An Austinian Account of Knowledge Ascriptions

According to epistemic contextualism, the truth value of a knowledge ascription sentence varies in relation to the epistem-ic standard in play at its context of use. Contextualists promise a relatively conservative (dis)solution of the skeptical paradox that threatens to destroy our alleged everyday knowledge, based on our apparent inability to discard some exotic possibilities of error. The origins of the contextualist position have been traced back to some passages of Austin’s “Other Minds.” However, it is at best dubious whether the alternative there explored is indeed contextualist. Austin seems to be proposing a much more radi-cal position, one still ignored in the literature. This paper aims to develop an Austinian approach to knowledge attributions. I show how we could use the Austinian account to solve this skep-tical paradox. I also respond to some important objections to this view.

I. Ignorance: once again -- II. Austin’s forgotten insight -- II. Giving one’s word that p -- IV. An Austinian account of knowledge ascriptions -- V. If I know, I can’t be wrong -- VI. An Austinian dissolution of the skeptical argument from ignorance -- VII. Third-person ascriptions -- VIII. Conclusion