Contextualism in today's philosophical elaborations: clarification of epistemological problems

ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

The article, based on common (among the authors of analytical philosophy) examples, outlines the general problematic of contextualism, both as a general methodological and, first of all, as a special philosophical epistemological direction. The concept of "contextual sensitivity" plays a peculiar role in such research vectors. The "context-sensitivity" significantly corrects the presence or absence of knowledge, truth. Discussion of standards of knowledge, or standards of truth of knowledge, is widespread. Such standards can "increase" or "decrease": be stronger or weaker depending on the contextual features of the agents involved in the interactions and speakers as bearers of knowledge; as well as on the situation in which the interaction takes place.

Contextualist directions of research were stimulated by the traditional problem of skepticism in epistemology (which is one of its three main problems, while the other two are the problem of knowledge (what do we know and how do we know that) and the problem of perception). Another crucial area for establishing and developing contextualism (traditionally directly connected with epistemology) was philosophy of language. Contextualist developments allow us to distinguish situational details in such a way that skeptical criticisms may appear irrelevant, or, conversely, may become obviously relevant.

In this paper, approaches, examples, and arguments of important figures of analytic philosophy (S. Cohen, E. Craig, K. DeRose, F. Dretske, M. Gerken, J. Greco, D. Henderson, T. Hofweber, J.J. Ichikawa, J. Nagel, R. Neta, P. Yourgrau e. a.) where examined with the purpose to show actuality of contextualism for nowadays philosophical problems connected with interactions between different agents.

The new context of today, associated with the development and spread of computer technologies, when the very ability to act (activity, agency) can be interpreted as technology, adds relevance to philosophical studies of the contextualist direction in order to clarify the specifics of interactions between different agents (humans and non-humans). Contextual ir/relevance of contents in various intertwined interactions between autonomous human and automatic non-human agents could become a touchstone point for their fruitful proceedings. Such ir/relevance can be gained via contextual sensitivity of the involved into common action agents, speakers.