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This book offers a critical overview of the current debate on the semantics of knowledge attributions. It examines the main principles underlying the various approaches to the topic and outlines how they aim to explain the pertinent data and resolve philosophical puzzles and challenges.
List of contents
- Introduction
- Part I: Epistemic Contextualism
- 1: Epistemic Contextualism
- 2: Semantic Implementations
- 3: Versions of Contextualism
- 4: Linguistic Objections
- 5: Philosophical Objections
- Part II: Epistemic Impurism
- 6: Epistemic Impurism
- 7: Problems and Objections
- Part III: Epistemic Relativism
- 8: Epistemic Relativism
- Part IV: Strict Invariantism
- 9: Psychological Invariantism
- 10: Pragmatic Invariantism
- Part V: Presuppositional Epistemic Contextualism
- 11: The Presupposition Effect
- 12: Presuppositional Epistemic Contextualism
- References
About the author
Michael Blome-Tillmann is Associate Professor of Philosophy at McGill University. He received his DPhil from the University of Oxford in 2007. His research is primarily in epistemology and the philosophy of language broadly construed. He is the author of Knowledge and Presuppositions (OUP 2014).
Summary
In this book, Michael Blome-Tillmann offers a critical overview of the current debate on the semantics of knowledge attributions. The book is divided into five parts. Part 1 introduces the reader to the literature on 'knowledge' attributions by outlining the historical roots of the debate and providing an in-depth discussion of epistemic contextualism. After examining the advantages and disadvantages of the view, Part 2 offers a detailed investigation of epistemic impurism (or pragmatic encroachment views), while Part 3 is devoted to a careful examination of epistemic relativism and Part 4 to two different types of strict invariantism (psychological and pragmatic). The final part of the book explores Presuppositional Epistemic Contextualism - a version of contextualism that is argued to provide a more powerful and elegant account of the semantics of 'knowledge' attributions than many of its competitors. A clear and precise account is provided of the main principles underlying each view and of how they aim to explain the pertinent data and resolve philosophical puzzles and challenges. The book also provides charts outlining the relations between the positions discussed and offers suggestions for further reading.
Additional text
A very clear, well-structured, informative, and original book about epistemic contextualism... very rich in both scope and ideas... there is no doubt that The Semantics of Knowledge Attributions is a useful tool for those who want to familiarize themselves with the vast literature on 'knowledge'-ascriptions and with the intricate problems that arise in that area, as well as for those steeped in the epistemic debates, urging them to engage with a well-argued for and improved version of epistemic contextualism.
