Contextualism and Weird Knowledge

CONTEXTUALISM AND WEIRD KNOWLEDGE

BY LEONID TARASOV

John Greco has recently raised two worries for epistemic contextualism, viz it deprives epistemol-ogy of its subject matter and renders objective knowledge impossible. He argues that these prob-lems are not restricted to contextualism, but apply to rival theories, like subject sensitiveinvariantism, and that they are overstated. I develop Greco’s worries, which show that contextual-ism suggests either that there is no such thing as knowledge, or a weird view of knowledge: asdisparately varied and undisciplined, individual-dependent and arbitrary. I then argue that theseissues are not overstated and that they can be avoided if one opts for moderate insensitive invari-antism.

I. INTRODUCTION

John Greco1 has recently suggested two possible objections to attributor-based semantic contextualism (hereafter contextualism): A) it deprivesepistemology of its subject matter; B) it renders objective knowledgeimpossible. He compares contextualism with its closest rival, subject sensi-tive invariantism (hereafter SSI), and finds that SSI has no advantageover contextualism here. He then argues that these objections are over-stated.

I develop Greco’s worries into four separate but closely related issues,which show that contextualism suggests either that there is no such thingas knowledge, or a weird view of knowledge: as disparately varied andundisciplined, individual-dependent and arbitrary. I go on to argue thatGreco’s reasons for thinking that these issues are overstated rely on someunarticulated but controversial assumptions and a problematic amend-ment to contextualist semantics. Although I do not have space to offer a

1 J. Greco, ‘What’s Wrong with Contextualism?’, hereafter Greco 2008, The PhilosophicalQuarterly, 58 (2008), pp. 416–36; reprinted in J. Greco, Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-TheoreticAccount of Epistemic Normativity (Cambridge UP, 2010), Ch. 7.

The Philosophical Quarterly Vol. 63, No. 252 July 2013ISSN 0031-8094 doi: 10.1111/1467-9213.12027

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comparison, I agree with Greco that SSI has no obvious advantage overcontextualism as far as these issues are concerned, but I think that theirseriousness gives us a reason for rejecting both views in favour of an alter-native. Moderate insensitive invariantism is one obvious candidate.

II. CONTEXTUALISM

The typical contextualist thesis is well known.2 ‘Know’ is, or is like, anindexical; its semantic value is determined by the conversational contextin which it is uttered, and it can have different semantic values in differ-ent conversational contexts. Consequently, a knowledge attribution, suchas ‘S knows that p’, can express different propositions in different conver-sational contexts and does not express a complete proposition outside aconversational context. This is governed by what I call the AttributorPrinciple, which states that it is features of the person making the knowl-edge attribution (hereafter the attributor), or features of the context theattributor is in, which determine the proposition expressed by a givenknowledge attribution.

A different way of putting it is that features of the attributor or hercontext determine a certain epistemic standard for knowledge attribution.The subject needs to be in an epistemic position which matches orexceeds this epistemic standard in order for a knowledge attribution tothe subject to express a true proposition. If the subject’s epistemic positionfalls below the epistemic standard then a knowledge attribution to thesubject expresses a false proposition.

For present purposes it does not matter how we construe epistemicstandards and epistemic positions; the basic idea we need to keep in mindis that contextualism allows a knowledge attribution to express differentpropositions, or for different epistemic standards to be set, in differentcontexts, as governed by the Attributor Principle.

III. CONTEXTUALISM AND WEIRD KNOWLEDGE

Epistemology attempts to provide the correct understanding of the con-cept or phenomenon of knowledge – knowledge proper, as it were. Oneway of doing this is by looking at the use of the word ‘know’ and taking it

2 See, for example, S. Cohen, ‘How to be a Fallibilist’, Philosophical Perspectives, 2 (1988),pp. 91–123; K. DeRose, ‘Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions’, Philosophy and Phenom-enological Research, 52 (1992), pp. 913–29.

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as evidence for various features of knowledge. This method relies on theassumption that ‘know’ always picks out or refers to the property of knowl-edge proper, e.g. the property of knowing that p. As we have seen how-ever, according to contextualism ‘know’ has different semantic values indifferent contexts, so contextualism leaves open the possibility that ‘know’picks out properties other than the property of knowledge proper. Thereare at least three options we could take in response to this possibility.

