Timothy Williamson on Knowledge: What is Knowledge?

Quick overview of Timothy Williamson’s “knowledge first” epistemology, including a recap of the traditional analysis of knowledge as justified, true belief (JTB), the Gettier problem, and why Williamson’s “knowledge first” approach may be the best way forward for epistemology.

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Chapters
0:00 Introduction to Timothy Williamson’s Epistemology
0:20 What is Philosophical Analysis?
0:41 The Traditional Analysis of Knowledge: Explaining Knowledge as Justified, True, Belief (JTB)
1:11 The Gettier Counterexample to the Traditional Analysis of Knowledge
1:27 Williamson’s Response to Gettier: “Knowledge First” (Knowledge Cannot Be Analyzed)
2:24 “Knowledge First”: Explaining Belief in Terms of Knowledge
3:25 “Knowledge First”: Explaining Justification in Terms of Knowledge
4:04 Summary of Timothy Williamson’s “Knowledge First” Epistemology

Further Reading

Knowledge and Its Limits, Timothy Williamson (2002, Oxford University Press)

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Analysis of Knowledge, “Knowledge First”

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Knowledge First Theories of Justification”

Music: Blippy Trance by Kevin MacLeod

[richp]

It should be noted that the leading figure of the British idealist movement, F. H. Bradley, made this point more or less in the late 19th century. This seems to have been forgotten; and I can't help but notice here that the development of Analytic Philosophy is historically regarded as partly dependent on its rejection of or distancing from British Idealism. Bradley's _Principles of Logic_ on p. 95 states:

"It is a very common and most ruinous superstition to suppose that analysis is no alteration, and that, whenever we distinguish, we have at once to do with divisible existence. It is an immense assumption to conclude, when a fact comes to us as a whole, that some parts of it may exist without any sort of regard for the rest. Such naïve assurance of the outward reality of all mental distinctions, such touching confidence in the crudest identity of thought and existence, is worthy of the school which so loudly appeals to the name of Experience."

[k_legamer]

Where is this guy... he should be recognized by the world

[svaira]

0:55 that's actually just not true. The definition of knowledge as "δόξα αληθής κατά λόγου" (true belief / opinion according to an explanation/justification) is explicitly rejected at the end of Theaitetos, I don't know how you can refer to Plato for this, it's really something that only happened later (idk exactly when, but I can't see Plato himself adopting it as true)

[dominiks]

I've always found the reaction to Gettier cases very overblown, in the sense that epistemologists tend to make it seem like a much bigger issue than it actually is. Both the no false lemma condition and the defeasibility condition seem like excellent solutions to Gettier cases to me, so basically you just have JTB with a very minor addition instead of a completely new epistemology.

The knowledge first view is pretty absurd to me, but your video is well made.

[dvaccaro]

As someone who has studied Williamson’s work for years, I can second this (obviously somewhat simplified and missing a lot of other stuff he talks about) explanation for whoever does not know the author. Awesome job with so little time!

Only detail I may disagree with: as far as I know, the first edition of KaIT is from 2000, and it is commonly cited as Williamson (2000) in journals. OUP online does list it as published in 2002, but my copy of the book says 2000 as well.