认识的语境论形成的思想根源

The Sources of Epistemic Contextualism

认识的语境论是这样一种观点,即由特定知识语句表达的命题依赖于说出这个句子的语境。具体地讲,认识的语境论主张,由给定的知识语句,如"S知道P","S不知道P",依赖于产生它们的语境,也即,知识的形成与理解是语境依赖的,在某些语境中,S知道P,而在另一个语境中,S不知道P。这两个陈述在各自的语境中都是正确的。语境不同,认识标准的高低程度不同,在不同的语境中进行对话、行动就会产生争论或者冲突;不同的语境设置了不同的认识标准,而且这些认识标准随着语境的变化而变化。认识的语境论是对我们认识判断的最佳解释之一,能够回答怀疑论的问题——为什么在大多数语境中我们能够判断我们拥有知识,而在一些语境中我们不能判断我们拥有知识。这一观点既有不少支持者,同时也受到质疑和批判。

Epistemic or epistemological contextualism is a recent and hotly debated view.To say it formally,epistemic contextualism is such a view that the proposition expressed by a given knowledge sentence depends upon the context in which it is uttered.What makes this view interesting and controversial is that ‘context’ here refers,not to certain features of the putative subject of knowledge,but rather to features of the knowledge attributor’s psychology or conversational-practical situation.As a result of such context-dependence and context-sensitivity,utterances of a given such sentence,or a given proposition,made in different contexts,may differ in truth value.