DeRose, Keith - 'Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions'
DeRose, Keith - 'Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions'
DeRose, Keith - 'Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions'
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Philosophy and PhenomenologicalResearch
Vol. LI1,No. 4, December1992
Bank Case B. My wife and I drive past the bank on a Friday after-
noon, as in Case A, and notice the long lines. I again suggest that
we deposit our paychecks on Saturday morning, explaining that I
was at the bank on Saturday morning only two weeks ago and dis-
covered that it was open until noon. But in this case, we have just
written a very large and very important check. If our paychecks
are not deposited into our checking account before Monday morn-
ing, the important check we wrote will bounce, leaving us in a
very bad situation. And, of course, the bank is not open on Sunday.
My wife reminds me of these facts. She then says, "Banks do
change their hours. Do you know the bank will be open tomor-
row?" Remaining as confident as I was before that the bank will
be open then, still, I reply, "Well, no. I'd better go in and make
sure."1
CONTEX~TUALISM
AND KNOWLEDGEATTRIBUTIONS 913
Assume that in both cases the bank will be open on Saturdayand that there is
nothing unusual about either case that has not been included in my descrip-
tion of it. It seems to me that (1) when I claim to know that the bank will
be open on Saturdayin case A, I am saying something true. But it also seems
that (2) I am saying something true in Case B when I concede that I don't
know that the bank will be open on Saturday.Yet I seem to be in no better
position to know in Case A than in Case B. It is quite naturalto say that (3)
If I know that the bank will be open on Saturdayin Case A, then I also know
that it will be in Case B.
Is there any conflict here among (1), (2), and (3)? I hope not, because I
want to investigate and defend a view according to which all three of them
are true. Of course, it would be inconsistent to claim that (1) and (2) are
true, and also hold that (4) If what I say in Case A in claiming to know that
the bank will be open on Saturdayis true, then what I say in Case B in con-
ceding that I don't know that the bank will be open on Saturdayis false. But
there is a big difference between (3) and (4), and this difference is crucial to
the view I want to investigate and defend.
We may, following Peter Unger, call the view I want to investigate a
"contextual"' theory of knowledge attributions:it is a theory according to
which the truthconditions of sentences of the form "S knows that p" or "S
does not know that p" vary in certain ways according to the context in
which the sentences are uttered.2The contextualist can deny (4) even while
admitting that I am in no better position to know in Case A than in Case B.
The contexts of my utterancesin the two cases make it easier for a knowl-
edge attributionto be truein Case A than in Case B.
There are importantcontextual differences between Case A and Case B
which one might think are relevant. First, there is the importance of being
right. In Case B. a lot hinges on whetheror not the bank will be open on Sat-
urday, while in Case A it is not nearly as important that I be right. One
914 KEITHDEROSE
might think that requirements for making a knowledge attributiontrue go
up as the stakes go Up.3
6 While Unger does not even consider the view that the standardsfor true knowledge attri-
butions don't change but are held constantat a fairly low level, non-sceptical invariantism
is defended (at least conditionally) by Robert Hambourger(1987). Hambourgerargues
that if the standards are constant (Hambourgerdoes not believe that this antecedent is
true), then they must be fairly low (pp. 256-57). In the terminology I have introduced,
Hambourgeris arguing that if some form of invariantismis correct, it must be a form of
non-sceptical invariantism.
7 My main reason for discounting as relevant to truth conditions the matter of what the
speaker is thinking, at least with respect to spoken interactionsbetween people, is that I
don't think that one should be able, merely by a private act of one's own thought to drasti-
cally "strengthen"the content of "know"in such a way that one can truly say to someone
who is quite certain that he is wearing pants, "You don't know you're wearing pants,"
without there having been anything in the conversation to indicate that the strength of
"know"has been raised. There mightyet be a fairly tight connection between what raises
the truthcondition standardsand what speakers tendto think or perhapswhat they should
think of the standardsas being. Perhaps the truth condition standardsare what a typical
speaker would take them to be or should take them to be, given what has gone on in the
conversation.But it seems unfair to one's interlocutorfor the truthcondition standardsof
a public,spokenknowledge attributionto be changed by an idiosyncratic,privatedecision.
