Single Idea 19508

[catalogued under 13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 6. Contextual Justification / a. Contextualism]

Full Idea

Contextualist semantics must capture the 'indexical' nature of knowledge claims, the fact that different utterances of a knowledge sentence with no apparent indexical terms can express different propositions.

Clarification

'Indexical' implies that meaning varies with context

Gist of Idea

Contextualism needs a semantics for knowledge sentences that are partly indexical

Source

Stephen Schiffer (Contextualist Solutions to Scepticism [1996], p.325), quoted by Keith DeRose - The Case for Contextualism 1.5

Book Reference

DeRose,Keith: 'The Case for Contextualism' [OUP 2009], p.9


A Reaction

Schiffer tries to show that this is too difficult, and DeRose defends contextualism against the charge.

Related Idea

Idea 19509 The indexical aspect of contextual knowledge might be hidden, or it might be in what 'know' means [Schiffer,S]