Contextual Ism & Neutrality Montminy

!"#$%& ', (". ) *$#+ ,--' Can Contextualists Maintain Neutrality? Martin Montminy University of Oklahoma © ,--' Martin Montminy <www.philosophersimprint.org/ --'--) /> S &!&./# 0.12103 4/!& .&0&(2#+ /.5$&6 that contextualists cannot consistently maintain their advertised neutrality between skepticism and anti-skepticism. This spells trouble for contextualism, since part of this view’s appeal is that it avoids taking sides in the seemingly intractable debate about skepticism. The skeptic’s knowledge denial is plausible, since it seems correct to deny knowl - edge to a subject who cannot eliminate possibilities of error; yet in ev- eryday contexts, we readily attribute knowledge to subjects who have acquired their beliefs on the basis of fallible evidence. Contextualism proposes to have it both ways. On this view, the truth conditions of a knowledge claim depend in part on the epistemic standards that are in place in the conversational context. The skeptic’s knowledge denial made in the skeptical context is true, since such a context involves epistemic standards that are impossi ble to meet. But this does not mean that our ordinary knowledge attributions are false: since low epistemic standards prevail in quotidian conversational contexts, we can truth - fully claim to have knowledge in such contexts. Contextualism is thus neutral, in the sense that it makes both the skeptic’s knowledge denial and the ordinary speaker’s knowledge attribution come out true. This paper has two parts. I will ﬁrst discuss arguments to the ef - fect that contextualists cannot maintain neutrality, because they are forced to side with the skeptic. Then I will look at an argument that purports to show that contextualists must forego neutrality, because they are committed to rejecting skepticism. These arguments, I will show, are based on various misconceptions about the role of context in contextualism. Once these misconceptions have been dispelled, it will become clear that there is nothing inconsistent or unstable about the contextualist’s proposed agreement with both the skeptic’s knowledge denial and the anti-skeptic’s knowledge attribution. 7 Critics of contextualism often object that this view is too skeptic- friendly. I will examine four variants of this objection. First, some 8. I will not be presenting arguments in support of contextualism here. See Cohen (8999), DeRose (899,, 899:, ,--,), and Lewis ( 899;) for such arguments. Imprint Philosophers

Contextual Ism & Neutrality Montminy

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