[...]... standards of knowledge previously known standards of knowledge with general contemporary standards of knowledge inappropriate standards of knowledge halachic standards of certainty legal and scientiWc standards of certainty diVerent standards of certainty are used in science and in politics standards of certainty in law: criminal trials, civil lawsuits, government regulation, legislation To a Wrst approximation,... with complete certainty know with complete certitude really know how well do we know pretty well know in eVect knew sort of in eVect knew by secular standards of knowledge by today’s standards of knowledge by high standards of knowledge and accuracy perceived standards of knowledge by your own standards of knowledge by today’s standards of knowledge previously known standards of knowledge with general... the certain semantic arguments against contextualism in epistemology will be disarmed So even if the essays by Francois Recanati and Herman Cappelen and Ernie ¸ Lepore are closely related to the semantic underpinnings of contextualism in epistemology, their central claims are within the philosophy of language Two traditions in the philosophy of language and semantics take eVect in our understanding of... glossing over the fact that there is no single graded standard of knowledge, and endorses a point made by Unger (1986) in explicating his ‘‘Cone Theory of Knowledge ’: He [Unger] does, however, introduce an important complication which I have ignored in this paper, since it has little eVect on the points I’m making here Unger points out that there are many diVerent aspects of knowledge and that in diVerent... their account meaning is not explanatorily idle, those who deny minimalism wind up with an account that is In particular, they show that Recanati’s view fails to satisfy his own availability principle The essays of Jason Stanley, Paul M Pietroski, and Peter Pagin connect issues of context-dependence with fundamental issues in the philosophy of language: meaning and truth, and compositionality In his essay,... composition requires going beyond that content: to determine the content of complex expressions (e.g sentences) we must creatively enrich or otherwise adjust the meaning of individual words and that cannot be done without appealing to speaker’s meaning In the second version it is not just semantic composition which requires adjustment and modulation of word meaning Individual word meanings themselves could... might intuitively think of the scientiWc standards as being more stringent and in other cases we might think of the legal standards as being more stringent If this is right, then (C3) should yield to the much more plausible and contextualism- friendly (C3Ã ) L u d l ow: Ne w L i n g u i s t i c Tu r n 27 C3Ã While the epistemic standards required for someone to count as meriting a positive knowledge. .. dependence in knowledge claims don’t hold up Work on both sides of this question can be seen as a throwback to classical work by Wgures like Wittgenstein (1969), Austin (1961), Malcolm (1963), and within a diVerent tradition Vendler (1967, 1972), who held that we can gain insight into epistemological problems by investigating our linguistic practices surrounding knowledge attribution The new incarnation... project contextualism being a Wne example of a broader project with at least one linchpin under scrutiny But why suppose that linguistic data should be illuminating at all? While my goal in this chapter is not to argue for the relevance of linguistic data and is rather to illustrate its relevance by way of example, a couple of comments may be in order First, and most obviously, any investigation into... situations e, involving a patient y and an agent x who, by means of some instrument z, eVects in e a linear separation in the material integrity of y It is easy enough to see why trying to convert a verb into a comparative form is not happy, even if the verb is converted into an adjectival form Exactly where is the linear scale to fall? What is it to be more cut? Does it mean that the linear separation . underpinnings of contextualism in epistemology, their central claims are within the philosophy of language. Two traditions in the philosophy of language and semantics take eVect in our understanding. Still, in certain cases, the point under linguistic investi- gation may be one which serves as a linchpin in a broader epistemological 12 Contextualism in Epistemology project contextualism being. Pietroski, and Peter Pagin connect issues of context-dependence with fundamental issues in the philosophy of language: meaning and truth, and compositionality. In his essay, Jason Preyer, Peter: Introduction