KNOWLEDGE AND CONTEXT. REFLECTIONS ON MICHAEL BLOME-TILLMANN’S “SEMANTICS OF KNOWLEDGE ATTRIBUTION”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5840/eps202562115Keywords:
knowledge attribution, context, belief, justificationAbstract
This article discusses Michael Blome-Tillmann’s book Semantics of Knowledge Attribution (2022). The book explores key contemporary approaches to modeling the context-dependence of knowledge ascriptions. The primary theoretical frameworks discussed include contextualism, epistemic impurism, epistemic relativism, and invariantism, each offering unique perspectives on how context shapes the interpretation of knowledge claims. Contextualism posits that the meaning of the verb “to know” depends on the context of utterance. Impurism, on the other hand, argues that the truth value of a knowledge ascription depends not on the speaker’s context but on the context of the subject to whom knowledge is attributed. This view allows practical interests, beyond purely epistemic factors, to influence the attribution of knowledge. Relativism, models context-dependence through an interpretation parameter rather than by incorporating unspoken elements into the logical form of sentences. Invariantism, in contrast, holds that the meaning of a knowledge ascription is context-independent, with context dependence instead reflected in conversational implicatures. The article also critiques the challenges and potential weaknesses faced by each of these approaches in explaining various epistemic scenarios. Blome-Tillmann’s own theory, termed “presuppositional contextualism”, is explored in detail. According to this framework, the meaning of knowledge ascriptions depends on assumptions shared by all participants in a dialogue. However, it is demonstrated that this theory struggles to account for scenarios in which a skeptic challenges the shared assumptions. The article proposes an alternative view: that truthfulness of knowledge ascriptions depends on the question under discussion rather than presuppositions shared by all the participants of the conversation.
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