contrastivism

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noun

An epistemological theory suggesting that knowledge attributions have a ternary structure of the form "S knows that p rather than q", in contrast to the traditional view whereby knowledge attributions have a binary structure of the form "S knows that p".

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Meanings

nouncontrastivism (uncountable)
  1. uncountablehuman sciencesAn epistemological theory suggesting that knowledge attributions have a ternary structure of the form "S knows that p rather than q", in contrast to the traditional view whereby knowledge attributions have a binary structure of the form "S knows that p".

    In the last section I proposed to broaden contrastivism with respect to admissible kinds of third relata while in the first section I proposed to restrict it with respect to kinds of knowledge.

    2008 April 5, Peter Baumann, “Contrastivism Rather than Something Else? On the Limits of Epistemic Contrastivism”, in Erkenntnis, volume 69, number 2, →DOI

Origin

From contrastive + -ism.

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Cite this entry
APA

contrastivism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/contrastivism

MLA

“contrastivism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/contrastivism. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “contrastivism,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/contrastivism.

Source: contrastivism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.