What is decontextualization?

Decontextualization is a concept in personal epistemology: Information separated from its context becomes ambiguous or misleading.

Example: A colleague shares a Slack message: 'We need to cut the project.' Alarming — until you learn it was sent during a brainstorming session about scope reduction, not a budget meeting about cancellation. Same seven words, completely different meaning. The context — who said it, when, to whom, about what — was the meaning. The words were just the carrier.

This concept is part of Phase 9 (Context Sensitivity) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for context sensitivity.