[PHIL] Sarah Moss (Michigan) - How to be a clever contextualist
[PHIL] Sarah Moss (Michigan) - How to be a clever contextualist
This talk defends a contextualist theory of ‘knowledge’ ascriptions. I argue that in some sentences, the implicit argument of ‘knows’ is bound by a quantifier. The natural readings of these sentences can be generated by contextualist theories, but not by competing interest-relative theories of knowledge. In addition, I argue that the contextualist can explain distinctive patterns in our judgments about sentences in which 'knows' is embedded under change-of-state verbs. Along the way, I argue that the most common definitions of ‘encroachment’ and ‘interest relativity’ are seriously flawed.
Sarah Moss is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. She works in epistemology, language and ethics, on topics including the meaning of epistemic modals, and moral influences on epistemic standards.