Cohen and contextualism

One way to get to epistemological contextualism is to start with the arguments of Nozick or Dretske that a) we can know that we are in Preston but b) we can't know that we are not brains in a vat but try to hang onto the idea that c) we know that if we are brains in a vat we are not in Preston. To do this is - unlike Dretske and Nozick - to try to retain epistemic closure. (If we know p and we that if p then q then we know q.) Some contextualists are contextualists for just this reason. The idea is that an assessment of whether we know that we are in Preston and whether we know we are not brains in a vat are made relative to different epistemic contexts. Hence in one, we know that we are both in Preston and not brains in a vat and in another we know neither. Within either context - though not between the two - the principle of closure applies. But, and here's the rub, it is precisely introducing the philosophical context of asking about sceptical hypotheses that changes the context from the everyday case and raises the bar. Once raised, we don't know we are not in a vat and hence also don't know we are in Preston (but thus the principle of epistemic closure is retained). Still, philosophical reflection on knowledge undermines knowledge. Mention brain in a vat scepticism and suddenly we cannot be said to know we are in Preston! This is clearly presented in the DeRose paper below.But I find it helpful to start to think of contextualism as the view that what justifies the ascription of knowledge to someone else varies with context and then to think that there are no deeper standards than that. The facts about appropriate knowledge ascription are the only facts about knowledge to be had. This is the line in the first Cohen paper below. To read about the connection to epistemic closure, you need to look at the start, at least, of the DeRose paper.

As well as US style contextualism, there are other forms such as Charles Travis. There are also other ways to get to a kind of social model of knowledge (see the next three weeks).

• • Cohen, S. (1986) 'Knowledge and context' Journal of Philosophy 83: 574-83 on Blackboard.

Further reading.

• DeRose, K. (1995) 'Solving the sceptical problem' The Philosophical Review 104: 1-52 on Blackboard. This is a long paper but proceeds by easy steps and starts by summarising the approach also relates back to Nozick.

• Cohen, S. (2010) 'Contextualist solutions to epistemological problems: scepticism, Gettier, and the lottery' in Sosa et al (eds) Epistemology: an anthology, Oxford Blackwell on Blackboard.

  • Travis, C. (2005) 'A sense of occasion' Philosophical Quarterly 55: 286-314 available here.

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