Finally, how do I speak intelligently on the Contextualist v.s Invariantist problem? I can see in basic that it is an empirical problem and therefore not part of abstract philosophy, but that isn’t the same thing as having an answer. It would be good to know where to look up enough neuroscience to at least make an intelligent contribution to the discussion.
Invariantism, in my opinion, is rooted precisely in the failure to recognize that this is an empirical and ultimately linguistic question. I’m not sure how neuroscience would enter into it, actually. Once you recognize that it’s an empirical issue, it becomes obvious that the usage of various epistemological terms—like that of most other terms—is highly context-dependent. (If you don’t think this is obvious, have a look at experimental philosophy.) With that usage, you have an actual explanandum, and if you want a theory that derives the associated phenomena—well, do linguistics and cognitive psychology and stop calling it philosophy, because it isn’t. (Of course, the problem is ridiculously hard, because nobody has a good model of how lexical meaning relates to or even depends on context, even though it obviously does.)
Note: The “you” in this comment are intended generically, not referring particularly to the OP or any reader.
At least some invariantists do tend to look up cognitive evidence, so your argument is not totally correct. You’re probably right overall, but I’m still not sure- the Invariantist tends to argue using Warranted Assertability manuveres that distinguish being warranted in asserting X from believing X.
The most immediate problem for this approach is that it’s not clear how it could work for embedded contexts.
The other is, of course, to spell out the context-independent meaning and explain precisely how pragmatics operates on it. It’s also not clear that this notion of a strong semantics-pragmatics divide with independent and invariant semantic meanings is tenable in general.
Invariantism, in my opinion, is rooted precisely in the failure to recognize that this is an empirical and ultimately linguistic question. I’m not sure how neuroscience would enter into it, actually. Once you recognize that it’s an empirical issue, it becomes obvious that the usage of various epistemological terms—like that of most other terms—is highly context-dependent. (If you don’t think this is obvious, have a look at experimental philosophy.) With that usage, you have an actual explanandum, and if you want a theory that derives the associated phenomena—well, do linguistics and cognitive psychology and stop calling it philosophy, because it isn’t. (Of course, the problem is ridiculously hard, because nobody has a good model of how lexical meaning relates to or even depends on context, even though it obviously does.)
Note: The “you” in this comment are intended generically, not referring particularly to the OP or any reader.
At least some invariantists do tend to look up cognitive evidence, so your argument is not totally correct. You’re probably right overall, but I’m still not sure- the Invariantist tends to argue using Warranted Assertability manuveres that distinguish being warranted in asserting X from believing X.
The most immediate problem for this approach is that it’s not clear how it could work for embedded contexts.
The other is, of course, to spell out the context-independent meaning and explain precisely how pragmatics operates on it. It’s also not clear that this notion of a strong semantics-pragmatics divide with independent and invariant semantic meanings is tenable in general.