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. / published_or_final_version / Philosophy / Master / Master of Philosophy
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:HKU/oai:hub.hku.hk:10722/161549 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Wang, Qin, 王沁 |
| Contributors | Hawley, P, Deutsch, ME |
| Publisher | The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) |
| Source Sets | Hong Kong University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | PG_Thesis |
| Source | http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B47869896 |
| Rights | The author retains all proprietary rights, (such as patent rights) and the right to use in future works., Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License |
| Relation | HKU Theses Online (HKUTO) |
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