Problems of Knowledge: A Critical Introduction to Epistemology

by Michael J. Williams

"What is epistemology or 'the theory of knowledge'? Why does it matter? What makes theorizing about knowledge 'philosophical'? And why do some philosophers argue that epistemology - perhaps even philosophy itself - is dead?" "In this introduction, Michael Williams answers these questions, showing how epistemological theorizing is sensitive to a range of questions about the nature, limits, methods, and value of knowing. He pays special attention to the challenge of philosophical scepticism: does our 'knowledge' rest on brute assumptions? Does the rational outlook undermine itself?" Williams explains and criticizes all the main contemporary philosophical perspectives on human knowledge, such as foundationalism, the coherence theory, and 'naturalistic' theories. As an alternative to all of them, he defends his distinctive contextualist approach. As well as providing an accessible introduction for any reader approaching the subject for the first time, this book incorporates Williams's own ideas which will be of interest to all philosophers concerned with the theory of knowledge.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published August 23, 2001

About the author

From Wikipedia: Michael Williams (born 6 July 1947) is currently the Kreiger-Eisenhower Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University and chair of the department. Williams is a noted epistemologist, and has significant interest in the philosophy of language, Wittgenstein, and the history of modern philosophy. He is particularly well-known for his work on philosophical skepticism. He received his BA from the University of Oxford and his PhD. from Princeton University under the direction of Richard Rorty. He has taught at Yale University, the University of Maryland, and Northwestern University.
He is married to the philosopher and noted Wittgenstein scholar Meredith Williams, also a member of the Johns Hopkins philosophy faculty.

Reviews

[Leo Horovitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm always a bit puzzled upon encountering a book at this level, regarding any subject within philosophy (or indeed any other field), being titled something along the lines of "an introduction to X" when it becomes utterly clear after reading just a short part of the first chapter that it is anything but an introduction to the subject. I've seen this before (for example with "Gamut"'s Logic, Language, and Meaning, Volume 1: Introduction to Logic ) and I always come away from the reading experience feeling that while one may not absolutely need previous knowledge on the subject to understand them because they do go through the basics in the beginning, they do so at such a pace, with so little time to really grasp all the definitions, distinctions, positions and what have you, that it is hopelessly optimistic to think that any reader could understand everything without having encountered these concepts previously. This is, rather than a true introduction, a survey of the subject of epistemology that covers everything from the basics up to advanced discussions introducing the reader to the current debates going on among academic philosophers.

In any case, as a survey, it does a fantastic job. It starts with the basics: the classic definition of knowledge, the ideals of knowledge from which that definition sprung, the challenges from scepticism of different kinds (the main distinction made by Williams is between ancient scepticism's Agrippan trilemma challenging knowledge as a whole and Cartesian scepticism regarding knowledge of the external world) and moves up to modern times with the more sophisticated fallibilistic conceptions of knowledge, the problematic Gettier cases which this conception invites and the debates between internalists and externalists on the one hand, and that between foundationalists and coherentists on the other. Along the way Williams also deals with questions of the normativity of epistemology, arguments for the naturalization of epistemology, and the value of knowledge.

I've already mentioned that this book fits into the category of "sort-of-introductory-but-not-really", but something that sets it apart is that the latter part of the book contains a lot of original work regarding the challenges of scepticism where the author lays out his own suggestion for how to deal with it. This is tied to his contextualist conception of the justification of knowledge, which he poses as an alternative to both of the more traditional conceptions of foundationalism and coherentism (view which Williams reject). It's all seems very original (but keep in mind that this is coming from someone who is by no means an expert on these issues), is very advanced with a form of rigor in dealing with seemingly all relevant issues, possible objections and unwanted consequences (Williams is very keen on distancing his views from the kinds of relativism that they can seem to invite) while simultaneously being clear and pedagogical as long as the reader has the patience required to understand these issues.

In laying out his own views, Williams sometimes does a very good job of arguing for them (his contextualism seems very sensible and while I'm not sure if he really manages to dismiss charges of relativism, his conception of justification seems to fair a lot better than foundationalism and coherentism as he presents them, though I'm not sure that they get a really fair treatment) and sometimes not. An example of when he really does not do a good job of arguing for his position is in dismissing externalism without really treating it as carefully and thoroughly as one would have wished. Another example would be when he gets into the issue of truth, where I felt he did a dismal job of convincing the reader that the sort of deflationist view of truth that he seems to prefer is a reasonable one. In my view, deflationist accounts of truth are barely coherent. You often see a defence of deflationism relying on the disquotation criterion for truth (though there may be other ways which I have yet to encounter to defend deflationism), as if that was a sensible conclusion to draw from the criterion. Searle did a much better job at dealing with this issue in his The Construction of Social Reality where he showed convincingly that teh disquotation criterion actually suggests the correspondence theory of truth (or at least a specific version of that theory, which Searle lays out in a very convincing fashion). I agree wholeheartedly with Searle that (as I understand him) the disquotation criterion shows how claims of the truth of statements match the fact (a second-order fact I suppose) that the proposition expressed by the statement matches a fact in the world. Searle thinks, and I agree, that the very fact (second-order fact again) that there is such a "matching" needs a word and we might as well use "correspondence" to describe this. This is hardly central to the subject or the book though, I'd argue, very, very important to figure out correctly in laying out a particular epistemology and it seems Williams should agree considering his dismissal of epistemology as "first philosophy" (in the Cartesian tradition) i favor of a conception of the subject as something that permeates philosophy and relies upon theories of meaning and philosophy of mind (and theories of truth too, I'd argue, though Williams as a deflationist does not have a substantial theory of truth that goes beyond its dispensability so he can probably neglect to deal with it throughout his epistemological survey). I'm not sure if I treat Williams quite fairly in this area, but I think his presentation of truth and other issues in the last part of the book was shallow in a way that angered me a bit, especially since the bigger part of the book was anything but shallow.

