Context framework for analysing situated knowledge transformation

The aim of this chapter is to nuance the claim that context plays a significant role in determining knowledge. This is done through investigating how to balance context-dependency with its counterpart of compositionality. The claim is that context provides some form and content to knowledge, but that how much will vary between knowledge forms and between contexts themselves. Conversely, some aspects of some knowledge forms will sometimes stay the same across some contexts. In the first part of the chapter, we set out a framework of five context levels that makes it possible to analyse knowledge in specific situations. The levels are domain, activity, life setting, social structure and cultural practices. By way of illustration, we provide two examples of how the framework can be used. The final two sections are spent on developing the philosophical underpinnings of the idea of balancing context-dependency and compositionality in our understanding of knowledge. The need for balancing can be found most clearly in systematic studies of language, and the final section explores firstly, how influential discussions of situativity have relied on this comparison with language, and secondly, how the comparison can inform analyses of knowledge.