EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONTEXTUALISM:

PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

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Epistemological contextualism has become one of the most important and widely discussed new
proposals in the theory of knowledge. This special issue contributes to the debate by bringing together
some of the main participants to provide a state-of-the-art discussion of the proposal. Here we offer a
brief overview of the contextualist position, describe some of the main lines of criticism that have been
levelled against the view, and present a summary of each of the contributions to this collection.
I. EPISTEMOLOGICAL ATTRIBUTOR CONTEXTUALISM:
THE FIRST WAVE
One of the most important movements in contemporary epistemology has
been that of epistemological attributor contextualism. Like all contextualist
theses in epistemology, this view holds that the epistemic status of a belief
typically, whether the target belief is an instance of knowledge can depend
in a non-trivial way upon contextual factors. More specically, attributor
contextualism (henceforth just contextualism) is primarily a linguistic thesis,
in that it holds that knows is a context-sensitive term in the following sense:
assertions of sentences involving this term will vary in their truth-value
depending upon the context of the person making the assertion. This is why the
view is known as attributor contextualism, in order to emphasize the fact that
it is the context of the person making the assertion that is important to
epistemic status, rather than, where this is dierent, the context of the sub-
ject who is being ascribed knowledge. (For simplicity, we here focus on
attributor contextualism about knows rather than on related contextualist
theses regarding other epistemic terms, such as justied or warranted.)
Accordingly, two people could both simultaneously assert that, say, John
knows that Paris is the capital of France, and be in agreement on every
relevant epistemological fact about John, and yet one could be speaking
truly and the other falsely because their respective assertions are made in
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dierent contexts where knows is governed by dierent standards, and thus
where the proposition asserted in each case is dierent.
1
The historical basis for contextualism of this variety can be found in the
writings of a number of philosophers, such as Austin and Wittgenstein.
2
It
was not, however, until David Lewis work on how to keep the score in a
language game that we have the beginnings of the rst real account of what
a context-sensitive account of knows might look like and how it can be
applied to some of the perennial problems of epistemology.
3
Lewis work
gave impetus to a number of philosophers at the vanguard of the rst wave
of attributor contextualism, a group which included as central gures Keith
DeRose and Stewart Cohen; and Lewis himself also returned to the fray to
spell out the details of his particular variant on this thesis.
4
Although there
are important dierences between the positions advocated by Lewis,
DeRose and Cohen, what is common to these views is the general idea that
the contextualist thesis presents us with the best way of accommodating the
linguistic data regarding our use of epistemic terms, while also oering a
neat and compelling resolution to various epistemological problems, such as
the problem of radical scepticism.
It is worth looking at this last claim in more detail, since much of the at-
traction of the contextualist view has tended to lie in its response to the
sceptic. Consider the following sceptical argument, where e is some para-
digm everyday proposition which we would all take ourselves to know
(such as that one is presently seated), and sh is a sceptical hypothesis (such
as the brain in a vat hypothesis) which is inconsistent with e:
S:. I dont know that not-sh
S.. If I dont know that not-sh, then I dont know e
SC. I dont know e.
:6. MICHAEL BRADY AND DUNCAN PRITCHARD
The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly, .oo
1
See S. Cohen, Contextualism and Skepticism, Philosophical Issues, :o (.ooo), pp. q:o,
at p. q, for a neat presentation of this point.
2
See J.L. Austin, Other Minds, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol. .o (:q6),
pp. :88; L. Wittgenstein, On Certainty, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright (Ox-
ford: Blackwell, :q6q). Variants on the contextualist thesis can also be found (sometimes in just
a suggestive form) in the following texts: A. Goldman, Discrimination and Perceptual Know-
ledge, Journal of Philosophy, (:q6), pp. :q:; G.C. Stine, Skepticism, Relevant
Alternatives, and Deductive Closure, Philosophical Studies, .q (:q6), pp. .q6:; D.B. Annis,
A Contextualist Theory of Justication, American Philosophical Quarterly, : (:q8), pp. .::q;
F. Dretske, The Pragmatic Dimension of Knowledge, Philosophical Studies, o (:q8:),
pp. 68; M. Williams, Unnatural Doubts: Epistemological Realism and the Basis of Scepticism
(Oxford: Blackwell, :qq:).
