ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with an assessment of the idea of transferability and an outline of related philosophical debates. In explanations of communication and learning, the idea of transferability appears to be an ontologically misleading metaphor, since explicit information can be individuated solely in propositional form, which derives its occasional meaning with respect to the context and the epistemic background of an interpreter. Once one acknowledges the relational character of information in the context of verbal communication or explicit learning, it appears to be deceptive to recombine it with the idea of transferability, whether one hopes for universal explanations or not. To conceive of information transfer as a metaphor means to adhere to a relational notion of informativeness in contexts of verbal communication and explicit learning, and to reject explanations. From the perspective of contextualism, the transferability clause is incapable of fulfilling its promised explanatory job.
