Knowledge and its Limits - Hardcover

Williamson, Timothy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198250436 ISBN 13: 9780198250432

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 2000

Synopsis

Knowledge and its Limits presents a systematic new conception of knowledge as a fundamental kind of mental stage sensitive to the knower's environment. It makes a major contribution to the debate between externalist and internalist philosophies of mind, and breaks radically with the epistemological tradition of analysing knowledge in terms of true belief. The theory casts light on a wide variety of philosophical issues: the problem of scepticism, the nature of evidence, probability and assertion, the dispute between realism and anti-realism and the paradox of the surprise examination. Williamson relates the new conception to structural limits on knowledge which imply that what can be known never exhausts what is true. The arguments are illustrated by rigorous models based on epistemic logic and probability theory. The result is a new way of doing epistemology for the twenty-first-century.

About this title

Review:

An outstanding contribution to analytic epistemology ... original and ingenius arguments ... Knowledge and its Limits has raised the standards of epistemological discussion to a higher level. (Grazer Philosophische Studien)

Radical and challenging ... without question an important exercise of the "let me show you a new way of looking at things" kind; something we sorely need in epistemology. (Frank Jackson, Australasian Journal of Philosophy)

The best book in epistemology to come out since 1975. (Keith DeRose, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science)

Knowledge and its Limits is a splendid book that is certain to be influential for a long time. It develops positions on an unusually broad range of topics and offers distinctive, carefully crafted arguments in defence of these positions. (Mind)

It is a tribute to the richness of his [Williamson's] work that regardless of what one makes of his metaphysics of believing and knowing, there is much to learn from his attempts to use knowledge to provide accounts of evidence, justified belief, warranted assertability, and other such notions. (Mind)

Timothy Williamson's Knowledge and its Limits may prove to be the most important contribution to epistemology in many years. (Brian McLaughlin and John Hawthorne, Times Literary Supplement)

Williamson provides a battery of considerations designed to convince us that the concept of knowledge is the most central and vital member of the family of epistemological concepts ... If Williamson is right, we shall be forced to admit that much recent epistemology is ill-conceived ... He also makes important contributions to our understanding of the nature of mind and the relationship of mind to world. Knowledge and its Limits is striking throughout for its clarity, originality of thought, technical sophistication and philosophical breadth ... Careful study of this work will be richly rewarded. (Brian McLaughlin and John Hawthorne, Times Literary Supplement)

This important book offers a boldly original view of the nature of knowledge ... Anyone with a serious interest in philosophy will have much to learn from this challenging book. (The Economist)

A daring new picture of knowledge is skilfully supported with an argumentative verve that its author, the new professor of logic at Oxford University, has made himself known for. (The Economist)

About the Author:

Timothy Williamson is the Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford. He was formerly Professor of Philosophy at Edinburgh University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0198250436
• ISBN 13: 9780198250432
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352