The contextualist says that in the first case, you know her bank details. Do you really know her bank details? Are you sure? Sensibly, you phone her to double check. But now imagine you're transferring £50,000. Imagine you're transferring £10 to your daughter. It only makes sense given a particular context.Įpistemic contextualists say that knowledge is the same. And it makes no sense to further ask whether I'm really tall or not. So in that context, the sentence is false. But at the try-outs for the Harlem Globetrotters, my measly 5'11" won't cut it. Surrounded by five year olds at a rollercoaster park, the sentence is true – after all, I can get on all the rides and they can't.
To understand what this is, we first must understand a familiar idea: context shift. I recommend letting philosophy do the work. Getting knee deep in the vloggersphere, you might learn the details of the scientific proofs as well as painstakingly spelling out each error in every flat earther's rebuttal. But unless you're unusual, you probably don't know all of the details of the scientific proofs – is it something to do with ships and horizons? Or eclipses? And even if you know the details, unless you've indulged existing flat earth literature you are unlikely – right here, right now – to be able to cogently, concisely and comprehensively respond to the lengthy rebuttals flat earthers will give to each and every scientific proof. Perhaps you then start to appeal to science. The standard of proof is higher, they say. Or possibly you rely on the testimony of astronauts. Consider one, standard, flat earth line: "Can you prove the world is round?" Maybe you point to the ( often artificially assembled) photos of Earth from space. A glance at the comments show there's still vitriolic disagreement in some quarters. But as scads of YouTube videos demonstrate, these proofs fail to convince everyone. Unsurprisingly, this isn't hard to prove.
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