We could claim that the linguistic analysis of ‘know’ and the epistemo-logical understanding of knowledge might come apart, so we should notalways look to our use of the word ‘know’ for evidence about knowledge.Although I will ignore it here, this option raises interesting concerns aboutthe relevance of contextualism to epistemology.3

Alternatively, we could maintain that our use of the word ‘know’ con-stitutes serious epistemological evidence, and infer from the possibility that‘know’ picks out properties other than the property of knowledge properthe conclusion that there may be no such thing as the property of knowl-edge proper. This option is one facet of Greco’s concern that contextual-ism threatens to rob epistemology of its subject matter:4

A.i) According to contextualism ‘know’ can have different semantic values in differ-

ent contexts, so it is possible that ‘know’ picks out properties other than the prop-

erty of knowledge proper. One reason is that there may be no such thing as the

property of knowledge proper.

Instead of denying that our use of the word ‘know’ is relevant to episte-mology, or committing to the possibility that there is no such thing asknowledge proper, we could close off the possibility that ‘know’ picks outproperties other than the property of knowledge proper, and argueinstead that ‘know’ always picks out the property of knowledge properbut that it is instantiated differently in different contexts.5 For example,two subjects in two different epistemic positions which meet two distinctepistemic standards both have the property of knowledge proper, but it isinstantiated differently in each case.

For the remainder of this paper, I will assume that this is what contex-tualists have in mind. However, even though it dispenses with A.i, it doesnot dispense with Greco’s worry that contextualism threatens to rob epis-temology of its subject matter. The second facet of this worry is that dif-

3 See E. Sosa, ‘Skepticism and Contextualism’, Philosophical Issues, 10 (2000), pp. 1–18; H.Kornblith, ‘The Contextualist Evasion of Epistemology’, Philosophical Issues, 10 (2000), pp. 24–32.

4 Greco 2008, pp. 422–3.5 ibid., p. 427.

CONTEXTUALISM AND WEIRD KNOWLEDGE 567


ferent instantiations of the property of knowledge proper might be so var-ied that they have little or nothing in common.6 For example, there couldbe an attribution of knowledge by an ignorant attributor to an equallyignorant subject which would express a true proposition; and there couldbe an attribution of knowledge by a well-informed attributor to anequally well-informed subject which would also express a true proposition.On the present view, both subjects would instantiate the property ofknowledge proper, even though it is difficult to see how there could beanything epistemically in common between them:

A.ii) According to contextualism ‘know’ can have different semantic values in dif-

ferent contexts. Assuming that ‘know’ always picks out the property of knowledge

proper, this suggests that different instantiations of the property of knowledge

proper may have little or nothing in common, i.e. knowledge proper is disparately

varied and undisciplined.

If knowledge proper is disparately varied and undisciplined, I presumethat it is not susceptible to the sort of investigation epistemology is con-cerned with.

Greco’s second worry focuses on the Attributor Principle.7 I shouldclarify that, on the present assumption that ‘know’ always picks out theproperty of knowledge proper, contextualism does not imply that a sub-ject has this property if and only if an attributor actually attributes knowl-edge to the subject and the knowledge attribution expresses a trueproposition. However, it does imply that a subject has this property if andonly if there could be an attributor who would attribute knowledge to thesubject and whose knowledge attribution would express a true proposi-tion. Now, since the attributor is (usually) some individual who just hap-pens to make a knowledge attribution to a subject, and it is the featuresof the attributor or her context which determine which proposition isexpressed by the attribution, Greco’s second concern is that knowledge isnot objective, but what we might call individual-dependent. Put a differ-ent way, whether one has knowledge depends on whether one meets orwould meet the epistemic standard which is imposed or which would beimposed by some individual (i.e. the attributor), or by that individual’scontext:

B.i) According to contextualism ‘know’ can have different semantic values in differ-

ent contexts as governed by the Attributor Principle, which suggests that knowledge

is individual-dependent.

6 ibid.7 Greco 2008, p. 423.

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I think we can distinguish a related issue here. The Attributor Principleplaces no restriction on the identity of the attributor. As we have seen,there could be a knowledge attribution by an ignorant attributor to anignorant subject and another by a well-informed attributor to a well-informed subject, but both attributions could express true propositions.This suggests that whether or not a given subject counts as having knowl-edge is an arbitrary matter – all depends on how lucky or unlucky thesubject gets with the identity of her attributor:

B.ii) According to contextualism ‘know’ can have different semantic values in differ-

ent contexts, as governed by the Attributor Principle, which suggests that knowl-

edge is arbitrary.

Issues A.ii through B.ii point to a weird view of knowledge: as disparatelyvaried and undisciplined, individual-dependent and arbitrary.