3
See D. Lewis, Scorekeeping in a Language Game, Journal of Philosophical Logic, 8 (:qq),
pp. qq.
4
See K. DeRose, Solving the Skeptical Problem, Philosophical Review, :o (:qq), pp. :.;
Cohen, Contextualism and Skepticism; Lewis, Elusive Knowledge, Australasian Journal of
Philosophy, (:qq6), pp. q6.
Famously, some have responded to this argument either by simply denying
(S:) or by denying (S.) via a rejection of the principle that knowledge is
closed under known entailment (the closure principle) on which (S.)
appears to depend (very roughly, closure holds that if one knows one pro-
position, such as e, and one knows that this entails a second proposition,
such as not-sh, then one also knows the second proposition, in this case
not-sh).
5
Neither manuvre is particularly compelling, however, since both
(S:) and the closure principle are highly intuitive. Accordingly, rejecting
these premises seems tantamount to large-scale epistemological revisionism.
This is what makes the alternative diagnosis of the sceptical problem oered
by contextualism so attractive, since it holds out the promise of resolving this
diculty without having to engage in revisionism of this sort.
According to contextualism, what is happening here is a shift in the
context which brings about a shift in the epistemic standards demanded of
an agent before that agent can be truly said to have knowledge. In parti-
cular, the idea is that in quotidian contexts the epistemic standards will be
low, thereby ensuring that assertions of ascription sentences (i.e., sentences
which ascribe knowledge to an agent) will tend to be true. This accounts for
why we nd (SC) so counter-intuitive, since normally the assertion of an
ascription sentence regarding an e-type proposition will tend to express a
truth. Moreover, since closure holds, it follows that our possession of
knowledge of e-type propositions relative to the epistemic standards in play
in quotidian contexts will be accompanied (provided we know the relevant
entailment at least) by knowledge of the denials of sceptical hypotheses,
contra (S:).
In contrast, in more demanding contexts, such as contexts in which
the sceptical problem is at issue, the epistemic standards will rise, so that
assertions of ascription sentences will now no longer tend to be true.
Accordingly, it will now be true to say that we lack knowledge of the denials
of sceptical hypothesis, which is the intuition driving (S:), and relative to
these standards an assertion of the sceptical conclusion, (SC), will likewise be
true also, so there is no tension with closure here either. The contextualist
therefore has a powerful diagnosis of the problem of scepticism one that
accommodates both sceptical and anti-sceptical intuitions while retaining
the highly intuitive closure principle for knowledge.
EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONTEXTUALISM: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS :6
The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly, .oo
5
The rst tactic of simply denying (S:) is often called the Moorean anti-sceptical strategy,
since it shares certain features with the response to scepticism oered by G.E. Moore. See
Moore, A Defence of Common Sense, Contemporary British Philosophy (.nd series), ed. J.H.
Muirhead (London: Allen and Unwin, :q.), and Proof of an External World, Proceedings of the
British Academy, . (:qq), pp. .oo. For the main discussions of the second tactic of deny-
ing the closure principle, see Dretske, Epistemic Operators, Journal of Philosophy, 6 (:qo),
pp. :oo.; R. Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Oxford UP, :q8:).
