Epistemic Contextualism as Semantic Thesis and Knowledge-Attribution Standards in Qoheleth

Abstract

The concept of knowledge plays an important role in Qoheleth. Both linguistic and philosophical perspectives remain popular trends in current related research. Developments in the two auxiliary disciplines that remain largely ignored include those associated with “Epistemic Contextualism.” The theory has been used as both a substantive-epistemological and a descriptive-semantic thesis, both of which concern the way variable epistemic standards are seen to supervene in different contexts of knowledge attributions. Initially offered as a solution to the challenges of radical scepticism, it has recently sought to show how an utterance affirming and denying a subject “knows” that something is the case could both be meaningful in virtue of changing propositional contents expressed in response to variable contextual stakes, interests, and needs. The original contribution of this study lies in constructing the relevant data set in Qoheleth and illustrating the possibilities and problems of applying the semantic format of the theory to discrepant propositional attitude reports in the world of the text.