IV. THE PROBLEMS ARE NOT OVERSTATED

Greco believes the problems outlined in §III are overstated. He gives tworeasons for this. First, he suggests that ‘a primary function of our knowledgelanguage is to flag information for use in practical reasoning’, which hasthe effect of restricting the range of semantic values which ‘know’ can have,or the range of epistemic standards for knowledge attribution. Knowledgelanguage would not perform this function (or at least, it would not performit very well) if epistemic standards could be very low, since it would be pos-sible for knowledge language to flag information which is in fact poor ordefective as admissible for practical reasoning, or if the epistemic standardscould be very high, since it would be possible for it to flag virtually all infor-mation as poor or defective and thus inadmissible for practical reasoning.8

Secondly, Greco argues that it is more plausible that the semanticvalue of ‘know’ depends on ‘the actual interests of some relevant group’than on the perceived interests of an individual. The thought here is thatit is not features of the attributor but features of the attributor’s context,specifically the actual interests of some relevant group in the attributor’scontext, which determine the semantic value of ‘know’, and thus whichproposition is expressed by a given knowledge attribution.9

Assume that Greco is right about the social function of knowledge andthe dependency of knowledge on the actual interests of groups rather

8 Greco 2008, pp. 428–9.9 Greco 2008, p. 431.



than the perceived interests of individuals – what impact does this haveon contextualism? Let us reconsider issues A.ii through B.ii:

A.ii*) According to contextualism ‘know’ can have different semantic values in dif-

ferent contexts, although due to the social function of knowledge language the

range of admissible semantic values is restricted. Assuming that ‘know’ always picks

out the property of knowledge proper, this suggests that different instantiations of

the property of knowledge proper may have something in common, i.e. knowledge

proper is not especially varied or undisciplined.

B.i*) According to contextualism ‘know’ can have different semantic values in dif-

ferent contexts, as limited by the social function of knowledge language and as gov-

erned by the Attributor Principle. The Attributor Principle stipulates that the

actual interests of some relevant group determine the semantic value of ‘know’.

Therefore, knowledge is not individual-dependent.

B.ii*) According to contextualism ‘know’ can have different semantic values in dif-

ferent contexts, as limited by the social function of knowledge language and as gov-

erned by the Attributor Principle. The Attributor Principle stipulates that the

actual interests of some relevant group determine the semantic value of ‘know’.

This suggests that knowledge is in some sense not arbitrary.

Prima facie this is an improvement over the issues discussed in §III, buton closer inspection it is not clear that contextualists have made any sig-nificant gains. Indeed, I suspect that Greco’s reply introduces more prob-lems than it solves.

We should bear in mind that even according to the revised view, con-textualism still suggests that knowledge proper may be somewhat variedand undisciplined (A.ii*), just not especially so. However, even this resultseems dubious. The social function of knowledge language is to flag infor-mation for use in practical reasoning, but it does not follow from this alonethat information which only meets very low epistemic standards is alwaysinadmissible for practical reasoning, or that information which falls justshort of very high epistemic standards is always admissible for practicalreasoning. One needs additional premises to secure this result. For exam-ple, one might argue that any process of practical reasoning requires infor-mation which is not in some way defective, and that for any process ofpractical reasoning there is always some information which would beadmissible. Such premises are controversial: it is entirely plausible thatthere are or could be groups engaged in practical reasoning with suchextreme implications that no information counts or would count as admis-sible (e.g. a committee deciding whether to authorise a dangerous nuclearexperiment), and groups engaged in such trivial activities that even verydefective information counts or would count as admissible (e.g. a group of

570 LEONID TARASOV


children deciding whether to go ahead with a sandpit experiment). Quitegenerally, one can construct scenarios where the practical stakes are so highthat any information counts as inadmissible for practical reasoning, andscenarios where the practical stakes are so low that even defective informa-tion counts as admissible for practical reasoning.10 In short, the social func-tion of knowledge can only restrict the range of admissible epistemicstandards relative to a restricted range of practical interests, but there doesnot seem to be a good reason for restricting the range of practical interests.

The result that knowledge in some sense appears less arbitrary whentied to the actual interests of some relevant group (B.ii*) appears to relyon a tacit and questionable assumption that there is a sense in whichknowledge attributions governed by the actual interests of a group are lessarbitrary than knowledge attributions governed by the perceived interestsof an individual. Likewise, it is not obvious why group-dependence is lessworrying than individual-dependence, so it is difficult to see why the con-clusion that knowledge is not individual-dependent but group-dependent(B.i*) should carry any serious weight.