In general, the contextualist strategy has been to use this thesis about the
context-sensitivity of knows to capture the intuitions we have regarding
the varying conditions under which we deem it appropriate to ascribe (or
deny) knowledge. It seems, for example, that where there is a lot at stake in
an ascription, the standards that the subject needs to meet in order to be
truly ascribed knowledge rise accordingly, and contextualism is clearly in
a strong position to accommodate this intuition. Moreover, by taking seri-
ously the apparent context-sensitivity of epistemic terms, contextualists have
argued that this view can be employed to cast light on a number of other
central issues in epistemology aside from the sceptical problem, such as, for
example, the lottery puzzle. It is thus little wonder that contextualism has so
quickly become one of the most discussed positions in contemporary
epistemology, if not in philosophy as a whole.
II. REACTIONS AND REFINEMENTS
Inevitably, this rst wave of work on contextualism was followed by the rst
wave of critique. Although this is not at all an exhaustive list, one can regard
the rst wave of criticism as focused on the following three issues:
:. The contextualist claim that we are able to know the denials of sceptical
hypotheses in undemanding contexts
.. The intellectual adequacy of the contextualist response to scepticism
. The linguistic basis for contextualism; in particular, whether the
linguistic data could not be better accounted for by a non-contextualist
(i.e., invariantist) view.
The rst problem concerns the unusual status of our knowledge of the
denials of sceptical hypotheses on the contextualist view. It is essential to
contextualism that we are able to possess this knowledge, since, short of
surrendering to scepticism at any rate, the retention of closure will demand
it. The problem is that this putative knowledge has an odd standing accord-
ing to this theory, since although it is possessed, one can apparently never
truly assert a sentence which ascribes this knowledge, since in raising the
sceptical possibility in this way one raises the epistemic standards, thereby
making what is asserted false. At the very least, then, it seems to be a
consequence of contextualism that epistemologists, who are concerned with
problems like this as a matter of course, are rarely able to know very much.
6

:6 MICHAEL BRADY AND DUNCAN PRITCHARD
The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly, .oo
6
At least unless we can make sense of Lewis suggestion that we are compartmentalized
thinkers, such that one compartment is able to know a great deal even while a second
compartment, that which is concerned with the sceptical problem, knows next to nothing.
See Lewis, Elusive Knowledge.
A related problem is that if we can make sense of the idea that we are
able to know the denials of sceptical hypotheses, then it is far from clear why
we would also want to endorse contextualism. After all, the rejection of (S:)
will by itself suce to block the sceptical argument, regardless of whether it is
allied to a contextualist thesis. Remember that the problem with (S:) wasnt
that while we approximate to meeting the standards necessary for know-
ledge, in this case we dont quite meet them, but rather that this is the sort of
proposition that it is impossible for creatures like us to know, whatever
incremental improvements we might make to our epistemic positions. Thus
it is far from clear that merely lowering the epistemic standards for know-
ledge will do the trick. And note that if this does do the trick if the problem
here is simply that we dont quite meet austere sceptical epistemic standards
then this invites the thought that perhaps the moral to be drawn is not that
we should regard knows as a context-sensitive term, but rather that we
should resist the move to the sceptics austere epistemic standards and insist
instead on evaluating assertions of ascription sentences relative to more
relaxed quotidian epistemic standards (in every context).
7
As we just noted, the contextualist treatment of scepticism seems to leave
the contextualist with a mute response to the sceptic, since the challenge is
always, by its very nature, posed in a sceptical context where assertions of
ascription sentences will tend to be false. This sort of diculty for the view
has led many to question the intellectual adequacy of the contextualist anti-
sceptical thesis. Indeed, since the contextualist allows that it is the sceptic
who is working with the higher epistemic standards, it is easy to see why
some commentators have claimed that the contextualist resolution to
scepticism leaves one with the uneasy feeling that, strictly speaking, we dont
have knowledge after all, its just that its OK (though strictly speaking false)
to say that we do when we are speaking loosely in quotidian conversational
contexts. In short, the worry here is that contextualism seems to leave the
door open to infallibilism of the sort defended in early work by Peter Unger,
where knows, rather than being treated as a context-sensitive term, is in
fact treated as an absolute term such that no one, strictly speaking, ever has
any knowledge, since the standards demanded for knowledge possession
(infallibility) are so strong that no one can ever meet them.
