ANTHONY BRUECKNER

THE ELUSIVE VIRTUES OF CONTEXTUALISM

In this paper, I will discuss the virtues of contextualism about knowl-edge. In the first place, this view explains why skeptical argumentsinvolving possibilities such as that I am a brain in a vat have intuitiveforce. In a philosophical conversational context in which skepticalpossibilities are being considered, the standards for knowledgeattributions are artificially high. (I realize that different contextual-ists say different things about how the standards get raised, butmy points will be unaffected by which version of contextualism isadopted.) From within such contexts, it is false to say that S knowsthat he is not a brain in a vat (for any S, including myself). By theclosure of knowledge under known entailment, it is also false to say,from within such contexts, that S knows that he has hands (for anyS, including myself).

But contextualism does more than just explain the dark side ofour epistemological position. There is also good news. From withinan ordinary, non-philosophical context in which skeptical possibili-ties are not being considered, it is true to say that S knows that hehas hands and also knows that he is not a brain in a vat (for many,many S). So there is much ordinarily-attributed knowledge in theworld. George W. Bush knows that he has hands, for example.

Wait a minute. The feel-good punchline of the preceding para-graph is not right. I am now in the middle of a decidedly philosoph-ical context in which skeptical possibilities are being considered. Sowhat I must say is that George W. Bush does not know that he hashands. No one, including myself, knows that he has hands. No one,including myself, knows anything at all about the external world.Damn!

Well, let me try to save the good news side of contextualism bybeing a bit more careful in what I write. What I should have saidis this. When someone in an ordinary, non-philosophical contextsays, ‘George W. Bush knows that he has hands’, he utters a truth.

Philosophical Studies 118: 401–405, 2004.© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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Of course, if I utter that sentence in the pages of this paper, thena careful grader will write ‘That’s just false!’ in the margin. Ingeneral, the good news is that many, many knowledge-attributingsentences uttered from within ordinary, non-philosophical contextsexpress truths (ones which my sentences are currently barred fromexpressing, until I get out of this infernal conversational context).

Wait a minute. How do I know that any speaker is ever in anordinary conversational context? Sure, in a normal, non-vat-worldof the sort I take myself to inhabit, there are normal speakers whospeak and write (and think) from within ordinary conversationalcontexts. But I don’t know that there are any such contexts in myworld, which may be a solipsistic vat-world. This might be calledthe Problem of Knowledge of Other Speakers.

Hold on. I am being too hard on myself. I can state the goodnews side of contextualism without worrying about the Other. I nowremember being in various ordinary conversational contexts beforegetting trapped in the present annoying philosophical context. Bythat I do not mean that memory reveals that I was in a caféyesterday with some friends talking about nothing but sports. Icannot presently claim that sort of Knowledge of Other Contexts.Rather, I remember being in what was either a real-café-context or asolipsistic hallucinated-café-context, in which I merely appeared tosay and hear various things. I will count the latter as an ordinarycontext, much like a soliloquy in inner speech. So if the skepticgrants me memorial knowledge of my past experiences, I can knowthat there are ordinary contexts.

I’m not out of the woods yet. I must now back up my earlier claimthat some knowledge-attributing sentences uttered from withinordinary contexts are true. That’s my meta-linguistic version ofthe good news. Let us call the remembered ordinary context C. Iremember seeming to hear my friend say, ‘Can anyone here catchmy best knuckleball?’. I remember seeming to reply, ‘Yes, I can;I have good hands’. Given that C, whether a real-café-context orvat-context, was an ordinary, non-philosophical context in whichskeptical possibilities were not under consideration, I can now saythat my knowledge-attributing sentence, uttered in C (in a normalfashion or as in inner speech), is true.

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Wait a minute. This will not fly. In order for my knowledge-attributing sentence to have been true as uttered in C, it must havebeen true that I had hands (and good ones) while uttering thesentence. As things stand, I do not know that anyone has hands.In general, I do not know that there are any true utterances ofknowledge-attributing sentences regarding external world circum-stances. I am simply not in a position to claim that there are suchutterances.

