Contextualism, Probability and Salience - A Review of Different Forms of Epistemic Contextualism as a Response to Philosophical Skepticism

Abstract

Philosophical skepticism seems often to undermine our knowledge to the point where we know next to nothing. Epistemic contextualism is a theory designed to let knowledge ascriptions ("S knows p") be true without paradox. This paper considers the forms of contextualism provided by Stewart Cohen and David Lewis, where Cohen seems to connect his idea of contextualism to probability, while Lewis does not. I argue that Cohen's probabilistic contextualism cannot work, and that Lewis' version is more plausible. Though I also argue that Lewis is subject to some general critique of contextualism, and that skepticism may ultimately to a better job at conforming to our intuitions about knowledge and knowledge ascriptions.