8

EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONTEXTUALISM: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS :6
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7
For more on this problem, see D. Pritchard, Recent Work on Radical Skepticism,
American Philosophical Quarterly, q (.oo.), pp. .:, in 6. Crispin Wright also explores this
problem for the contextualist treatment of scepticism in his contribution to this volume.
8
See P. Unger, A Defence of Skepticism, Philosophical Review, 8o (:q:), pp. :q8.:q, and
Ignorance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, :q). In more recent work Unger has argued for the
weaker thesis that there is no way of adjudicating between a contextualist account of knows
which enables us to avoid scepticism, and an infallibilist non-contextualist account which does
not. Accordingly, we are in no better position as regards the sceptical problem, since we still
have no reason not to be sceptics. See Unger, Philosophical Relativity (Oxford: Blackwell, :q8).
A similar problem in this regard is that while the early contextualist views
were very clear about how the standards for knowledge could be raised so
that it was no longer possible to assert ascription sentences truly, it wasnt at
all clear what would be involved in lowering the standards again afterwards
so that assertions of these same ascription sentences would now express
truths. This is the so-called problem of epistemic descent, and it is crucial
that contextualists have an account of such descent if they are to explain
how those who have actively considered the sceptical problem can, once
they engage once more in normal quotidian contexts, return to asserting
ascription sentences truly as they did before.
9
This last issue relates to the third type of problem initially raised for
contextualists, which concerns the linguistic basis of the view. The challenge
here is to specify just how conversational factors can alter the epistemic stan-
dards in play, and do so in a way that does not oend against the linguistic
data. For example, in the case of epistemic descent just described, it seems
that what the contextualist predicts in terms of linguistic behaviour is will-
ingness on the part of the agent (i) to assert the relevant ascription sentence
in a quotidian conversational context; (ii) to assert the negation of this
ascription sentence once the agent moves into the sceptical conversational
context (i.e., to say that the target subject doesnt have the knowledge that
was previously ascribed to her); and (iii) to go back to asserting the original
ascription sentence when the quotidian conversational context returns. On
the face of it, however, this prediction is not borne out by the linguistic data.
In general, we would not treat someone as a good asserter if she altered her
assertions merely in the light of conversational factors in this way.
10

More generally, a further line of critique in this regard has concerned
whether the apparent context-sensitivity of knows could not be simply
accommodated within a Gricean picture. On this view, certain assertions
become unassertable as the conversational context changes perhaps be-
cause, for example, the new conversational context means that the assertion
now carries dierent conversational implicatures, ones which are now
mostly false even though they do not shift in their truth-value. It could be,
for example, that it is conversationally inappropriate to say that one knows
that one is not the victim of a sceptical hypothesis, even though this is in fact
true, because of what this assertion would imply.
11
:66 MICHAEL BRADY AND DUNCAN PRITCHARD
The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly, .oo
9
For a development of this line of critique, see Pritchard, Contextualism, Skepticism, and
the Problem of Epistemic Descent, Dialectica, (.oo:), pp. .q.
10
For more on this point, see Pritchard, Contextualism, Skepticism and Warranted
Assertability Manuvres, in J. Keim-Campbell, M. ORourke and H. Silverstein (eds), Know-
ledge and Skepticism (MIT Press, forthcoming).
11
For the rst sustained development of this sort of objection, see P. Rysiew, The Context-
Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions, Nos, (.oo:), pp. :.
Relatedly, contextualism has come under pressure from an alternative
account, known as subject-sensitive invariantism (SSI), which has been
proposed by John Hawthorne and Jason Stanley.
