forum 4: week of 30 Jan: DeRose on skepticism

I disagree that BIV is pretty much the source of everything! Also, I think the mind-reality disconnect is important to consider. What justification do you have for the idea that "no one has all encompassing knowledge, so there is always an additional context for a thought to relate to"?

Your first line seems to answer itself, perhaps unknowingly, because by everything I meant discourse. I didn't mean that BIVs make reality, I meant that because there is a disconnect from reality, illustrated by the BIV example, there is grounds for disagreement about the qualitative properties of reality are. I assume there is something out there, but the indirectness of that assumption sets the stage for discourse. By everything, I meant the history of distinction. My justification for what you quoted would be this test: ask that all purpose question "do you know everything?" the only answer that I think anyone should give is no, which means there is further unexplored context which the knowledge they currently hold can be related to.

"She knows it" can vary with DeRose, in my understanding that the the standards must remain low, in ordinary conversational contexts. DeRose appears to base his argument purely in mirroring the skeptic strategy, which does make a satisfying point, however seems to be constrained based on how it is tailor-made for the skeptical argument. It is constrained in the sense that higher positive epistemic standard are not addressed, or fully elaborated, as he emphasizes low standards in reaction to the skeptical arguments. A person in a low epistemic condition would be accepted in saying he knows B, whereas the same person in a high epistemic standard position would be incorrect in saying he knows B.

To DeRose, it is matter of the sensitivity of the argument, which still appears ambiguous (although seems to rely heavily on spatio-temporal contexts, beyond this it still seems elusive). His truth-conditions of knowledge ascriptions appeal to the implicit sensitivity to the context. Lewis, like DeRose emphasizes language , however Lewis' Rule of Accommodation cannot explain a rise in epistemic standards when an expert claims to know, or in distinguishing the AI skeptic from the simple skeptic. As this rule operates on suggestion, does the suggestion itself in raising epistemic standards defeat Lewis's argument against the skeptics? (I am trying to read into what DeRose was saying about Lewis.)