Gail Stine (nee Caldwell, 1940–December 28, 1977) was an American philosopher who specialized in epistemology and philosophy of language. She was born in

Schenectady Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...

, New York. Before her death at the age of 37, she was a professor of philosophy at

Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...

. Wayne State now holds the annual Gail Stine Memorial Lecture in her honor.

Education

Stine graduated from

Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States. ...

in 1962. Stine was a student of

W. V. O. Quine W. may refer to: * SoHo (Australian TV channel) (previously W.), an Australian pay television channel * ''W.'' (film), a 2008 American biographical drama film based on the life of George W. Bush * "W.", the fifth track from Codeine's 1992 EP ''Bar ...

and received her PhD at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1969 under the supervision of

Burton Dreben Burton Spencer Dreben (September 27, 1927 – July 11, 1999) was an American philosopher specializing in mathematical logic. A Harvard graduate who taught at his alma mater for most of his career (where he retired as Edgar Pierce Professor of ...

Work

Stine was an advocate of

contextualism Contextualism, also known as epistemic contextualism, is a family of views in philosophy which emphasize the ''context'' in which an action, utterance, or expression occurs. Proponents of contextualism argue that, in some important respect, the a ...

, the view that our standards for knowledge vary by situation. Stine also advocates the view that for a subject to know that p, she must rule out all relevant alternatives to p, a position also held by

Alvin Goldman Alvin Ira Goldman (born 1938) is an American philosopher who is Emeritus Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Rutgers University in New Jersey and a leading figure in epistemology. Education and career Goldman ea ...

and

Fred Dretske Frederick Irwin "Fred" Dretske (; December 9, 1932 – July 24, 2013) was an American philosopher noted for his contributions to epistemology and the philosophy of mind. Biography Born to Frederick and Hattie Dretske, Dretske first planned to be ...

. Probably her most well-known article is her 1976 Philosophical Studies article, "Skepticism, Relevant Alternatives, and Deductive Closure".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stine, Gail 1940 births 1977 deaths Wayne State University faculty Harvard University alumni 20th-century American philosophers American women philosophers Epistemologists Philosophers of language Mount Holyoke College alumni 20th-century American women