Contextualism and the Problem of Knowledge Ascription

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 110-126
Author(s):  
Ekaterina V. Vostrikova ◽  
Petr S. Kusliy ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Compositional Semantics ◽  
Knowledge Ascription ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Contextualist Approach ◽  
Fake Barn

The paper explores the contextualist approach towards the semantics of knowledge ascriptions. The authors discuss the relevance of these studies in semantics for the major issues in virtue epistemology. It is argued that despite the advantages that contextualism has over its alternatives (in particular, relativism and subject sensitive invariablisism), it still requires a more elaborated compositional semantics that it currently has. We review several concrete contextualsit proposals to the semantics of the verb know in light of their applicability to the well-known type of examples known as the fake barn example, point out some of their particular shortcomings, and propose a revision, which represents a variant of D. Lewis’s general approach to the semantics of know.

Further Insights on Fake-Barn Cases and Intuition Variation

Episteme ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Carsten Bergenholtz ◽  
Jacob Busch ◽  
Sara Kier Praëm
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Risk Attitude ◽  
Knowledge Ascription ◽  
Underlying Factor ◽  
Demographic Group ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Group Variation ◽  
Fake Barn

Abstract Studies in experimental philosophy claim to document intuition variation. Some studies focus on demographic group-variation; Colaço et al., for example, claim that age generates intuition variation regarding knowledge attribution in a fake-barn scenario. Other studies claim to show intuition variation when comparing the intuition of philosophers to that of non-philosophers. The main focus has been on documenting intuition variation rather than uncovering what underlying factor(s) may prompt such a phenomenon. We explore a number of suggested explanatory hypotheses put forth by Colaço et al., as well as an attempt to test Sosa's claim that intuition variance is a result of people ‘filling in the details’ of a thought experiment differently from one another. We show (i) that people respond consistently across conditions aimed at ‘filling in the details’ of thought experiments, (ii) that risk attitude does not seem relevant to knowledge ascription, (iii) that people's knowledge ascriptions do not vary due to views about defeasibility of knowledge. Yet, (iv) we find no grounds to reject that a large proportion of people appear to adhere to so-called subjectivism about knowledge, which may explain why they generally have intuitions about the fake-barn scenario that vary from those of philosophers.

The Psychology of Knowledge Ascriptions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Gerken
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Empirical Psychology ◽  
Knowledge Ascription ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Process Framework ◽  
Intuitive Judgments ◽  
Ordinary Knowledge

Chapter 5 surveys some empirical psychology and outlines some folk epistemological principles. By considering the heuristic and biases tradition, it is argued that ordinary knowledge ascriptions are standardly driven by heuristic processes and, therefore, associated with biases. This idea is integrated with a dual process framework for mental state ascriptions. On this basis, some of the central heuristic principles that govern intuitive judgments about knowledge ascriptions are articulated, and some of the biases associated with these principles are identified. The result is an account of an epistemic focal bias in intuitive judgments about knowledge ascription. Thus, Chapter 5 provides both a survey of relevant psychology and a development of the folk psychological principles governing knowledge ascriptions.

scholarly journals Epistemic evaluation and the need for ‘impure’ epistemic standards

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikola Anna Kompa
Keyword(s):  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Epistemic Standard ◽  
Epistemic Evaluation ◽  
Knowledge Ascription ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Epistemic Standards

AbstractThat knowledge ascriptions exhibit some form of sensitivity to context is uncontroversial. How best to account for the context-sensitivity at issue, however, is the topic of heated debates. A certain version of nonindexical contextualism seems to be a promising option. Even so, it is incumbent upon any contextualist account to explain in what way and to what extent the epistemic standard operative in a particular context of epistemic evaluation is affected by non-epistemic factors (such as practical interests). In this paper, I investigate how non-epistemic factors come into play when knowledge is ascribed. I argue that knowledge ascriptions often serve the purpose of providing actionable information. This, in turn, requires that epistemic interests be balanced against non-epistemic interests. Moreover, it raises the question of whose interests matter, those of the ascriber, the addressee (of the knowledge ascription), or the subject of ascription. Eventually, an answer to the question is suggested.

scholarly journals UNREFLECTIVE EPISTEMOLOGY

Episteme ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Kelp
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Difficult Problem ◽  
Knowledge Claim ◽  
Reflective Knowledge ◽  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
Is Success ◽  
The Core ◽  
Types Of Knowledge ◽  
Fake Barn ◽  
Lack Of Knowledge

