Semantic minimalism and speech act pluralism applied to ‘knows’

Abstract

This chapter explores how the combination of two views – semantic minimalism and speech act pluralism (SM+SAP) – can be used to explain some aspects of the practice of making knowledge attributions. It outlines the general linguistic phenomenon/puzzle: how to resolve a tension between inter-contextual stability and variability, and shows how that puzzle arises with respect to sentences containing 'knows'. The chapter also outlines how SM+SAP has been used to defend skepticism. SM+SAP was not developed to account for issues in epistemology in particular. It was proposed as a solution to a very general linguistic phenomenon – a phenomenon that also happens to be exhibited by sentences containing 'knows'. The basic idea behind SM+SAP is to deny a tacit but fundamental assumption that generates the appearance of a puzzle. The chapter explains how SM+SAP help defend skeptics against a familiar objection and provides some additional support for the view.