Comment on Matt Cooper’s “Skepticism and Contextual Semantics”

CLASSIC INVARIANTISM, RELEVANCE, AND WARRANTED ASSERTABILITY MANŒUVERS TIM BLACK The Philosophical Quarterly 55 (2005): 328-336 Jessica Brown effectively contends that Keith DeRose’s latest argument for contextualism fails to rule out contextualism’s chief rival, namely, classic invariantism. Still, even if her position has not been ruled out, the classic invariantist must offer considerations in favor of her position if she is to convince us that it is superior to contextualism. Brown defends classic invariantism with a warranted assertability maneuver that utilizes a linguistic pragmatic principle of relevance. I argue, however, that this maneuver is not as effective as it might be. I propose a different warranted assertability maneuver—one that utilizes a pragmatic principle of strength—that affords a more successful defense of classic invariantism, and that helps to establish that classic invariantism is superior to contextualism. Recently, Keith DeRose has provided yet another influential argument for epistemological 1contextualism. His argument involves the Knowledge Account of Assertion, or KAA, and the Context-Sensitivity of Assertion, or CSA. KAA: The standards for when one is in an epistemic position warrantedly to assert that p 2are identical to those that comprise a truth condition for ‘I know that p’.CSA: How well positioned one must be with respect to p in order warrantedly to assert 3that p depends on context.These premises ...