The Semantic Error Problem for Epistemic Contextualism

Epistemic Contextualism is the view that “knows that” is semantically context-sensitive and that properly accommodating this fact into our philosophical theory promises to solve various puzzles concerning knowledge. ¹ Yet Epistemic Contextualism faces a big – some would say fatal – problem: The Semantic Error Problem. ² In its prominent form, this runs thus: speakers just don’t seem to recognise that “knows that” is context-sensitive; so, if “knows that” really is context-sensitive, then such speakers are systematically in error about what is said by, or how to evaluate, ordinary uses of “S knows that p”; but since it’s wildly implausible that ordinary speakers should exhibit such systematic error, the expression “knows that” isn’t context-sensitive. ³