Thus in Conee’s
example: “Robinson’s context, his 'everyone' would be restricted
to all who are members of the BC”. All this is pretty obvious
to everyone who has ever used a quantifier – which is everyone.
However, there's a
problem.
On one account, what
Robinson says can be taken to be both false and true. It's true if
the word ‘everyone’ is only taken to apply to the members of the
Boring Club. Though it's false if his ‘everyone’ is taken to
apply to, well, everyone – the Pope, for instance, isn't present
at the meeting. However, epistemic contextualist (EC) theorists can
easily take both what Stickler says to be true and what Robinson
takes to be true. On Conee’s account, the truth-conditions have
changed from an application to members of the BC to literally
everyone is the world. The EC will say that
“Stickler
has shifted the conversational context, perhaps by mentioning the
Pope, someone who is not in the group previously assume to be
relevant”.
It is this change in
"conversational context" which makes both positions true, on the
EC account.
Moral Relativism &
Epistemic Contextualism
It's to place
epistemic contextualism amongst controversial company if Conee
associates it with moral relativism. Is the comparison correct? What
he says about moral relativism seems correct enough. He says that
moral relativists
“hold
roughly that something about the context of a moral evaluation,
perhaps something in the culture or the personal values of the
evaluator, contributes to the truth conditions of the resulting
evaluation”.
In this case, we can
ask how the “context of a moral evaluation” can contribute to the
“truth conditions of the resulting evaluation”. More
specifically, how can "personal values" be deemed to ‘contribute’
to truth-conditions? The context, in this case, contributes to the
evaluation (or the personal values contribute to the evaluation);
though how do they contribute to the truth-conditions?
This comparison between
moral relativism and EC is made clearer by Conee.
According to the
tribesmen of Borneo, head-hunting is morally right. According to
Europeans, it's wrong. Head-hunting can't be both right and wrong.
However, according to Conee, “moral relativists and EC theorists can
work to explain away the appearance of contradiction or
disagreement”. That is, it's right according to the context of
Borneo head-hunters and it's wrong according to Europeans. There's
simply no contradiction, in that case, according to Conee’s moral
relativists and EC theorists. Though Conee seems to be saying that
although the context may well be different, both the Borneo tribesmen
and Europeans are “discussing the same thing” (50). That must
mean that (on Conee’s account) the truth-conditions must also be the
same, despite differences in context (which he can't help but
accept).
Conee
makes a lot of truth-conditions in his account of EC. More to the
point, he stresses the fact that it's (often?) the case (say, in his
moral relativism example) that despite “differing standards” and
contexts, the truth-conditions remain the same. This must only mean
that despite different standards and different contexts, whatever is
true remains true regardless if these differences. Thus this is
position is a direct case against epistemic contextualism.
He gives this example
of “genuine US currency”:
“…
note that differing standards are
routinely applied in making judgements that are uncontroversially
context-invariant. For instance, usually the genuineness of a
purported piece of US currency is judged by a quick look, sometimes
it is judged by a more careful inspection, and occasionally it is
rigorously judged using a high-tech device. In spite of these
differing standards, the content of the uses of ‘genuine US
currency’ is clearly the same… Thus, we cannot validly infer that
contextual differences yield differing truth conditions simply
because differing standards are often applied.”
The truth-condition in
this example is “genuine US currency”. The contextual or standard
variations are “a quick look” at the currency; a “careful
inspection” of the currency; and a currency that's "rigorously
judged using a high-tech device”. None of these variable contexts
or standards changes the fact that genuine US currency is, well,
genuine US currency. We can also say that genuine US currency itself
doesn't change even if the standards or contexts of inspection
change. The question is whether or not
this example - and the conclusions Conee derives from it - can also
be applied to the epistemological cases already discussed. Can
this talk about, say, a US dollar (which is a physical object) be
applied to such things as the rightness or wrongness of an action,
the reality or unreality of the external world and what is the
correct mode of justification? In that sense, perhaps the cases
aren't parallel at all. Indeed perhaps there simply are no
truth-conditions in the former cases; especially in the case of moral
relativism or morality generally.
Folk
Contextualism vs. Invariant Knowledge
According to EC
theorists, most people outside epistemology are aware that context
matters when it comes to attributions of knowledge. Conee, on the other hand, seems to be saying that although
the Folk may well be aware of context, they don't (necessarily?)
alter their knowledge- attributions according to contextual factors.
According to EC theorists,
“fluent
speakers actually realise, at least tacitly, that this knowledge
ascription is just loose talk”.
The attributions of members of the
Folk to other members of the Folk may not be particularly relevant to
the contextual factors involved in knowledge-attributions or even
involved in knowledge itself.
