti-realist metaepistemology, contextualism, relativism, anti-luck virtue epistemology, epistemic injustice, value of knowledge, pragmatism and virtue epistemology. While the number of objections to Craig's approach has accumulated, there has been no sustained attempt to develop answers to these objections. In this paper we provide answers to seven important objections in the literature.

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“…-Identifying propositions we can treat as reasons for acting (McGrath 2015). -Providing assurance (Austin 1946;Lawlor 2013).…”

Section: Summary Of the Genealogical Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The genealogical method in epistemology

Kusch

McKenna

2018

Synthese

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“…See Hannon (), McGrath (), and McKenna () for presentations of Craig's view as concerning the pragmatics of knowledge ascriptions and Kelp () and Lackey () for presentations of Craig's view as offering a first‐order account of knowledge.…”

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confidence: 99%

What's the point of knowing how?

Habgood‐Coote

2019

European J of Philosophy

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Why is it useful to talk and think about knowledge‐how? Using Edward Craig's discussion of the function of the concepts of knowledge as a jumping off point, this paper argues that considering this question can offer us new angles on the debate about knowledge‐how. We consider two candidate functions for the concept of knowledge‐how: pooling capacities and mutual reliance. Craig makes the case for pooling capacities, which connects knowledge‐how to our need to pool practical capacities. I argue that the evidence is much more equivocal and in fact supports both functions. I propose that the concept of knowledge‐how plays both functions, meaning that it is inconsistent and that the debate about knowledge‐how is at least partly a metalinguistic negotiation. In closing, I suggest a way to revise the philosophical concept of knowledge how.

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Epistemic evaluation and the need for ‘impure’ epistemic standards

Kompa

2021

Synthese

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That knowledge ascriptions exhibit some form of sensitivity to context is uncontroversial. How best to account for the context-sensitivity at issue, however, is the topic of heated debates. A certain version of nonindexical contextualism seems to be a promising option. Even so, it is incumbent upon any contextualist account to explain in what way and to what extent the epistemic standard operative in a particular context of epistemic evaluation is affected by non-epistemic factors (such as practical interests). In this paper, I investigate how non-epistemic factors come into play when knowledge is ascribed. I argue that knowledge ascriptions often serve the purpose of providing actionable information. This, in turn, requires that epistemic interests be balanced against non-epistemic interests. Moreover, it raises the question of whose interests matter, those of the ascriber, the addressee (of the knowledge ascription), or the subject of ascription. Eventually, an answer to the question is suggested.

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Two Purposes of Knowledge-Attribution and the Contextualism Debate

Cited by 22 publications

References 8 publications

The genealogical method in epistemology

The genealogical method in epistemology

What's the point of knowing how?

Epistemic evaluation and the need for ‘impure’ epistemic standards

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