Contextualisms in Epistemology

by Brendel, Elke; Jager, Christoph

• ISBN13: 9781402031816
• ISBN10: 1402031815
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-03-18
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Pub

Summary

Contextualism has become one of the leading paradigms in contemporary epistemology. According to this view, there is no context-independent standard of knowledge, and as a result, all knowledge ascriptions are context-sensitive. Contextualists contend that their account of this analysis allows us to resolve some major epistemological problems such as skeptical paradoxes and the lottery paradox, and that it helps us explain various other linguistic data about knowledge ascriptions. The apparent ease with which contextualism seems to solve numerous epistemological quandaries has inspired the burgeoning interest in it.This comprehensive anthology collects twenty original essays and critical commentaries on different aspects of contextualism, written by leading philosophers on the topic. The editors' introduction sketches the historical development of the contextualist movement and provides a survey and analysis of its arguments and major positions. The papers explore, inter alia, the central problems and prospects of semantic (or conversational) contextualism and its main alternative approaches such as inferential (or issue) contextualism, epistemic contextualism, and virtue contextualism. They also investigate the connections between contextualism and epistemic particularism, and between contextualism and stability accounts of knowledge.Contributors include: Antonia Barke, Peter Baumann, Elke Brendel, Stewart Cohen, Wayne Davis, Fred Dretske, Mylan Engel, Jr., Gerhard Ernst, Verena Gottschling, John Greco, Thomas Grundmann, Frank Hofmann, Christoph Jäger, Nikola Kompa, Dirk Koppelberg, Mark Lance, Margaret Little, Lydia Mechtenberg, Hans Rott, Bruce Russell, Gilbert Scharifi, and Michael Williams.

Author Biography

Elke Brendel is Professor of Philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. She has published numerous articles on logic, epistemology, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of language. She is the author of Die Wahrheit ++ber den L++gner (The Truth About the Liar, 1992), Grundz++ge der Logik II - Klassen, Relationen, Zahlen (Foundations of Logic II - Sets, Relations, Numbers, with Wilhelm K. Essler, 1993), and Wahrheit und Wissen (Truth and Knowledge, 1999). Christoph J+ñger is Lecturer in Philosophy at Aberdeen University, United Kingdom, and Privatdozent of Philosophy (honorary office) at the University of Leipzig, Germany. He has published numerous articles on epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of religion. Books: Selbstreferenz und Selbstbewusstsein (Self-reference and Self-knowledge, 1999), Analytische Religionsphilosophie (Analytic Philosophy of Religion, ed., 1998), Kunst und Erkenntnis (Art and Knowledge, ed., with Georg Meggle, 2004), Religion und Rationalit+ñt (Religion and Rationality, forthcoming).

Table of Contents

Contextualist Approaches to Epistemology: Problems and Prospects	1	(30)
Elke Brendel
Christoph Jager
Externalism and Modest Contextualism	31	(14)
Fred Dretske
Skepticism, Information, and Closure: Dretske's Theory of Knowledge	45	(16)
Christoph Jager
What's Wrong with Contextualism, and a Noncontextualism Resolution of the Skeptical Paradox	61	(30)
Mylan Engel, Jr.
Contextualism and the Skeptic: Comments on Engel	91	(12)
Gilbert Scharifi
How to be an Anti-Skeptic and a Non contextualist	103	(12)
Bruce Russell
Are Knowledge Claims Indexical?	115	(26)
Wayne A. Davis
In Defense of Indexicalism: Comments on Davis	141	(12)
Gerhard Ernst
Keeping the Conversational Score: Constraints for an Optimal Contextualist Answer?	153	(20)
Verena Gottschling
Knowledge, Reflection and Sceptical Hypotheses	173	(30)
Michael Williams
Inferential Contextualism, Epistemological Realism and Scepticism: Comments on Williams	203	(8)
Thomas Grundmann
Epistemic Contextualism	211	(22)
Antonia Barke
Why Epistemic Contextualism Does not Provide an Adequate Account of Knowledge: Comments on Barke	233	(8)
Frank Hofmann
A Different Sort of Contextualism	241	(18)
John Greco
On the Prospects for Virtue Contextualism: Comments on Greco	259	(14)
Dirk Koppelberg
Lotteries and Contexts	273	(14)
Peter Baumann
Reply to Baumann	287	(6)
Stewart Cohen
Defeasibility and the Normative Grasp of Context	293	(22)
Mark Lance
Margaret Little
Moral Particularism and Epistemic Contextualism: Comments on Lance and Little	315	(12)
Nikola Kompa
Stability, Strength and Sensitivity: Converting Belief into Knowledge	327	(26)
Hans Rott
The Stability Theory of Knowledge and Belief Revision: Comments on Rott	353	(14)
Lydia Mechtenberg
List of Contributors	367