Conee puts what can be
called the Folkist (i.e., non-contextualist) case by using the folkist phrase
“really and truly”. This phrase passes for a strict account of
what it is that the folk think and believe. This is Conee’s
example:
“For
instance, when fluent speakers consider whether they are ‘really
and truly’ happy, or they consider who are ‘really and truly’
their friends, or they consider what is ‘really and truly’ worth
striving for, they tend to have doubts about their previous casual
attributions of happiness, friendship, and worthwhile goals.”
Again, Conee makes his
point by stressing truth-conditions. The EC theorist would say that
the truth-conditions change when asked in "casual" terms about
happiness, friendship and goals compared to when they're asked what
they "really and truly" believe about such things. Indeed this
contextual variance seems to be written into the English language. Or
as Conee puts it:
“[i]t
is possible that the English terms for these categories of happiness,
friendship, and so forth all have contextually varying truth
conditions, and that the standards are raised by these ‘really and
truly’ questions.”
I suspect that Conee
believes that the truth-conditions about these matters of friendship,
happiness and goals don't in fact change. What changes is only the
difference between ‘casual’ responses to such questions and
thoughtful responses to them. That isn't really a change in context:
it's a change in one’s attitude towards the question itself. And
what Conee says about folk responses to questions about happiness,
friendship and worthwhile goals, he says may be true about
epistemological questions and issues as well. There may be no such
thing as context in these cases either. Conee writes:
“…
it may be that every issue about
knowledge, from the Gettier problem to the extent of scientific
knowledge, from the nature of justification to the merits of external
world scepticism, has been discussed solely in this single ‘really
and truly’ context. Granting epistemic contextualism, this claim of
a single philosophical context has some plausibility.”
When we talk about the
Gettier problem (or about scientific knowledge, justification or
external-world scepticism) we want to know the really and truly
about it. We don't want to know about the context of attributions or
the context of knowledge itself. When we speak of knowledge in all
these cases, we're talking about exactly the same thing. There isn't
one kind of knowledge for the Gettier problem, another kind of
knowledge when it comes to scientific claims, another for questions
of justification, and yet another for statements about the reality
and character of the external world. It is one and the same knowledge
in each and every case.
One might say that if
the really and truly applies to folkist concerns about friends,
happiness and worthwhile goals, it should certainly apply to
epistemological questions and issues. Or perhaps Conee does indeed
accept that there are contexts, as indeed he must do; though when it
comes to scientific knowledge, the Gettier problem, justification and
external-world scepticism, the only context that matters is the
really and truly context. Or, as Conee puts it, this context is
the “single philosophical context” (53). Does that mean that
there are indeed different contexts for folkist issues like
happiness, friendship and worthwhile goals? It seems that earlier
Conee rejected folkist contextualism as well.
Conee again seems to
dispute the EC theorist’s belief that the Folk are either aware of
“contextual variation” or take contextual variation into account
when they make their knowledge-attributions. Conee writes that
“[t]his
explanation attributes to us some sort of grip on the contextual
variation in standards for ‘knowledge’ ascriptions”.
This “grip on the
contextual variation” is thought to be tacit. That is, “[w]e are
not said to think explicitly that there is a contextual variation”.
It's hard to know what to make of this statement. Do we really take
into account contextual variation; though only tacitly? In that case,
what's meant by the word ‘tacit’ here? In any case, even if this
knowledge is indeed tacit, it still seems to
be pretty detailed and, well, explicit! That is,
“we
are supposed to be guided by our understanding of ‘knows’ to
count some differences in context as decisive to truth when we make
our plausibility judgements”.
Again, I think that
Conee actually denies this tacit-knowledge account of Folk
attributions of knowledge and therefore our very strict uses of the
word ‘knowledge’. I would reject both accounts. I don't believe
that all these things go on at the tacit level. And neither do I
believe that it can be said that the Folk have a strict notion of
knowledge or of knowledge-ascriptions.
Since the EC believes
in contexts, it's not surprising that there's also a “sceptical
context” to take into account; as well as an everyday
context.
For example, in a
sceptical context it may be the case that “only 100 percent of the
right sort of probability is enough” (54). That's why scepticism is
scepticism – because it demands 100 percent of the right sort of
probability. Sceptics may also want something else. They may want
“internally possessed evidence that excludes all possibility of
false belief”. Again, that's why scepticism is scepticism –
it wants to exclude all possibility of false belief.
Conee seems to suggest
a case when we can meet these strong sceptical demands.
For example,
“perhaps
external world judgements are in the right way 100 percent probable
when they are correctly causally connected to the fact known”.
However, this “might
occur only in optimal cases of perception and memory” (54). Thus
even though sceptical demands are strong (not to say extreme), Conee
suggests that - at least in theory - they can be met. Despite that, many
epistemologists deny global (or extreme) scepticism precisely
because they believe that its demands can never be met – again, in
principle!
Reference
Conee, Earl. (2005)
'Contextualism Contested', in Contemporary
Debates in Epistemology (edited by Matthias Steup and Ernest
Sosa).
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