Knowledge and description

Abstract

It has been debated whether knowledge attributions are descriptions of the world.

Descriptivists argue that they are. Non-cognitivists discover that knowledge

attributions have characteristics that are not shared by paradigm cases of

descriptions. Most forms of non-cognitivism therefore deny that knowledge

attributions are descriptions of the world.

This thesis approaches the debate using data from the ordinary use of language.

It is argued that a prominent form of descriptivism, attributor contextualism, is

in conflict with treating ordinary use of simple knowledge attributions as true.

This treatment of ordinary language is adopted by prominent contextualists, and

is what distinguishes contextualism from its main rival, invariantism. The

conflict is generalized to descriptivism in general so that either descriptivism or

the treatment of simple ordinary use of the language as true has to be given up.

Various arguments for and against such treatment of ordinary language and

descriptivism’s alternative, non-cognitivism, are examined respectively. It is

held that although many forms of non-cognitivism are problematic, whether

non-cognitivism is a true thesis still remains open. It is also argued that despite

its initial plausibility, the treatment of simple ordinary use of indicative

language as true is not as attractive as it first appears to be.

Since we are not forced to accept treating simple ordinary knowledge

attributions as true, as far as the conflict between the two goes, we are not

forced to give up descriptivism, either. However, non-cognitivism remains an

attractive alternative to descriptivism.