It is an influential and often repeated objection to external world skepticism that skeptical theories lead to implausible predictions about the patterns of ordinary epistemic discourse and thought. Since skepticism entails that we know nothing, or only very little, about the external world, the skeptic seems unable to explain why competent speakers constantly ascribe such knowledge to both themselves and others. Uncontroversial facts about every day communication hence appear to present a strong reason to reject skeptical conditions on knowledge. In this paper, however, I argue that this objection to skepticism underestimates the means that a skeptic has available to account for people’s anti-skeptical assertions and judgments. A modest and highly plausible error theory enables the proponents of a familiar type of skeptical underdetermination principle to provide a compelling explanation of our linguistic and doxastic behavior. So there is a type of skepticism with a powerful response to the charge that skeptical theories lead to unacceptable predictions.

Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions

Skepticism and the Prediction Objection

In this paper, I try to make sense of the idea that true knowledge attributions characterize something that is more valuable than true belief and that survives even if, as Contextualism implies, contextual changes make it no longer identifiable by a knowledge attribution. I begin by sketching a familiar, pragmatic picture of assertion that helps us to understand and predict how the words “S knows that P” can be used to draw different epistemic distinctions in different contexts. I then argue that the examples provided by Cohen and DeRose meant to illustrate Contextualism fail to do so, and I construct an example that does. I conclude by considering the response that an objective assessment of skepticism depends, not on what we might use sentences of the form “S knows that P” to say, but on what such sentences themselves say—on their literal, context-invariant meanings. I argue that there is little reason to believe that our words have such context-invariant meanings, and I suggest that the pragmatic picture of assertion can secure a rich enough conception of objectivity to address the skeptic.

background

Contextualism, Skepticism and Objectivity

Neste artigo eu ofereco uma nova abordagem para resolucao do problema do regresso epistemico. Tal problema pode ser considerado um dos mais tradicionais problemas em epistemologia, que nos segue desde a antiguidade. As teses tradicionais que tentam responder a este problema possuem dificuldades ainda nao respondidas satisfatoriamente, fato que, inicialmente, serve de motivacao para a procura de uma nova resposta. Primeiramente, apresento o problema do regresso epistemico e as respostas tradicionais oferecidas na sua resolucao. Como veremos todas elas possuem problemas serios que comprometem a plausibilidade das mesmas, a saber, (i) nao respondem adequadamente quando e apropriado interromper o regresso e (ii) nao especificam ou determinam o grau de justificacao requerido para o conhecimento. Em seguida, eu argumentarei em favor da tese que chamarei de Contextualismo Justificacionista, mostrando que ela consegue responder adequadamente (i) e (ii).

http://www.ucs.br/etc/revistas/index.php/conjectura/article/download/1602/pdf_172

Contextualismo Justificacionista: uma nova resposta ao problema do regresso epistêmico // Justificationist Contextualism: a new response to the epistemic regress problem

The skeptical puzzle consists of three allegedly incompatible claims: S knows that O, S doesn’t know that ~U, and the claim that knowledge is closed under the known entailment. I consider several famous instances of the puzzle and conclude that in all of those cases the presupposition that O entails ~U is false. I also consider two possible ways for trying to make it true and argue that both strategies ultimate fail. I conclude that this result at least completely discredits any solution that denies the principle of epistemic closure. At most, denying that O entails ~U can itself be seen as a novel solution to the puzzle, preferred to any other solution: it accommodates both non-skeptical and skeptical intuitions but does not require us to give up the principle of closure, embrace contextualism or subject-sensitive invariantism, or deny any commonly accepted principle of epistemology or logic.

Have a Cake and Eat it Too: Identifying a Missing Link in the Skeptical Puzzle

Epistemic contextualism was devised mainly to provide a solution to the problem of skepticism based on a thesis about the truth conditions of knowledge attributing sentences. In this paper, I’ll examine two possible semantic bases of epistemic contextualism i.e., (i) the epistemic standard is an unarticulated constituent, (ii) the epistemic standard is a hidden variable. After showing that the unarticulated constituent thesis is incompatible with epistemic contextualism, I’ll argue that the hidden variable account remains unconvincing. My aim in this paper is to show that questions remain that must be answered before epistemic contextualism can claim success in the project of resolving skepticism.

Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions

Citations

Skepticism and the Prediction Objection

Contextualism, Skepticism and Objectivity

Contextualismo Justificacionista: uma nova resposta ao problema do regresso epistêmico // Justificationist Contextualism: a new response to the epistemic regress problem

Have a Cake and Eat it Too: Identifying a Missing Link in the Skeptical Puzzle

Epistemic Contextualism, Unarticulated Constituents and Hidden Variables

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