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person1990s-present

Keith DeRose

Disciplines:
epistemology
theology/philosophy of religion

Summary

American philosopher who developed one of the principal versions of epistemic contextualism, arguing that knowledge attributions are context-sensitive in ways that dissolve the skeptical paradox.

Core Contribution

Contextualism: ordinary knowledge attributions are true because the standards are low; philosophical skeptical scenarios raise the standards so that knowledge attributions become false; there is no contradiction because the standards shift. The Bank Cases thought experiments.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • The Bank Cases: in a low-stakes scenario you know the bank is open Saturday; in a high-stakes scenario (deposit must happen or bad things follow) the same evidence doesn't suffice for knowledge.
  • Has also written extensively on the epistemology of religious belief and theological agnosticism.

Notable Works & Achievements

Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions

The Case for Contextualism

Historical Influences

David Lewis Stewart Cohen Saul Kripke

Intellectual Lineage

Analytic Epistemology Contextualism

Contemporaries & Peers

Stewart Cohen John Hawthorne Timothy Williamson

Minds Influenced

No recorded minds influenced.

Intellectual Posterity

Epistemic Contextualism

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