Contextualism and the factivity of knowledge

Standard contextualism about know comes in two versions. On the first, know is treated as an indexical. On the second, it is treated both as an indexical and as a context-shifter. On both versions, it is intended as a satisfactory theory about the ordinary meaning of know. But any satisfactory semantic theory about know must be able to account for the fact that know is a factive verb. In this paper, it is argued that standard contextualists face an insolvable dilemma : they had better opt for the second version, but doing so would deprive know of its factivity. It is concluded that standard contextualism is unable to deal with the factivity of knowledge and that for this reason, it cannot constitute a proper treatment of the ordinary meaning of know.