It is far more plausible to suppose that when one is thinkingto one'sself about what is or
is not "known," the content of "know" is directly tied to the strength the thinker
intends.
916 KEIIEROE
knowledge which has been called the "relevant alternatives" theory (RA),
and in Part III, I respond to an important objection to which any form of
contextualism seems vulnerable.
By thus isolating and defending contextualism, I will do much to clear
the way for contextualist resolutions to sceptical arguments. Contextual
theories of knowledge attributions have almost invariably been developed
with an eye towards providing some kind of answer to philosophical scepti-
cism. For some sceptical arguments threatento show, not only that we fail
to meet very high requirements for knowledge of interest to philosophers
seeking absolute certainty, but also that we don't meet the truth conditions
of ordinary, out-on-the-street claims to know. They thus threaten to estab-
lish the startling result that we never, or almost never, truly ascribe knowl-
edge to ourselves or to other human beings. According to contextual analy-
sis, when the sceptic presents her arguments, she manipulates various con-
versationalmechanisms that raise the semantic standardsfor knowledge, and
therebycreates a context in which she can truly say that we know nothing or
very little. But the fact that the sceptic can thus install very high standards
which we don't live up to has no tendency to show that we don't satisfy the
more relaxed standardsthat are in place in ordinaryconversations.Thus, it is
hoped, our ordinaryclaims to know will be safeguardedfrom the apparently
powerful attacks of the sceptic, while, at the same time, the persuasiveness
of the sceptical argumentsis explained.8
Many find such contextualist resolutions of sceptical argumentsvery at-
tractive, especially since their main competition is the sceptical invariantist
resolutions according to which the persuasiveness of various sceptical argu-
ments is explained in a way as alarmingas it is simple: They seem persuasive
because they are indeed sound and successfully establish the startling con-
clusion that we never or almost never truly ascribe knowledge.9 But many,
while finding the contextualist resolutions a preferable alternative to an
unacceptablyradical form of scepticism, at the same time feel an initial re-
sistance, closely related to the appeal of (4), to the thought that contextual
factors of the types I've mentioned can really affect whether or not a subject
knows.10While many are willing to accept this thought in order to avoid the
8 While, as I've said, contextualist theories (including contextualist versions of RA) are
almost invariably developed with an eye towards philosophical scepticism, the most
thoroughly worked out contextualist attempts to resolve the problem of scepticism that
Iam aware of are to be found in Unger (1986), Cohen (1988) (see also Cohen (1987)), and
DeRose (1990), especially Chapter3. Fred Dretske has also applied this type of theory of
knowledge to the problem of scepticism in several places. See Dretske (1970), (1971),
(1981a), and (1981b).
9 See Unger (1975).
10 A typical objection one meets in presenting contextualism, as I know from personal ex-
perience, is: "How can our context have anything to do with whether or not Henry
knows?", where Henry is a characterin an example and so is not present in the room.
918 KEITHDERSE
natives. The speaker's own linguistic and psychological context are also im-
portant." Goldman suggests that "if the speaker is in a class where
Descartes's evil demon has just been discussed," then certain alternatives
may be relevantwhich ordinarilyare not (p. 776).
Insofar as a relevant alternatives theorist allows attributor factors to
influence which alternatives are relevant, he is a contextualist. An invari-
antist can be a relevant alternatives theorist if he allows only subject fac-
tors to influence which alternatives are relevant.'4 Consider two situations
in which Henry has a good, clear look at what he takes to be-and what, in
fact, is-a barn.In Case C thereare no barnfacades around,but in Case D the
area Henry finds himself in is (unbeknownst to him) teeming with barn fa-
cades, although Henry is luckily looking at the only actual barn in the area.
This does not seem to be a pairof cases in which Henry is in equally good po-
sitions to know that what he is seeing is a barn; the conditional, If Henry
knows in Case C, then he knows in Case D does not seem to be true, so the
invariantist can agree that a sentence attributing knowledge to Henry in
Case C can be true, while one attributingknowledge to him in Case D is
false. And he can use the idea of "relevant alternatives"to explain the dif-
ference. Thus, although most versions of RA allow attributorfactors to be
relevant and are therefore contextualist views, an RA theorist need not be a
contextualist.
