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Full Idea
How can it be that a sentence like 'George knows that he has hands', even with time and references fixed, does not have a fixed propositional content?
Gist of Idea
How could 'S knows he has hands' not have a fixed content?
Source
Kent Bach (The Emperor's New 'Knows' [2005], I)
Book Ref
'Contextualism in Philosophy', ed/tr. Preyer,G /Peter, G [OUP 2005], p.56
A Reaction
The appeal is to G.E. Moore's common sense view of immediate knowledge (Idea 6349). The reply is simply that the word 'knows' shifts its meaning, having high standards in sceptical philosophy classes, and low standards on the street.
Related Idea
Idea 6349 I can prove a hand exists, by holding one up, pointing to it, and saying 'here is one hand' [Moore,GE]
| 8724 | The meaning of 'know' does not change from courtroom to living room [Unger] |
| 12900 | How could 'S knows he has hands' not have a fixed content? [Bach] |
| 12901 | If contextualism is right, knowledge sentences are baffling out of their context [Bach] |
| 12902 | Sceptics aren't changing the meaning of 'know', but claiming knowing is tougher than we think [Bach] |
| 12894 | There aren't invariant high standards for knowledge, because even those can be raised [Cohen,S] |
| 19511 | If contextualism is about knowledge attribution, rather than knowledge, then it is philosophy of language [DeRose] |
| 19557 | Maybe low knowledge standards are loose talk; people will deny that it is 'really and truly' knowledge [Conee] |
| 19556 | Maybe knowledge has fixed standards (high, but attainable), although people apply contextual standards [Conee] |
| 12890 | That standards vary with context doesn't imply different truth-conditions for judgements [Conee] |
| 12892 | Maybe there is only one context (the 'really and truly' one) for serious discussions of knowledge [Conee] |