Abstract
Epistemic contextualism concerning knowledge says that the truth conditions of knowledge attributions (including denials of knowledge) vary with the context of the attributor. There have been recently quite a number of objections to contextualism. One objection, however, has not been discussed much at all even though it might be the most serious one so far: the so-called “Factivity Objection” according to which contextualism is inconsistent at its core. This objection has been developed mainly by Elke Brendel and Crispin Wright. In previous work I defended the idea that there is a problem but also proposed a solution, namely a relationalist version of contextualism. In this paper I will first present the problem and then discuss some proposed solutions (some of them denying that there is a problem in the first place) before I move on to my own proposal of a solution.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Joachim Aufderheide, Anthony Bruecker, Christopher T. Buford, Nick Fenn, Carrie Jenkins, Darrell Rowbottom, Martin Montminy, Joe Salerno, Timothy Williamson, Crispin Wright, anonymous referees, and audiences at a conference on contextualism at the University of Stirling (March 20–21, 2004), at the Joint Session at the University of Manchester (July 8–11, 2005), a discussion group at the Aberdeen Philosophy Department, and at a workshop on Epistemology, Context, Formalism at the Université Nancy 2 (November 12–14, 2009).
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Baumann, P. (2014). A Contradiction for Contextualism?. In: Lihoreau, F., Rebuschi, M. (eds) Epistemology, Context, and Formalism. Synthese Library, vol 369. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02943-6_4
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