Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-rbv74 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-21T22:27:47.328Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Gate-Keeping Contextualism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

David Henderson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper explores a position that combines contextualism regarding knowledge with the idea that the central point or purpose of the concept of knowledge is to feature in attributions that keep epistemic gate for contextually salient communities. After highlighting the main outlines and virtues of the suggested gate-keeping contextualism, two issues are pursued. First, the motivation for the view is clarified in a discussion of the relation between evaluative concepts and the purposes they serve. This clarifies why one's sense for the point of an evaluative concept ought to constrain and inform one's understanding of the concept. Second, the paper explores ways of avoiding a problem in the author's earlier development of gate-keeping contextualism. The initial development of the view opened the door to a form of skepticism that would hobble an important facet of our social-epistemic lives.

Type
Research Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , February 2011 , pp. 83 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Craig, E. 1990. Knowledge and the State of Nature: An Essay in Conceptual Synthesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
DeRose, K. 1992. “Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52: 913–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeRose, K. 1995. “Solving the Skeptical Problem.” Philosophical Review 104: 1–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeRose, K. 2009. The Case for Contextualism: Knowledge, Skepticism, and Context, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greco, J. 2008. “What Is Wrong with Contextualism?” Philosophical Quarterly 58: 416–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greco, J. 2010. Achieving Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimm, S. 2009. “Knowledge, Practical Interests, and Rising Tides.” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Henderson, D. 2009. “Motivated Contextualism.” Philosophical Studies 12: 119–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, D. 2010. “What's the Point?” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Henderson, D. and Horgan, T.. 2001. “The A Priori Isn't All It Is Cracked Up to Be, But It Is Something.” Philosophical Topics 29: 219–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, D. and Horgan, T.. Forthcoming. The Epistemological Spectrum. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kappel, K. 2010. “On Saying That Someone Knows: Themes from Craig.” In Haddock, A., Millar, A., and Pritchard, D. H. (eds.), Social Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pritchard, D. 2010. “Knowledge and Understanding.” In Pritchard, D., Millar, A., and Haddock, A. (eds.), The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations, pp. 3–90. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar