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, New York.[1]
Before her death at the age of 37,[2] she was a professor of philosophy at Wayne State University.[3] Wayne State now holds the annual Gail Stine Memorial Lecture in her honor.[4] Mount Holyoke College holds an annual Gail Stine Lecture in her honor.https://events.mtholyoke.edu/event/s_matthew_liao-a_gail_caldwell_stine_lecture_series
Stine graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1962. Stine was a student of W. V. O. Quine and received her PhD at Harvard University in 1969 under the supervision of Burton Dreben.[2]
Stine was an advocate of contextualism, the view that our standards for knowledge vary by situation.[5] 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 and Fred Dretske.[6] Probably her most well-known article is her 1976 Philosophical Studies article, "Skepticism, Relevant Alternatives, and Deductive Closure".[7]