12
Whereas contextualism
holds that it is the context of the person making the assertion that is
important to the truth-value of a knowledge ascription, SSI denies this and
maintains instead that epistemic status depends upon the context of the
subject. In particular, SSI holds that it is the salience of error possibilities to
the subject that determines whether or not she knows some proposition, rather
than the salience of such possibilities to the ascriber. In this way, proponents
of SSI reinterpret the phenomenon of context-sensitivity so as to avoid a
contextualist conclusion. Moreover, supporters of SSI maintain that the
evidence from ordinary language no more supports a contextualist construal
of such sensitivity than it supports a subject-sensitive invariantist reading.
Contextualists thus owe us an explanation as to why we should be
contextualists rather than invariantists of this sort.
III. CONTEXTUALISM AND ANTI-CONTEXTUALISM:
THE NEW WAVE
The recent work on contextualism has seen contextualists rene and de-
velop their view in response to objections of this sort, and has also seen those
unsympathetic to contextualism develop their critiques as a result. This
special issue represents a broad cross-section of this new wave of debate
about contextualism.
The rst two papers focus on the critique of contextualism raised by
Hawthorne and Stanley, and hence on the relative merits of contextualism
versus SSI. In the rst of these papers, The Ordinary Language Basis for
Contextualism, and the New Invariantism, Keith DeRose argues that the
linguistic data support contextualism over this rival approach. DeRose is
concerned to set the contextualist project squarely within the tradition of
ordinary language philosophy, as exemplied in the work of Austin, and
argues that the best grounds for contextualism concerning knowledge
attributions come from how knowledge-attributing (and knowledge-denying)
sentences are used in ordinary non-philosophical talk. (DeRose thinks it best
to put the sceptical problem to one side, largely because it is not clear what
to make of disagreements in the sceptical case, but also because it is
important that contextualism can be motivated on grounds that are
independent of this problem.) Building on his earlier work, but going
EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONTEXTUALISM: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS :6
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12
See especially, J. Hawthorne, Knowledge and Lotteries (Oxford UP, .oo); J. Stanley, On the
Linguistic Basis for Contextualism, Philosophical Studies, ::q (.oo), pp. ::q6.
beyond it in key respects, DeRose identies various aspects of ordinary
language use and explains why they provide such strong support for
contextualism.
He then turns his attention to the rival SSI account, and the support this
position is thought to receive from certain judgements ordinary speakers are
allegedly inclined to make about how the contents of various assertions
relate to one another. DeRose argues that the linguistic data do not leave
the two rival positions in an impasse, as Hawthorne and Stanley claim, but in
fact provide much greater support for contextualism.
In Knowledge, Speaker and Subject, Stewart Cohen also defends
contextualism against SSI. Cohen begins by discussing how contextualism
attempts to resolve the lottery paradox, and then goes on to consider an
objection to contextualism, due to Hawthorne and Stanley, to the eect that
it cannot account for how knows functions in propositional-attitude
reports. Cohen argues that on closer analysis this objection does not hold
water, and after comparing contextualism with Hawthorne and Stanleys
alternative proposal for resolving the lottery paradox, concludes that the
latter falls short of providing a satisfactory resolution. Cohen thus concludes
that contextualism has signicant advantages over SSI when it comes to
accommodating our epistemic intuitions.
The third paper in this collection also focuses on the debate between
contextualists and invariantists, but seeks to defend insensitive invariantism
against both contextualism and SSI. In Contextualism, Subject-Sensitive
Invariantism and Knowledge of Knowledge, Timothy Williamson argues
that insensitive invariantism has the explanatory resources to accommodate
the standard cases used to support both contextualism and SSI, and
concludes that the usual motivation oered for these theories is undermined.
