Dissertation, University of Manchester (
2014)
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Abstract
This work has four aims: (i) to provide an overview of the current debate about the
semantics of knowledge attributions, i.e. sentences of the form ⌜S knows that Φ⌝; (ii)
to ground the debate in a single semantic-pragmatic framework; (iii) to identify a
methodology for describing the semantics of knowledge attributions; (iv) to go some
way towards describing the semantics of knowledge attributions in light of this
methodology, and in particular to defend moderate invariantist semantics against its
main current rivals. Aims (i) and (ii) are largely clarificatory; in §1 I set out a single
semantic-pragmatic framework and over the course of this work show that it can be
modified to explain and distinguish the various theories of the semantics of
knowledge attributions currently on offer. Aim (iii) is also met in §1. I argue that a
theory of the semantics of knowledge attributions T must be able to account for at
least some ordinary speakers’ intuitions about the felicity or infelicity of utterances
of the sentence ⌜S knows that Φ⌝ (felicity intuitions) purely in terms of its
semantics. I also identify a number of theoretical considerations about knowledge
and argue that if T conflicts with any one of these considerations, we should presume
that T is false. Aim (iv) is met over the course of this work. According to moderate
invariantism ⌜S knows that Φ⌝ is true if and only if S confidently believes the
proposition expressed by Φ, this proposition is true and S’s epistemic position with
respect to this proposition meets a moderately high epistemic standard. In §§2 – 5 I
argue that the main current rivals to moderate invariantism – attributor contextualism,
contrastivism, subject-sensitive invariantism and assessor relativism – conflict with
at least one of the theoretical considerations identified in §1. In §6 I argue that
moderate invariantism accounts for some ordinary speakers’ felicity intuitions purely
in terms of the semantics of ⌜S knows that Φ⌝; I also argue that it is consistent with
all of the theoretical considerations identified in §1. Moreover, in §§2 – 6 I argue
that no theory is capable of accounting for all felicity intuitions purely in terms of the
semantics of ⌜S knows that Φ⌝, and that only moderate invariantism can
successfully explain why speakers have all of these intuitions. In §7 I conclude that
moderate invariantism correctly describes of the semantics of knowledge attributions,
or at least does so better than its main current rivals.