Abstract
Conversational contextualism states that the truth-conditions expressed by knowledge-attributing sentences vary relative to the context of utterance. This context is determined partly by different standards the person involved must meet in order to make the sentence true. I am concerned with the question of how these standards can be raised or lowered, and especially what happens to the standards and the conversational score when parties in a discussion push the conversational scores in different directions. None of the available options for an answer seems satisfying. I argue that this results from a misunderstanding of the characteristics of the situation at hand.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bach, K.: forthcoming, ‘The Emperor’s New ‘Knows’’, in G. Preyer and G. Peter (eds.), Contextualism in Philosophy: On Epistemology, Language and Truth, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Cited from: userwww.sfsu.edu/rkbach/contextualism.pdf.
Brendel, E.: 2003, ‘Was Kontextualisten nicht wissen’, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 51, 1015–1032.
Cohen, S.: 1999, ‘Contextualism, Skepticism, and the Structure of Reasons’, Philosophical Perspectives 13, 57–89.
Cohen, S.: 2000, ‘Contextualist Solutions to Epistemological Problems: Skepticism, Gettier, and the Lottery’, in E. Sosa and J. Kim (eds.), Epistemology. An Anthology, Blackwell, Cambridge, MA, 517–530.
Feldman, R.: 2004, ‘Comments on DeRose’s “Single Scoreboard Semantics”’, Philosophical Studies, 119, 23–33.
DeRose, K.: 2004, ‘Single Scoreboard Semantics’, Philosophical Studies, 119, 1–21.
Lewis, D.: 1979, ‘Scorekeeping in a Language Game’, Journal of Philosophical Logic 8, 339–359.
Lewis, D.: 1996, ‘Elusive Knowledge’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74, 549–567. Reprint 2000 in E. Sosa and J. Kim (eds.), Epistemology. An Anthology, Blackwell, Cambridge, MA, 503–516.
Nichols, S., S. Stich, and J. Weinberg: 2003, ‘Metaskepticism: Meditations in Ethno-Epistemology’, in S. Luper (ed.), The Skeptics. Contemporary Essays, Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, UK, Ashgate Epistemology and Mind Series.
Stanley, J.: 2004, “On the Linguistic Basis for Contextualism”, Philosophical Studies 119, 119–146.
Williams, M.: 2000, ‘Is Contextualism Statable?’, Philosophical Issues 10, Skepticism, ed. E. Sosa and E. Villanueva, 80–85.
Williamson, T.: forthcoming, ‘Knowledge and Scepticism’, in F. Jackson and M. Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Analytic Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gottschling, V. (2004). Keeping the Conversational Score: Constraints for an Optimal Contextualist Answer?. In: Brendel, E., Jäger, C. (eds) Contextualisms in Epistemology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3835-6_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3835-6_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-3181-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-3835-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)