CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2014
| Author | Spatan, Sergiu Dorian |
|---|---|
| Title | Accommodating the Skeptic: A Fresh Reading of Contextualism |
| Summary | Epistemic contextualism is one of the most intriguing epistemological theories that exist on the market today. Conceived as a linguistic thesis – according to which knowledge sentences of the form ‘S knows that p’ change their truth conditions and, respectively, their truth values, in connection to the context in which they are uttered – epistemic contextualism has received a great deal of criticism for the peculiar way it deals with the skeptic. The main objection is that epistemic contextualism does not have the tools for a proper solution to the skeptical puzzle. In this thesis, I want to defend contextualism against this sort of objection, by arguing that, in fact, the lack of proper resources against the skeptic is only apparent, and it is due to a mistaken reading of the theory, a reading that isolates contextualism from a more straightforward approach. I believe that a fresh reading of the theory can show that contextualism has the capabilities to answer the skeptic even on its own ground. An essential part of this fresh reading is what I call ‘proto-k nowledge’ ;. My main claim is that proto-knowledge can help us understand better the presuppositions used by contextualism in its dealings with the skeptic; and therefore, to understand better the way contextualism accommodates skepticism. |
| Supervisor | Robinson, Howard |
| Department | Philosophy MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2014/spatan_sergiu.pdf |
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