Proponents of contextualism argue that, in some important respect, the action, utterance, or expression can only be understood relative to that context.
[4] Contextualism in architecture is a theory of design where modern building types are harmonized with urban forms usual to a traditional city.
The main tenet of contextualist epistemology is that knowledge attributions are context-sensitive, and the truth values of "know" depend on the context in which it is used.
Contextualists use this to explain why skeptical arguments can be persuasive, while at the same time protecting the correctness of our ordinary claims to "know" things.
Contextualism in epistemology then is a semantic thesis about how 'knows' works in English, not a theory of what knowledge, justification, or strength of epistemic position consists in.
[7] However, epistemologists combine contextualism with views about what knowledge is to address epistemological puzzles and issues, such as skepticism, the Gettier problem, and the Lottery paradox.
SSI claims that it is the context of the subject of the knowledge attribution that determines the epistemic standards, whereas Contextualism maintains it is the attributor.
IRI, on the other hand, argues that it is the context of the practical interests of the subject of the knowledge attribution that determines the epistemic standards.
Stanley writes that bare IRI is "simply the claim that whether or not someone knows that p may be determined in part by practical facts about the subject's environment.
This research has proceeded by conducting experiments in which ordinary non-philosophers are presented with vignettes, then asked to report on the status of the knowledge ascription.