Of course, in first-personpresent tense knowledge claims, the attributor
of knowledge and the putative subject of knowledge are in the same situa-
tion (they are the same person at the same time). If Henry says, "I know that
that's a barn," there is no difference between the speaker and the putative
knower. In this situation the invariantist RA theorist will allow only fac-
tors that attach to Henry qua putative knower (e.g. the presence or lack of
facades in his vicinity) to matter in evaluating his claim for truth,while the
contextualist will also allow factors that attach to Henry qua attributorof
knowledge (such as whetheror not the issue of facades has been raised in the
conversation) to matter.'5
Although Goldman draws the distinction between what I am calling
subject factors and attributorfactors, he does not explain the importance of
this distinction. I am stressing it because it is crucial to some of the impor-
14
Thus, what Goldman calls the "first view" of RA, according to which "a complete
specification"of the putative knower's situation determines "a unique set of relevant al-
ternatives"(pp. 775-76), is an invariantistversion of RA. Goldman does not endorse this
view; he says he is "attractedby the second view" (p. 777), which clearly is a contextual-
ist version of RA.
5 Some factors, I believe, will both affect how good an epistemic position the
speaker/putativeknower is in and (at least according to the contextualist)how good a po-
sition he must be in to make his knowledge claims true. Thus, they will be both subject
and attributorfactors.
In Dretske's zoo example, the animal's being a mule paintedto look like a zebra is not a relevant
alternative.So what one means when one says that John knows the animal is a zebra, is that he
knows it is a zebra, as opposed to a gazelle, an antelope, or other animals one would normally
expect to find in a zoo. If, however, being a mule painted to look like a zebrabecame a relevant
alternative,then one would literally mean something different in saying that John knows that
the animal is a zebra from what one meant originally and that something else may well be false.
(Stine (1976), p. 255)
But here we must be very careful. Much depends on how the animal's being a
painted mule has become a relevant alternative.Suppose that it has become a
relevantalternativedue to a change in subject factors:There has been a zebra
shortageand many zoos (even reputablezoos) have been using painted mules
in an attempt to fool the zoo-going public. This could come about without
the speaker's knowing it. Would one then mean something different by say-
ing that John knows that the animal is a zebra?I think not.
The meaning of "meaning," of course, is difficult to get hold of. But
there seems to be a fairly straightforwardand importantsense in which one
does mean something different if the range of relevant alternativeshas been
changed by attributorfactors but does not mean something different if the
range of relevant alternatives has been changed only by subject factors.
Stewart Cohen, whose version of RA clearly is a contextualist one, writes
that he
This lack of contradictionis the key to the sense in which the knowledge at-
tributorand the knowledge denier mean something different by "know." It
is similar to the sense in which two people who think they are in the same
room but are in fact in differentrooms and are talking to each over an inter-
com mean something different by "this room" when one claims, "Frankis
not in this room" and the other insists, "Frankis in this room-I can see
him!" There is an importantsense in which both do mean the same thing by
"this room," in which they are using the phrase in the same sense. But there
is also an importantsense in which they do not mean the same thing by the
16
I furtherdiscuss the importanceof this distinction between subject factors and attributor
factors and the resulting contextualist view according to which content varies in response
to attributorfactors in Chapter 1 of DeRose (1990). In particular,I there discuss, in addi-
tion to the issues treated in the present paper, the advantages such a view according to
which content varies over a range has over theories like that put forward in Malcolm
(1952) according to which there are two distinct senses of 'know'; a strong sense and a
weak one.
920 KEIDmROSE
phrase;this is the sense by which we can explain the lack of contradictionbe-
tween what the two people are saying. To use David Kaplan's terminology,
the phrase is being used with the same character, but with different con-
tent.17 Similarly, in Bank Case B from PartI of this paper, when, in the face
of my wife's doubt, I admit that I don't know that the bank will be open on
Saturday,I don't contradictan earlier claim to know that I might have made
before the doubt was raised and before the issue was so importantbecause, in
an importantsense, I don't mean the same thing by "know"as I meant in the
earlier claim: While "know"is being used with the same character, it is not
being used with the same content. Or so the contextualist will claim.
