The Context-Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions

TLDR: DeRose and Cohen as discussed by the authors argue that knowledge attributions are context-sensitive because context affects what knowledge-attributing sentences literally express. But they do not consider the role of context in the determination of the conditions to be satisfied by knowledge attributing sentences.

Abstract: othis view strikes many as implausible, 7 it does seem to square with the relevant data. Thus, e.g., in terms of the Bank Case, it’s DeRose’s contention that most of us will find both of the following claims compelling: ~1! when I claim to know that the bank will be open on Saturday in Case A, I am saying something true;~2! I am also saying something true in Case B when I concede that I don’t know that the bank will be open on Saturday. Granted, “I seem to be in no better position to know in Case A than in Case B” ~DeRose 1992, p. 914!. Still, DeRose thinks, one can perfectly consistently maintain both ~1! and~2!: @I#n Bank Case B...when, in the face of my wife’s doubt, I admit that I don’t know that the bank will be open on Saturday, I don’t contradict an earlier claim to know that I might have made before the doubt was raised and before the issue was so important because, in an important sense, I don’t mean the same thing by “know” as I meant in the earlier claim. ~Ibid., p. 921; italics added ! According to DeRose, then, the meaning of “know ~s!” varies with certain features of the context in which it is used in making knowledge attributions. And so too for Cohen; for while there are important differences between the views of Cohen and DeRose ~more on this presently !, both believe that context enters into epistemology in virtue of the contribution it makes to the meanings of key epistemic terms, and thus in virtue of the role it plays in the determination of the conditions to be satisfied by knowledge-attributing sentences. So, according to the contextualist, knowledge attributions are context-sensitive because context affects what knowledge-attributing sentences literally express . While it promises to account for “what we want to say” with regard ~e.g.! to the Bank Case, contextualists make much of the fact that their view provides what is alleged to be a novel and quite plausible resolution of sceptical puzzles~DeRose 1992, 1995; Cohen 1988; Lewis 1979, 1996; Unger 1986 !. Taking his cue from Cohen~1988, pp. 93–94 ! the sceptical argument DeRose ~1995! focuses on is the following: ~SA! P1. I don’t know that I’m not a BIV@that is, a bodiless brain in a vat being electrochemically stimulated to have just those sensory experiences I’m having #. P2. If I don’t know that I’m not a BIV, then I don’t know that I have hands. So, C. I don’t know that I have hands. Of course, unlike the Bank Case, SA isn’t an example of merely pedestrian knowledge attributions. The basic strategy of the contextualist, however, is the same with respect to both sorts of case. In particular, it is the contextualist’s 480 NOÛS