Epistemological Contextualism

Feldman on Contextualism “Epistemology robs us of our knowledge” (David Lewis). This statement is a direct result of skeptical theory in the epistemological community. For decades, philosophers have struggled with the possibility that individuals cannot know anything about the external world based on their senses. Many skeptical scenarios have been proposed, from Descartes’ “not being able to rule out the possibility that he is dreaming”, to the “Brain in the Vat” scenario, the possibility that no one can know what it is they have previously claimed to know; each haunts the steps of philosophers on their journey for understanding. It seems that for as many instances of skeptical scenarios that have been proposed, counter theories have also risen. The argument against skepticism presented in this paper is called contextualism and in its varying forms, hopes to provide an answer to the issue of skepticism. However, this paper is not simply a recitation of contextualist ideas. It also seeks to show the analysis of the theory given by Richard Feldman. To begin, an understanding of basic contextualist theory is required.
Contextualism is a semantic theory that concerns itself with the meaning of the word “knows” in varying contexts. It is important to note that contextualism is not attempting to disprove skepticism, but rather provide a plausible answer to the problem of skepticism and prove that it is still possible to know things based on one’s empirical observations. In general, the contextualist will make two claims. The first is that (a) in ordinary (empirical) cases, it is generally said that something is true when someone says something that follows the form “S knows P”. The second, (b) in more epistemologically stringent cases, such as when the skeptical scenario becomes salient, it is not true when someone makes such a statement about “S”. Therefore, whether the statement “S knows P” is true, varies depending on the context “S” finds itself in. In this