But if the range of relevant alternativesis changed by subject factors, the
meaning of "know" is not in the same way changed. If very many nearby
banks have discontinued their Saturdayhours in the last two weeks, then it
seems that my original claim to know may well have been false, and if I ad-
mit that I did not know after this surprisingfact about local banks is called
to my attention, I will be taking back and contradictingmy earlier claim to
have known.
Recall the two cases in which Henry has a good, clear look at what he
takes to be a barn.(In Case C, thereare no barnfacades around,but in Case D,
the fields are filled with barn facades, but Henry is luckily looking at the
only actual barn in the area.) In each case, insert two people in the back seat
of the car Henry is driving, and have the first say to the second, "Henry
knows that that is a barn."It seems that, in the sense under discussion, what
the first person means by "knows" in each of the two cases is the same. In
Case C what she is saying is true, while in Case D it is false. The presence of
the barn facades has changed the truth value, but not the truth conditions or
the meaning (content), of the first person's knowledge attribution.
So attributorfactors affect the truth values of knowledge attributionsin
a different way than do subject factors: attributorfactors working in such a
way that they affect the content of the attribution,but subject factors work-
ing in a different way that does not affect its content. These different ways
can be explained as follows. Attributorfactors set a certain standardthe pu-
tative subject of knowledge must live up to in order to make the knowledge
attributiontrue: They affect how good an epistemic position the putative
knower must be in to count as knowing. They thereby affect the truthcondi-
tions and the content or meaning of the attribution.Subject factors, on the
other hand, determine whether or not the putative subject lives up to the
standardsthat have been set, and thereby can affect the truthvalue of the at-
18 Unger makes a similar division in (1986), where he distinguishes between the "profile of
the context," which corresponds roughly to how good a position the putative knower
must be in to count as knowing, and the "profileof the facts," which correspondsroughly
to how good a position the putativeknower actually is in (see esp. pp. 139-40). Unger does
not there discuss RA, and so does not use the distinction to distinguish contextualism
from RA. He does, however, introducean importantcomplication which I have ignored in
this paper, since it has little effect on the points I'm making here. Unger points out that
there are many differentaspects of knowledge and that in different contexts, we may have
different demands regardingvarious of these aspects. Thus, for example, in one context,
we may demanda very high degree of confidence on the subject's partbefore we will count
him as knowing while demandingrelatively little in the way of his belief being non-acci-
dentally true. In a different context, on the other hand, we may have very stringent stan-
dards for non-accidentality but relatively lax standardsfor subject confidence. As Unger
points out, then, things are not quite as simple as I make them out to be: Our standardsare
not just a matter of how good an epistemic position the subject must be in, but ratherof
how good in which respects. Stewart Cohen also suggests a related division, his more
closely aligned with the spirit of RA. See note 22 below.
19 Thus what I take to be RA's basic idea-that to know that P. one must be able to rule out
all of the relevant alternativesto P-may be sound.
922 KEIrTHDEROSE
But RA theorists have wanted to make claims about the meaning of
knowledge attributions": Many of them have thought that the meaning of
knowledge attributionschanges from case to case depending upon various
factors, and they have thought that this change in meaning amounts to a
change in the range of alternatives that are relevant.2' But we can now see
that the content of a given knowledge attributioncannot be specified by cit-
ing what the range of relevantalternativesis, because that range is a function
of subject factors (which do not affect the content of the attribution) as
well as attributorfactors (which do). There can be a drastic change in the
range of relevant alternatives from one attributionto another without there
being any change in meaning between the two attributions,then, because the
change in the range of relevant alternativescan, and often will, be the result
of differences in subject factors, which will not have any affect on the mean-
ing of the attribution.22
20 RA's basic idea (see note 19, above) is not about contextual variations in meanings. In-
deed, as I've pointed out, an RA theoristcan be an invariantist.It is, then, in going beyond
this basic idea that RA theoristshave, by my lights, gone wrong by tying the meaning of a
given attributiontoo closely to what the range of relevant alternatives is.