AbstractVirtue epistemological accounts of knowledge claim that knowledge is a species of a broader normative category, to wit of success from ability. Fake Barn cases pose a difficult problem for such accounts. In structurally analogous but non-epistemic cases, the agents attain the relevant success from ability. If knowledge is just another form of success from ability, the pressure is on to treat Fake Barn cases as cases of knowledge. The challenge virtue epistemology faces is to explain the intuitive lack of knowledge in Fake Barn cases, whilst holding on to the core claim that knowledge is success from ability. Ernest Sosa's version of virtue epistemology promises to rise to this challenge. Sosa distinguishes two types of knowledge, animal knowledge and reflective knowledge. He argues that while animal knowledge is present in Fake Barn cases, reflective knowledge is absent and ventures to explain the intuition of ignorance by the absence of reflective knowledge. This paper argues that Sosa's treatment of Fake Barn cases fails as it commits Sosa to a number of highly counterintuitive results elsewhere in epistemology.

scholarly journals Sosa’s Virtue Epistemology

2010 ◽  
Vol 42 (125) ◽  
pp. 47-62
Author(s):  
Jonathan L. Kvanvig
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Value Of Knowledge ◽  
Complete Answer ◽  
Fake Barn Case ◽  
Fake Barn

Ernest Sosa’s latest epistemology remains a version of virtue epistemology, and I argue here that it faces two central problems, pressing a point I have made elsewhere, that virtue epistemology does not present a complete answer to the problem of the value of knowledge. I will press this point regarding the nature of knowledge through variations on two standard Gettier examples here. The first is the Fake Barn case and the second is the Tom Grabit case. I will argue that Sosa’s latest virtue epistemology fails to handle either case acceptably, and that as a result, cannot explain the value that knowledge has over that of the sum of any of its proper subparts.

Diagnosing Practical Factor Effects

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Gerken
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Epistemic Norm ◽  
Communicative Function ◽  
Knowledge Ascription ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Directive Speech Acts ◽  
Directive Speech

Chapter 12 deals with the practical factor effects by arguing that in the cases where practical factor effects are generated, the focus is on some pertinent action. In the cases where the knowledge ascription is merely mental, it is argued to serve as a heuristic proxy for a more complex judgment about epistemic actionability. Linguistic knowledge ascriptions are argued to serve a directive communicative function in the relevant cases. Therefore, the “shifty” judgments about the knowledge ascriptions reflect whether they meet or violate the epistemic norm governing directive speech acts—specifically the speech act of recommending. Thus, Chapter 12 combines psychological and linguistic considerations to account for the puzzling patterns of knowledge ascriptions constituting practical factor effects.

scholarly journals Fake Barns and Our Epistemological Theorizing

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (148) ◽  
pp. 29-53
Author(s):  
Ángel García Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Visual Ability ◽  
Limited Knowledge ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Fake Barn

Pure virtue epistemology faces the fake barn challenge. This paper explains how it can be met. Thus, it is argued that the thought experiment contains a hidden ambiguity concerning the visual ability typically ascribed to, or denied, fake barn subjects. Disambiguation shows fake barn subjects to have limited knowledge of the target proposition (e.g. that there is a barn ahead). This accords with a pure virtue-theoretic conception of knowledge that predicts and explains all the intuitionselicited by the thought experiment. As a result, the relationship between knowledge, luck and ability is illuminated, and our epistemological theorizing improved.

Epistemic Intuitions in Fake-Barn Thought Experiments

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Colaço ◽  
Wesley Buckwalter ◽  
Stephen Stich
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Fake Barn

Lexical Meaning, Concepts, and the Metasemantics of Predicates

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Glanzberg
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Compositional Semantics ◽  
Lexical Meaning ◽  
Standard Methods

This chapter examines how concepts relate to lexical meanings. It focuses on how we can appeal to concepts to give specific, cognitively rich contents to lexical entries, while at the same time using standard methods of compositional semantics. This is a problem, as those methods assume lexical meanings provide extensions, while concepts are mental representations that have very different structure from an extension. The chapter proposes a way to solve this problem which is by casting concepts in a metasemantic role for certain expressions, notably verbs, but more also generally, with expressions that function as content-giving predicates in a sentence.

Extending Epistemic Virtue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Battaly
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Extended Cognition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Epistemic Virtue ◽  
Virtue Responsibilism

What would happen if extended cognition (EC) and virtue-responsibilism (VR) were to meet? Are they compatible, or incompatible? Do they have projects in common? Would they, as it were, end their meeting early, or stick around but run out of things to say? Or, would they hit it off? This chapter suggests that VR and EC are not obviously incompatible, and that each might fruitfully contribute to the other. Although there has been an explosion of recent work at the intersection of virtue epistemology and EC, this work has focused almost exclusively on the reliabilist side of virtue epistemology. Little has been said about the intersection of VR and EC. This chapter takes initial steps toward filling that gap.

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