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  • Essay / How Contextualism Can Be Used to Overlook Skepticism

    Contextualism is today defined as the truth of a particular knowledge attribution depending on the context in which that truth is expressed. Over the past century and decades, there have been many great debates among philosophers about contextualism and how it can be used to ignore skepticism. I agree with Cohen's defense of contextualism with respect to both how it responds to skepticism and Conee's objections. Cohen begins his defense of contextualism by first explaining the skeptical paradox. The skeptical paradox here is the paradox that Cohen sees between skepticism and contextualism. Cohen argues that he sees a conflict in the paradox, because all terms can be true depending on the context in which they are used. The skeptical paradox is as follows: - (1) I know that P, (2) I do not know that Not-H, (3) I know that P only if I know that Not-H. To begin, Cohen sees two definitive things in this argument. (A) That (1,2, and 3) all appear to be true and (B) that they appear to conflict at the same time. In this argument, P is known to be any common sense assertion that an individual would normally make to the world, for example that I have two feet and that Franklin & Marshall are in Lancaster. H would be a skeptical statement/hypothesis. Examples of this are I am a brain without a body in a vat and there is a mule painted like a zebra in Lancaster Zoo. Additionally, Cohen divides these statements into sections based on the type of individuals making this statement. Cohen divided this into two areas. The first area is where the level of knowledge is low. It is aimed at individuals who accept everyday knowledge about various things without questioning it, that is, where is the level of acceptance of assertions/fa...... middle of article. .....indeed, we can identify that Cohen's defense of contextualism addresses most of the claims that Conee believes do not exist in contextualism. Cohen provides substantial evidence to further Conee's claims as to why contextualism does enough to generate skepticism in our daily existence without requiring us to question our everyday knowledge attributions. While yes, there may be a shift in the standards of knowledge, Cohen's description of how our intuitions play a role in our everyday assertions prioritizes understanding the fundamental principles through which contextualism works in regarding Cohen's description of contextually changing truth conditions to counter appeal. of skepticism. I believe this helps us understand the importance of contextualism in our world today as a way to understand and rationalize knowledge at each standard of knowledge set by Conee..