21 In additionto the Stine passage we have looked at, see, for example, Goldman (1976), pp.
775-77 (esp. p. 777), where Goldman seems to think that whatproposition is expressed by
a given knowledge attributionis specified by what the range of relevant alternatives is.
Something similarseems to be suggested in Lewis (1979), esp. pp. 354-55. Lewis seems to
think of the "conversational score" of a given context, with respect to knowledge attri-
butions and epistemic modal statements,to be something that can be specified by giving
the range of possibilities that are relevant in that context.
22 A different view which escapes this problem but is still well within the spirit of RA is
that the characterof "S knows that p" is that S has a true belief that p and can rule out all
alternativesto p that are sufficientlyprobable. The context of utterancecan then be seen as
fixing the content by determiningjust how probablean alternativemust be to count as be-
ing sufficiently probable. Something like this alternative view is suggested by Cohen
(1988), according to whom context determines "how probable an alternative must be in
orderto be relevant"(p. 96). (This view is only suggested by Cohen because he never says
that this probability level for alternative relevance is all that context fixes in determin-
ing the content of an attribution.)Expandingthis idea, we might then take aspects of the
putative knower's situation to affect how probable a given alternative is. Instead of the
meaning being specified by the range of alternatives that are relevant, this view, more
plausibly, has it specified by the standards (in terms of probability) alternatives must
meet to count as relevant. This still seems more precise than my admittedly vague talk of
how good an epistemicposition one must be in to count as knowing. I fear, however, that
this precisification will not work. Among other reasons for doubting that the notion of
probabilitycan do all the work assigned to it here is this: The complication Unger raises
about the many different aspects of knowledge (see note 18 above) shows that no single
measure like the probability an alternative must have to be relevant can capture all that
context does in fixing the content of a knowledge attribution.This probability standard
of alternativerelevance can be, at best, one among several aspects of knowledge the stan-
dardsfor which are fixed by context.
A: Is that a zebra?
B: Yes, it is a zebra.
A: But can you rule out its being merely a cleverly painted mule?
B: No, I can't.
A: So, you admit you didn't know it was a zebra?
B: No, I did know then that it was a zebra. But after your question, I
no longer know.13
B': No, I did know then that it was a zebra. But now that it has be-
come so importantthatit be a zebra, I no longer know.
Be: No, I did know then that it was a zebra. But now that the possi-
bility of its being a painted mule has occurred to me, I no longer
know.
3 Yourgrau(1983), p. 183. The absurdityof such a conversation, along with the worry that
it causes problems for theories of knowledge attributionslike the one I am investigating,
was originally suggested to me by Rogers Albritton, who has been making such sugges-
tions since well before Yourgrau'sarticle came out.
924 KErTDERosE
The general point of the objection is that whether we know something or
not cannot depend on, to use Peter Unger's words, "the contextual interests
of those happeningto use the terms on a particularoccasion" (Unger (1984),
p. 37).
How shall the contextualist respond? The objection as I have put it for-
ward, though it explains much of the initial resistance many feel toward
contextualism, is based on a mistake. The contextualist believes that certain
aspects of the context of an attributionor denial of knowledge attribution
affect its content. Knowledge claims, then, can be compared to other sen-
tences containing other context-sensitive words, like "here."One hour ago, I
was in my office. Suppose I truly said, "I am here." Now I am in the word
processing room. How can I truly say where I was an hour ago? I cannot
truly say, "I was here," because I wasn't here; I was there. The meaning of
'here', is fixed by the relevant contextual factors (in this case, my location)
of the utterance,not by my location at the time being talked about.
Similarly, the contextualist may admit that the mentioning of the
painted mules possibility affects the conditions under which one can truth-
fully say that one knows an animal to be a zebra: one now must be able to
rule out that possibility, perhaps. But the contextualist need not, and should
not, countenancethe above dialogue. If in the context of the conversationthe
possibility of painted mules has been mentioned, and if the mere mention of
this possibility has an effect on the conditions under which someone can be
truly said to "know," then any use of "know" (or its past tense) is so af-
fected, even a use in which one describes one's past condition. B cannot truly
say, "I did know then that it was a zebra";that would be like my saying, "I
was here."B can say, "My previous knowledge claim was true,"just as I can
say, "My previous location claim was true." Or so I believe. But saying
these things would have a point only if one were interested in the truth-
value of the earlier claim, ratherthan in the question of whether in the pre-
sent contextually determined sense one knew and knows, or didn't and
doesn't.