Setting aside the issue of whether and how much Greco’s suggestionsimprove on issues A.ii through B.ii, we can also question how they mightbe implemented. In particular, assuming that we can settle how a groupmight be determined as relevant, and how its actual interests might beestablished, both of which are far from obvious, there are difficulties withbuilding group interests into contextualist semantics.

Note that the argument below exploits an analogy between ‘know’and standard indexicals, particularly ‘I’ and ‘here’.11 That is, I assumethat if there are problems with tying the semantic value of ‘I’ and‘here’ to the actual interests of some relevant group, then there areanalogous problems for ‘know’. While it is clearly implausible that‘know’ constitutes a sui generis semantic category, my reliance on stan-dard indexicals as a comparison class might seem controversial for atleast two reasons. First, in recent years contextualists have started tomove away from the idea that ‘know’ is analogous to standard indexi-cals and towards alternative models of context-sensitivity.12 Secondly,

10 See J. Brown, ‘Subject-Sensitive Invariantism and the Knowledge Norm for PracticalReasoning’, Nous, 42 (2008), pp. 167–89.

11 I use ‘here’ in a demonstrative or impure sense. See, for example, J. Perry, ‘Indexicalsand Demonstratives’, in B. Hale and C. Wright (eds), A Companion to the Philosophy ofLanguage (Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1997), pp. 586–612.

12 For example, P. Ludlow, ‘The New Linguistic Turn in Epistemology’, in G. Preyerand G. Peter (eds), Contextualism in Philosophy: Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth (Oxford UP,2005), pp. 11–50; cf. K. DeRose, The Case for Contextualism: Knowledge, Skepticism, and Context,Vol. 1 (Oxford UP, 2009), p. 13.



unlike ‘I’ or ‘here’, ‘know’ is a predicate, so one might reasonably thinkthat a better comparison class would be other allegedly context-sensitivepredicates, perhaps ‘tall’ or ‘flat’. The argument below is neutral onboth points, though it is worth noting that it is notoriously difficult tofind linguistically adequate precedent for the allegedly contextualistbehaviour of ‘know’.13 Thus, I take it that ‘I’ and ‘here’ usefully illus-trate a problem facing Greco’s suggestion, but that the use of ‘I’ and‘here’ is not essential; one could run a similar argument with other,suitably chosen context-sensitive terms.

The semantic value of ‘I’ changes irrespective of what the speaker oranyone else intends when they use ‘I’ – it always refers to the speaker.So if ‘know’ is like ‘I’, the semantic value of ‘know’ should change irre-spective of what the speaker or some group think or have an actualinterest in. That is, if ‘know’ is like ‘I’ it is difficult to see how the actualinterests of some group could be in any sense relevant to its semanticvalue.

‘Here’ always refers to the area the speaker is in, but the size of thearea can vary. I take it that according to Greco’s proposal howlarge or small an area is referred to is determined by the actual inter-ests of some relevant group. It is rather mysterious how this mightwork however, and it has some worrying implications. For example,suppose Larry says to someone, ‘Suzie is here, and by “here” I meanin this room’. Unknown to Larry and unknown to the group relevantto his utterance, the actual interests of the group indicate that ‘here’refers to the building Larry is in. Moreover, neither Larry nor thegroup have any way of finding out that this is the case; actual interestsdo not have to be perceived interests. In fact, Suzie is in the buildingLarry is in but not in the same room. What is the semantic value of‘here’?14

One suggestion is that because the actual interests of some relevantgroup and the explicit manifestation of the speaker’s reference-fixingintention (i.e. ‘and by “here” I mean in this room’) conflict, ‘here’does not have a fully determined semantic value. Consequently, Lar-ry’s utterance ‘Suzie is here, and by “here” I mean in this room’ doesnot express a complete proposition and hence lacks a truth-value.Similarly, knowledge attributions do not express complete propositionsin analogous circumstances. The trouble is that neither Larry nor the

13 See J. Stanley, ‘On the Linguistic Basis for Contextualism’, Philosophical Studies, 119(2004), pp. 119–46.

14 This example is adapted from K. DeRose, ‘Single Scoreboard Semantics’, Philosophi-cal Studies, 119 (2004), pp. 1–21.

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group know that Larry’s reference-fixing intention when making thatutterance conflicts with the actual interests of the group, and theyhave no way of finding out that there is a conflict. As a result, thepresent suggestion carries the worrying implication that for all weknow a vast number of our utterances involving ‘here’, and by anal-ogy ‘know’, do not express complete propositions in similar circum-stances.

