Contextualizing Knowledge

Philosophical innovations have a predictable life cycle. They emerge in seminars and conference talks, spread among the cognoscenti, propagate in journals and anthologies, and finally, if they survive long enough, enter the realm of the book. Epistemic contextualism is in its golden years. In addition to Ichikawa's book, contextualist monographs by Keith DeRose (two, in fact), Michael Blome-Tillmann, and Peter Baumann have appeared over the last ten years. To stand out in this field, you need a twist. Ichikawa's is that contextualism and knowledge first epistemology go well together. This is a surprising theme, and Contextualizing Knowledge is full of adventuresome ideas. I'm puzzled about the basic agenda at the heart of Ichikawa's project. I'll try to explain why below. But the book makes many fruitful points worth pondering, and presents a dazzling array of overlapping lines of creative argumentation. I recommend it to anyone interested in acquiring a deeper...