Williamson begins by arguing that although contextualism and SSI rely
upon a principle of charity in their interpretation of assertions involving
epistemic terms, neither approach satises this principle fully, in which case
insensitive invariantism should not be dismissed (as it usually is) on the
grounds that it alone violates such a principle. Since all theories are
committed to the view that speakers make systematic errors in using
epistemic terms, the choice between the theories might seem now to rest on
how well they can explain such errors. Williamson proceeds to sketch how
insensitive invariantism can explain the illusion of ignorance surrounding
our denials of knowledge in high standards contexts by appealing to psycho-
logical bias caused by salience eects. One possibility is that the
psychological salience of high practical costs or vivid sceptical scenarios
focuses our attention on certain error possibilities in such a way as to give
rise to psychological bias eects. Williamson argues that a more plausible
:68 MICHAEL BRADY AND DUNCAN PRITCHARD
The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly, .oo
proposal emerges once we focus on the propriety of employing our
knowledge in practical reasoning. On the face of it, this shift of focus would
seem to favour contextualism and SSI, since while it is appropriate from a
practical standpoint to rely on ones knowledge in low standards contexts, it
becomes too risky to rely on the same propositions when the stakes are
raised and standards become high. Williamson argues, however, that a
proposition can be an appropriate premise to use in practical reasoning even
though one is not in a position to know that it is appropriate, and so
maintains that one can therefore know something without being in a
position to know that one knows it. On Williamsons view, this fact can be
used to explain why we are mistakenly tempted to deny ascriptions of
knowledge in high standards contexts.
In Contextualism and Scepticism: Even-handedness, Factivity and Sur-
reptitiously Raising Standards, Crispin Wright oers two key strands of
criticism against contextualist responses to scepticism. The rst argues that
the factivity of knowledge ensures that contextualism is unable to main-
tain the even-handed treatment of scepticism and anti-scepticism that it
presents itself as oering. That is, Wright maintains that contextualist
responses to scepticism are appealing, at least in part, because they seem to
allow us to be sympathetic to both sides of the traditional scepticism/anti-
scepticism debate, and to recover some truth in the assertions made by both
parties. Wright argues, however, that this is illusory, since closer examina-
tion of the role of factivity for knowledge indicates that the contextualist is in
fact unable to maintain any such dialectical distance and thus must take
sides in this debate after all.
The second strand of criticism that Wright levels against contextualist
responses to scepticism is that they are unable to respond adequately to the
main sceptical arguments. This is because the contextualist diagnosis of
the sceptical threat treats that threat as arising out of a raising of the relevant
epistemic standards, and yet, argues Wright, many of the key sceptical
arguments do not trade on a raising of the epistemic standards at all.
Accordingly, contextualism is impotent at dealing with sceptical arguments
of this sort.
The fth paper in this special issue, Jessica Browns Adapt or Die: the
Death of Invariantism?, focuses on another issue of contextualism, namely,
the question of whether the context-sensitivity of knows can be straight-
forwardly accommodated within a Gricean picture, as a number of com-
mentators have claimed.
13
DeRose has argued against this view by claiming
that there is no way of explaining away the apparent context-sensitivity in
EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONTEXTUALISM: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS :6q
The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly, .oo
13
See especially Rysiew, The Context-Sensitivity of Knowledge Attributions.
our usage of epistemic terms by solely appealing to the context-sensitivity of
the assertability-conditions of sentences that employ those terms.
14
It is this
DeRosean thesis that Brown takes issue with.
Brown begins by noting that the classic argument for contextualism
exploits the fact that it can seem intuitively correct to ascribe knowledge to a
subject in one context, but not in another, even though she is in the same
epistemic position in both contexts. In response, however, an invariantist
may exploit a warranted assertability manuvre (or WAM) according to
which the problematic intuitions reect mere changes in the conversational
propriety of the relevant assertions, rather than changes in the truth-
conditions of the sentences asserted. Brown then focuses on DeRoses attack
on the possibility of an invariantist WAM, noting rst that his argument
directly aects only classical invariantism, and not the more recently
developed view of SSI. Brown proceeds to consider DeRoses use of the
knowledge account of assertion, as popularized by Williamson, and claims
(with Williamson in mind) that there is an important equivocation here
regarding the notion of warrant in play when one talks about warranted
assertions. With these considerations outlined, Brown oers a classical
invariantist theory of how one might understand the relevant linguistic data
that works within any reasonable constraints we might place on a WAM.
