Knowledge and Presuppositions

<em>Knowledge and Presuppositions</em> develops a novel account of epistemic contextualism based on the idea that pragmatic presuppositions play a central role in the semantics of knowledge attributions. According to Blome-Tillmann knowledge attributions are sensitive to what is pragmatically presupposed at the context of ascription. The resulting theory--Presuppositional Epistemic Contextualism (PEC)--is simple and straightforward yet powerful enough to have far-reaching and important consequences for a variety of hotly debated issues in epistemology and philosophy of language. <p/>In this book Blome-Tillmann first develops Presuppositional Epistemic Contextualism and then explores its ability to resolve various sceptical paradoxes and puzzles. Blome-Tillmann also defends PEC against familiar and widely discussed philosophical and linguistic objections to contextualism. In the final chapters of the book PEC is employed to illuminate a variety of concerns central to contemporary discussions of epistemological issues such as Gettier cases Moorean reasoning the nature of evidence and other current problems and puzzles.<br>