I’m not ready to give up yet. Maybe I can adopt a form ofcontextualism according to which skeptical possibilities can beignored in a context even when they have explicitly been raised. Forexample, imagine that I am talking about sports with a friend whosuddenly brings up the possibility that we are both brains in vats. Itell him that I want to stick to the subject, which is sports, and I goon to correctly claim to know various things about sporting matters.I yearn for such a context . . .

The current season has been tough for the World Champion LosAngeles Lakers. Kobe Bryant’s incredible scoring run has been abright spot for the team, but Kobe knows that the Lakers will notsail through the playoffs this time around.

Stop! I’m just kidding myself. This is a philosophy paper aboutskepticism, skeptical possibilities, and contextualism, not an articlefrom the sports page. While I’m stuck in this philosophical context,I cannot ignore the skeptical possibilities that I have been discussingat length and then correctly write that Kobe knows things about theplayoffs.

Still, this is my context. Sure, I’m writing about brains in vats,knowledge, and contextualism. But I hereby declare that in thiscontext, which I have created, the standards for knowledge are theordinary ones. Not only can I now correctly say that the sentence‘Kobe knows that the playoffs will be grueling’ was in fact truewhen recently uttered by real a sportswriter in an ordinary context,but, further, I can also correctly say that I know that the playoffswill be grueling. After all, I have pushed down the standards for allknowledge-attributions made in my context.

But I don’t feel comfortable with this move. However it is that thecontextual raising and lowering of standards works, it is not simply

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up to me to set them where I want them to be. That seems out ofkeeping with the spirit of contextualism.

Let me try a variation on these last two strategies. I can imaginea context in which my friend, again, suggests that we both may bebrains in vats. I say, ‘Come off it – you know that you’re not a brainin a vat. Let’s continue talking about the various things I learnedfrom today’s sports page’. Here, I do not pretend that the skepticalpossibility has not been raised. Instead, I confront the possibility,and I get my friend to accede to a lowering of the standards forknowing in our context, so that the conversation can go forward inan easy way.1

But I’m not sure how to apply this strategy to my current context,in which I am doing some solo thinking about skeptical epistem-ology. There’s no one but me around in this context, no one thatI can try to get to accede to a forced lowering of the standards.Except for me. Do I accept low standards in this context? If I canpull this off, then I can claim, right here, to know many things in theface of, say, the vat possibility that I have been thinking about (andcontinue to think about). So I will try to describe the elusive virtuesof contextualism from within a low-standards context. This is whatI should have been doing all along.

I don’t know quite what to say at this point. It seems to me that Iam in the middle of the biggest, baddest sort of philosophical contextthere is, and, again, I don’t feel comfortable holding that in such acontext, I can single-handedly push the standards for knowing downto where I can now correctly claim to know a great many things.Whenever I think about the skeptical possibilities, while in a careful,reflective philosophical context like this, it strikes me that I do notknow that they do not obtain. That’s one of the main motivations forattempting to formulate a successful contextualist theory in the firstplace.

In the end, the best I can do is to say that knowledge is possible.2

I can say that there are possible worlds in which people have handsand in which speakers in ordinary contexts truly say of such people,‘They know that they have hands’. I do not know that this world issuch a world, but contextualism at least enables me to countenancethe possibility of knowledge.

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This falls short of the originally advertised good news, namelythat even given the skeptic’s problematic possibilities, there is muchordinarily-attributed knowledge in the world. For the contextualist,that “news” cannot be reported here, or anywhere, for that matter.3

NOTES

1 This was suggested by Stewart Cohen.2 This was suggested by Stewart Cohen and Kirk Ludwig.3 Thanks to Michael Cole and Richard Greene for helpful discussions.

Department of PhilosophyUniversity of CaliforniaSanta Barbara, CA 93106USA