Yourgrau writes of the zebra case, "Typically, when someone poses a
question regardingwhether we really know that P obtains ratherthan some
alternative to P, if we cannot satisfactorily answer the question, we con-
clude that our earlierclaim to know was faulty" (p. 183). But do we? We do
not stubbornly repeat ourselves, to be sure: "Still, I know that it is a ze-
bra!"We might even say, "I don't know" or "I didn't know." All of this the
contextualist can handle. But do we (or should we) admit that our earlier
claim wasfalse? I am on the witness standbeing questioned.
4 Actually, Unger does make this mistake at one point, not about knowledge but about
flatness. Throughout his epistemological writings, Unger compares knowledge attribu-
tions with claims about the flatness of objects. In (1984), Unger describes an invariantist
semantics for "flat"according to which an object must be as flat as possible in orderfor a
926 KEITHDEROSE
the semantics of these expressions ["know"is one of the expressions being
considered] is appropriatelyindependent, that the conditions do not depend
on the contextual interests of those happening to use the terms on a particu-
lar occasion" (Unger (1984), p. 37). Insofar as we do have this belief, that
the conditions for truly saying that someone knows do not depend on the
sorts of contextual factors we have been discussing, then contextualism
goes against at least one of our beliefs. But it seems that much of the appeal
of this belief derives from the plausibility of the thesis (with which the
contextualist can agree) that whether we know something or not does not
depend on such factors. The answer to the question, "Does she know?", in
whatever context it is asked, including a philosophy paper, is determinedby
facts independentof contextual factors (or what I have been calling attribu-
tor factors). These contextual or attributorfactors affect the content of the
question, but once the question is asked with a specific content, its answer is
determinedby subject factors, which are precisely the kinds of factors which
can very plausibly be thought to affect whether or not the subject knows.
Going back to our opening examples, the contextualist can affirm (3) in any
context in which it is uttered:If I know in Case A, then I know in Case B. Of
course, the contextualist must deny (4), and (4) sounds very plausible, but
much of the appeal of (4) comes from the plausibility of (3). And since we
must give up either (1), (2), or (4), those who, like me, find (1) and (2) very
plausible will be well-motivated to give up (4), especially since (3) can
still be affirmed.
In general, then, when it looks as if the contextualist has to say some-
thing strongly counter-intuitive, what he must say turns out to be, on the
contrary, something fairly theoretical concerning the truth conditions of
certain sentences. Do we really have strong intuitions about such things? At
any rate, the contextualist can go along with the simple facts that we all
recognize: that if I know in Case A, then I know in Case B, and that whether
sentence like "That is flat" to be true of it, and a contextualist semantics for "flat" ac-
cording to which how flat something must be in order for a sentence like "Thatis flat" to
be true of it varies with context, and he claims that there is no determinate fact as to
which semantics is correct. In attacking the contextualist semantics for "flat," Unger
writes: "How can the matterof whether a given surface is flat, in contradistinctionto, say,
whetherit is suitable for our croquetgame, depend upon the interests in that surface taken
by those who happen to converse about it? This appears to go against our better judge-
ment" ((1984), p. 39). But the contextualist need not and should not claim that "the mat-
ter of whether or not a given surface is flat" depends "upon the interests in that surface
taken by those who happen to converse about it," although the contextualist will say that
the truthconditionsfor the sentence "Thatis flat" do depend upon such contextual inter-
ests. I believe that the above passage is just a slip on Unger's part;he is usually more care-
ful in making his attack on contextualism. But it is revealing that Unger makes this slip:
It shows how easy it is to confuse the claim (a) that whether or not something is flat or is
known does not depend on contextual interests with the claim (b) that the truth condi-
tions for a sentence about flatness or about knowledge do not depend on contextual inter-
ests, which does not follow from (a).
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