In its dominant form, EC is the view that the proposition expressed by a given knowledge sentence ('S knows that p', 'S doesn't know that p') depends upon the context in which it is uttered.
Whereas, the evidence for contextualism requires that there be some interesting variation among the standards which determine a knowledge sentence's truth-conditions within this or that 'language community', and it requires that we be guided in our everyday knowledge-attributing behavior by an awareness of just this fact.
Bach (2005, 66) and Feldman (2004, 27) question whether the contextualist model might apply to one's thoughts about whether various knowledge sentences express truths.
It is not clear, however, whether such 'hidden relativities' really do provide a model for our supposed ignorance of the context-sensitivity of knowledge sentences.
To suppose that requires assuming that knowledge sentences do not have context-sensitive contents—hence that skeptic's denials are true at the expense of the truth of our ordinary claims to know.
The contextualist must thus strike "a delicate balance" (Conee 2005, 54 55) between crediting us with a grasp of the context-sensitivity of knowledge sentences, while at the same time attributing to us a failure to fully grasp it.
But, the complaint runs, to hold, as EC's proffered handling of SA implies, that in this context it is the skeptic's claims that are true is not licensed by EC itself: the propositions expressed by knowledge sentences may be contextually variable in the way EC alleges, but that does not tell us which specific such sentences are true, and which false.
According to the second view, whether a subject knows though not what is expressed by the relevant knowledge sentences themselves depends upon facts about his/her practical interests (or, depending on the view, what the subject believes about such), especially the degree of practical importance to the subject of getting the matter correct.
According to the third, the truth values of knowledge sentences depend upon the standards in play in the contexts in which they are assessed, as opposed to the standards operative in either the context in which they are uttered or the context of the subject.
And Rob Stainton (2010), while quite sympathetic to the claim that 'know(s)' is not itself a context-sensitive term, nevertheless believes that the "spirit" of EC can be saved: if there are pragmatic determinants of what is stated/asserted/claimed, then what is stated (/etc). in different uses of "knowledge" sentences can vary in truth conditions, even if 'know(s)' is not context-sensitive.
As formulated by Stephen Schiffer, the objection is simply that it is implausible that we would get "bamboozled by our own words" (ibid., 329) in the way the contextualist alleges, since "speakers would know what they were saying if knowledge sentences were indexical in the way the Contextualist requires" (ibid.: 328).
