Knowledge and Its Limits

## Abstract The book develops a conception of epistemology in which the notion of knowledge is explanatorily fundamental. It reverses the traditional programme of trying to analyse knowledge as a combination of truth, belief, and other factors, such as justification. Rather, belief is a state whose successful form is knowledge, and justification is on the basis of knowledge, which is acquainted with evidence. Knowing is as much a mental state as believing, but it is world‐involving because one can know only what is true; the book extends the externalist conception of mind from the contents of mental states to the attitudes to those contents. As with other mental states, one cannot always know whether one is in the state of knowing. It is argued that this is a special case of a much more general phenomenon; no non‐trivial conditions are such that one is always in a position to know that they obtain whenever they in fact do so. This result has disturbing implications for the nature of rationality, because one is not always in a position to know what it is rational to do. Traditional arguments for scepticism fail because they assume that one is always in a position to know what one's evidence is. The speech act of assertion is also governed by a norm of knowledge. A final chapter explores the limits on what can be known that are revealed by the so‐called paradox of knowability. Knowledge And Its Limits Presents A Systematic New Conception Of Knowledge As A Fundamental Kind Of Mental State Sensitive To The Knower's Environment. It Makes A Major Contribution To The Debate Between Externalist Ad 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.--book Jacket. 1. State Of Mind -- 2. Broadness -- 3. Primeness -- 4. Anti-luminosity -- 5. Margins And Iterations -- 6. Application -- 7. Sensitivity -- 8. Scepticism -- 9. Evidence -- 10. Evidential Probability -- 11. Assertion -- 12. Structural Unknowability -- App. 1. Correlation Coefficients -- App. 2. Counting Iterations Of Knowledge -- App. 3. Formal Model Of Slight Insensitivity Almost Everywhere -- App. 4. Iterated Probabilities In Epistemic Logic (proofs) -- App. 5. Non-symmetric Epistemic Model -- App. 6. Distribution Over Conjunction. Timothy Williamson. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [321]-332) And Index. Knowledge and its Limits presents a systematic new conception of knowledge as a kind of mental state. Williamson casts light on many philosophical problems: scepticism, evidence, probability and assertion, realism and anti-realism, and the limits of what can be known. The result is a new way of doing epistemology, and a notable contribution also to the philosophy of mind. - ;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 Annotation Knowledge and its Limits presents a systematic new conception of knowledge as a fundamental kind of mental state 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 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. Knowledge and its Limits presents a systematic new conception of knowledge as a fundamental kind of mental state 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 that 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.

Knowledge and its Limits presents a systematic new conception of knowledge as a 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 analyzing knowledge in terms of true belief. The theory casts new light on such philosophical problems as scepticism, evidence, probability and assertion, realism and anti-realism, and the limits of what can be known. The arguments are illustrated by rigorous models based on epistemic logic and probability theory. The result is a new way of doing epistemology and a notable contribution to the philosophy of mind.

In a new approach to doing epistemology Timothy Williamson applies the lessons of recent philosophy of mind to epistemology and then uses the results to enrich the philosophy of mind, and draw out the salient implications