On the basis of the linguistic data alone, then, the state of play as regards
contextualism and invariantism as Brown sees it is one of impasse rather than
the default support for contextualism that DeRose claims.
In the nal full-length paper in this issue, A Sense of Occasion, Charles
Travis draws connections between epistemological contextualism and a
dierent, although related, position in the philosophy of language. He seeks
to explain a view of knowledge which emerges out of the writings of the
British philosopher John Cook Wilson and features prominently in the work
of Austin and John McDowell. Travis begins with Cook Wilsons concep-
tion of knowledge, which treats it as having two central features: (i) it is irre-
ducible (in particular, it is not a species of, and does not involve, belief ); and
(ii) it is unmistakable (if one knows p, then p is unmistakably so for one).
According to Austin, argues Travis, we need to appeal to a speakers
circumstances in order to x a standard of truth for the speakers utterances.
As Travis puts it, what one does say ... in saying things to be such and such
a way will depend upon the circumstances in which one says it. Travis
points out that similar things can be said for such notions as evidence,
what might be, and, importantly in Cook Wilsons picture, for factive
:o MICHAEL BRADY AND DUNCAN PRITCHARD
The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly, .oo
14
See DeRose, Contextualism: an Explanation and Defense, in J. Greco and E. Sosa (eds),
Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell, :qqq), pp. :8.o, and Knowledge, Assertion, and Context,
Philosophical Review, ::: (.oo.), pp. :6.o.
meaning. Given this, knowledge too will be occasion-sensitive in this way, and
Travis goes on to explain how this is relevant to externalist and contemp-
orary contextualist thought. In the nal section Travis explains how John
McDowell incorporates Cook Wilsons core conception of knowledge, but
without accepting Austins account of the occasion-sensitivity of epistemic
notions. Travis argues that this is a mistake on McDowells part, since it
leads to a tension which McDowell cannot resolve. Occasion-sensitivity thus
appears obligatory.
The issue closes with discussions of four of the articles. In Contextualism,
Hawthornes Invariantism and Third-Person Cases, Anthony Brueckner
casts a critical eye over DeRoses contribution to this issue. In particular, he
focuses on DeRoses treatment of knowledge-attributing sentences in third-
person cases and maintains that there are some important critical lacunae in
DeRoses arguments.
In her discussion of Williamsons article, Williamson on Luminosity
and Contextualism, Brown claims that Williamsons appeal to the non-
luminosity of knowledge being such that one can know a proposition with-
out knowing that one knows it is unnecessary, since the critique William-
son oers of contextualism in terms of psychological bias would suce by
itself. Moreover, argues Brown, this account of how psychological bias can
aect our knowledge attributions also oers the best account of why the
cases that contextualists often appeal to are characterized by a failure of
luminosity.
Tim Blacks discussion piece, Classic Invariantism, Relevance and
Warranted Assertability Manuvres, oers a critique of Browns full-length
article, and along the way also criticizes an earlier article by DeRose. Brown
oers a broadly Gricean account of how one could account for the apparent
context-sensitivity in our epistemic terms by appealing only to the shifting
propriety-conditions for knowledge claims. This account makes use of the
rule of relevance, and it is this feature of Browns thesis that Black takes issue
with here, arguing that, amongst other things, the correct Gricean account
of the apparent context-sensitivity of our epistemic terms lies elsewhere.
Finally, in Travis Sense of Occasion, Alan Millar oers a critical dis-
cussion of Travis paper. In particular, Millar raises some issues regarding
exactly how Travis view is to be understood, and queries the extent to
which Travis can employ considerations regarding occasion-sensitivity to re-
solve the epistemological problems he is concerned with.
University of Stirling
EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONTEXTUALISM: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS ::
The Editors of The Philosophical Quarterly, .oo