Epistemic contextualism

Abstract

The aim of this article is to provide an introduction to the main topic of this issue of Theoria. First, the author presents the key thesis of epistemic contextualism, outlines its development in contemporary epistemology and briefly characterizes its two versions, namely conversational and inferential contextualism. Second, the author focuses on some contextualist solutions to three major epistemological problems: the problem of scepticism, lottery, and Gettier's problem. The author agrees with Stewart Cohen that Gettier?s problem does not belong to this group and explains why both its formulation and a solution require a traditional, invariantist approach.