Knowledge and Presuppositions
Michael Blome-Tillmann
Abstract
This book develops a novel account of epistemic contextualism based on the idea that pragmatic presuppositions play a central role in the semantics of knowledge attributions. According to the main thesis of the book, knowledge attributions are sensitive to what is pragmatically presupposed at the context of ascription. The resulting theory—Presuppositional Epistemic Contextualism (PEC)—is simple and straightforward, yet powerful enough to have far-reaching and important consequences for a variety of hotly debated issues in epistemology and philosophy of language. The book begins by developing ... More
This book develops a novel account of epistemic contextualism based on the idea that pragmatic presuppositions play a central role in the semantics of knowledge attributions. According to the main thesis of the book, knowledge attributions are sensitive to what is pragmatically presupposed at the context of ascription. The resulting theory—Presuppositional Epistemic Contextualism (PEC)—is simple and straightforward, yet powerful enough to have far-reaching and important consequences for a variety of hotly debated issues in epistemology and philosophy of language. The book begins by developing Presuppositional Epistemic Contextualism and then explores its ability to resolve various sceptical paradoxes and puzzles. In subsequent chapters PEC is defended against familiar and widely discussed philosophical and linguistic objections to contextualism. In the final chapters of the book PEC is employed to illuminate a variety of issues central to contemporary discussions of epistemological issues, such as Gettier cases, Moorean reasoning, the nature of evidence, and other current problems and puzzles.
Keywords:
knowledge,
epistemic contextualism,
scepticism,
pragmatic presupposition,
presuppositional epistemic contextualism
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2014 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199686087 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: August 2014 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199686087.001.0001 |
