Contextualism
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Epistemically, the term “contextualism” refers to a collection of views that posit our knowledge or understanding of something is heavily dependent, or perhaps even completely defined by, our context.
I might say that I understand politics, and that would possibly be a true, meaningful concept if I meant politics as they are discussed among friends, at a relatively superficial level, but it would arguably be less true if I were to say the same thing while in a room full of political science PhDs.
I would be expressing the same thing about the same person—me—and body of knowledge, but the meaning and truth of that meaning would change based on the context in which I was located.
Some philosophers contend that epistemic contextualism implies that we cannot ever know anything in an absolute sense, because there’s always a chance that what we seem to know in one context is not actually known in another; it doesn’t translate between contexts.
One problem with this concept, in terms of application, is that it’s often difficult to fully understand the context in which we exist, because we lack complete knowledge of both that one context, but also all other possible contexts—which disallows local understanding through global comparison.
I might say, for instance, that I know how the laws of thermodynamics work, and I might even understand those laws at an incredibly high level. But that wouldn’t necessarily mean I understand them completely, because maybe I live within a simulation and don’t realize it, and therefore lack a complete understanding of my context, not realizing that thermodynamics are just code running in complex software, and thus, despite thinking that I understand them, I very much do not.
Using this logic, anything we think we know, even if there doesn’t seem to be an alternative context in which that knowledge is lacking, could actually still be unknown to us in its true form: there could always be another context of which we’re unaware, which makes knowledge seem like an unattainable concept.
As such, most modern contextualist thinkers posit that what’s important when attempting to ascertain knowledge is the context in which one seems to exist, to the best of our ability to understand it.
Thus, if I say that I understand politics, and I’m in a context in which my knowledge does represent a decent understanding of “politics” as the term is commonly used, formally or colloquially, that is knowledge.
One fracture in this way of thinking, though, is whether it’s the context or the person that determines where knowledge falls on the “known” to “unknown” spectrum.
In other words: if I’m in a room full of political science experts but don’t realize it, am I still correct in assuming that my superficial knowledge of politics makes me knowledgable about it?
Is there an objective way to measure context, or does only the subjective understanding of the person within it matter?
And how does this question of context inform the ethics of our behaviors within a given situation? Should the ethical credibility of our actions be judged based on an objective measure, or our subjective understanding of the context in which we act?
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