We could interpret this outcome as evidence against the suggestion thatutterances involving indexicals like ‘here’ lack fully determined semanticvalues in such circumstances. If we accept this, then we must decidewhether the semantic value of ‘here’ is determined by the actual interestsof some relevant group, or by the explicit manifestation of the speaker’sreference-fixing intention. However, I see no way of settling this whichwould suit Greco. If we opt for the actual interests of some relevantgroup, then it is unclear what status Larry’s statement ‘Suzie is here, andby “here” I mean in this room’ has for Larry, who does not know aboutthe actual interests of the group relevant to him. If we choose Larry’sreference-fixing intention, then Greco’s proposal that the actual interestsof some relevant group determine the semantic value of ‘here’ seemsredundant.

Another route would be to argue that the speaker’s reference-fixingintention interacts with the actual interests of some relevant group todetermine the area referred to by ‘here’, but this runs into very similarproblems to the ones just outlined. Indeed, the problems are exacer-bated, since we no longer have the option to choose between speakerintentions and group interests, but are tasked with accommodatingboth.

V. A MOTIVATION FOR REJECTING CONTEXTUALISMAND SSI

Given that A.ii through B.ii cannot be easily answered, and assumingthat I am right to agree with Greco that SSI has no serious advantageover contextualism here, we may have a motivation for rejecting bothcontextualism and SSI in favour of an alternative.15 Insensitive moderateinvariantism is one obvious candidate.

15 As far as problems A.i through B.ii are concerned the main difference between con-textualism and SSI is that the latter does not have an analogue for A.i. However, giventhat contextualists may be able to discharge A.i, this does not appear to be a significantadvantage for SSI.



Take Kent Bach’s version of insensitive moderate invariantism as anexample.16 According to Bach, the semantic value of ‘know’ does not vary,so a knowledge attribution of the form ‘S knows that p’ expresses the sameproposition in all contexts. Moreover, because it is a version of moderateinvariantism, we can expect that many knowledge attributions are true. Toput it a different way, we can expect not only that the epistemic standardfor true knowledge attribution does not vary, but that in fact many subjectsare often in epistemic positions which meet this standard. However, wecan also anticipate cases, especially those centred around sceptical hypothe-ses, where a knowledge attribution to a subject would be true but the at-tributor refuses to make the attribution, or even insists on denyingknowledge to the subject. To explain such cases, Bach uses what he callsthresholds of confidence for knowledge attribution. The basic idea is thatin order to be willing to make a knowledge attribution to a subject the at-tributor must herself confidently believe in the object of the attribution, butwhat it would take for the attributor to confidently believe in the object ofthe attribution – the threshold of confidence – varies from case to case.When a threshold is high, such as in cases involving sceptical hypotheses,the attributor does not confidently believe in the object of the attributionand so denies or refuses to attribute knowledge to a subject. When athreshold is low, like in most everyday cases, an attributor is willing to attri-bute knowledge to a subject because she herself confidently believes in theobject of the attribution.

The account has problems if its own, of course, but the crucial point hereis that it can avoid issues A.ii through B.ii (as well as A.i). To spell this out,‘know’ has a fixed semantic value, so it is easy to see how ‘know’ can alwayspick out the same property. Moreover, it is invariant and disciplined, sinceit is always moderately difficult to instantiate, irrespective of factors like theinterests or intentions of an attributor; such factors are only relevant, if atall, to explaining why one might be unwilling to make a knowledge attribu-tion to oneself or others. For similar reasons, the property picked out by‘know’ should not appear individual-dependent or arbitrary.

VI. CONCLUSION

Greco’s concerns highlight the weirdness of the view of knowledge sug-gested by contextualism: as disparately varied and undisciplined, individ-

16 K. Bach, ‘The Emperor’s New “Knows”’, in G. Preyer and G. Peter (eds), Contextual-ism in Philosophy: Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth (Oxford UP, 2005), pp. 51–89.

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ual-dependent, and arbitrary. His reply that these concerns are overstatedis unconvincing. On the assumption that largely the same issues holdfor SSI, this may give us a motivation for rejecting contextualism andSSI in favour of an alternative theory, such as insensitive moderateinvariantism.17

The University of Manchester

17 My biggest thanks to Thomas Uebel for extensive and numerous suggestions andcomments on earlier drafts. Thanks to Julian Dodd, John Greco and an anonymous refereefor comments on earlier drafts. Thanks also to Tim Bayne, Nathan Duckett, Rob Knowlesand Grant Reaber.



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Contextualism and Weird Knowledge