Does Context Affect Your Ability to Know?

Proposing an Alternative Form of Contextualism to Improve Our Theory of Knowledge

Photo by on

In our everyday claims to knowledge something strange happens. Our knowledge seems to be affected by practical concerns like the time of day and the weather.

While it may seem odd to talk about practical concerns affecting our claims to knowledge, on closer inspection it is not farfetched at all. Let me use myself as an example to illustrate how this might happen.

I am always double checking my times and appointments regardless of the concerns that may be involved. I ask myself questions like:

• “Is it really 5pm that this event starts?”
• “Am I positive that I know how to get there?”
• “Does the other person even remember that we are meeting?”
• “Did I remember the time and place of the meeting correctly?”

All of these are going through my mind when I think about whether I know that I have an appointment to go to. With these questions in mind, I think you can easily see how the situation can affect my answers.

Here is another example. Think of a job interview compared to going for coffee with a friend. You usually do not take the same…