Had the whole book kept up the level of sophistication even in dealing with the issues about which I've now complained, I would have given it five stars out of five but as it stands, it reaches four but no more (four and a half might have been more fair had that been available). Four stars is by no means bad of course, and neither is the book. It's an excellent survey of the subject of epistemology for anyone not already immersed in the issues (and probably for the experts as well) as long as they have at least a little bit of understanding of at the very least general philosophical questions (it is not by any stretch a good first book on philosophy) and probably some basic knowledge about epistemology is good too. Do read it if you have some basic understanding of the questions raised in epistemology and wish to get an excellent treatise of all the complicated issues being discussed among professional epistemologists today.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Williams uses radical skepticism like a scalpel to show the problems with foundationalism and coherentism, and then to argue for his own contextualist position. I'd always thought this was a textbook, but while it is certainly broad in scope, I'd describe more as an extensive argument from epistemology in general for his own position.

[Savannah]

Sometimes useful, surely uninteresting to the non-academic reader. I don’t think his handling of coherentism is fair but I appreciate his development and defense of contextualism.

[Dan Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A philosopher believes something. A skeptic asks "Why?" The philosopher replies, "Why not?"

That's the book in a nutshell. The history of philosophers constructing meta-belief systems and skeptics cheekily asking why goes back to the Greeks and continues up to the present day.

It is easy to become suspicious that the philosophers are using a lot of precise words and careful buildup to prove that you can tell other people the sky is blue and not feel guilty about it, and that the skeptics' claims that you could be a brain in a vat are not worth thinking about. In other words, the book is merely a way interpret your common sense intuitions about knowledge and what you think.

But you already knew all that, so this book is more about the journey than the destination.

Foundationalism treats knowledge as a tree. The skeptical question is "what is the root?" Coherence treats knowledge as a mathematical graph. The skeptical question is "what is the center?" Contextualism treats knowledge as an environment (in the computational sense) with certain givens. The skeptical question is "why this environment?"

To my mind the book, which is meant to be a way forward for epistemology out of foundationalism and holism, does not answer this last question adequately. You are in a certain context of knowing. You are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, that is enough. (Except for poor Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.)

The treatment of language communities which is so crucial, to my mind, is left for the end. One explanation of what's so wrong with skeptical arguments is that the skeptics are not taking part in a language community with the people who they question. What does it mean to ask if anything is real while you are pretending to convince another person that nothing is real? How can you define asking or discourse in such a context? Here the medium is more of the message than the message itself is. The right response is to complain that you don't speak alien and you can't understand this alien outlook, not to try to imagine that the alien is saying something.

The treatment of Kuhn and Popper which is at the crux is saved for the denouement. In particular, Kuhn's belief that a new revolutionary theory obliterates the old categories is soft-pedaled by Williams. Contra Williams, we not only don't believe that the ether exists. We believe it's wrong to think about a medium through which light travels. We don't try to explain ether in terms of general relativity either. We just consider it a dead end. That's why Kuhn says it may be too difficult to teach the old dog the new language. The old dog keeps trying to translate it into the old words. But they may not translate unless you go deep down into the assumptions under the language. In other words, you only really change your knowledge if you radically change the context.

So even in this contextual approach, some contexts are more equal than others.

What draws you from one language community to another? What privileges one context over another? Why is knowledge valuable? This is the weakest part of the book from start to finish. Williams seems persuaded by the pragmatic approach, but it is hopelessly intertwined with conventional notions of value that he does not defend at all. Science delivers technological progress, which delivers mastery and achievement of human desires, to what end? As far as I can tell, there is no answer. Williams might have it that asking for an end is like asking for a foundation to knowledge. Instead of an end, he would just suggest that you find yourself in a context with certain cherished values or norms. At some point you will just give up asking to what end and say, this path is mine, I can have no other.

I feel more informed having read the book. But I still have the nagging suspicion that the common-sense understanding of knowledge is much richer and more potent than the dissection in this book.

[G9 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Williams' approach to epistemology takes two forms of skeptical problems as its central task: 1. The Pyrrhonists' pronouncement on our justifactory superstructure - Agrippa's Trilemma, and 2. Cartesian skepticism about the existence of the external world, both of which, if right, would endanger the very possibility of human knowledge

By examining how each available theory of knowledge fares against each of those problems, Williams not only provides a succint and nuanced introduction on the philosophical development of epistemology, but also a clear emphasis on the significance and difficulty of refuting skepticism.

However, I find the argument for his own position - Contexualism - as an alternative to the traditional epistemology against skepticism somewhat lacking. He argues that the traditional conception of knowledge, according to which one's claim to know a certain propositions that p should be earned via one's possession of an evidence-based warrant for that p, would inevitably lead to skepticism, for there does not seem to be any non-questiong-begging evidential warrant for the proposition that there exists an external world that does not fall into one of the three horns of the Agrippa's Trilemma. So the only way to escape the skeptical pronouncement is to abandoned that conception of earned justification. Rather we need to reverse the order: our claim to know is not earned, but is our default epistemic status. Under this conception, a doubt about a specific knowledge-claim is legitimate or sensible only if there is some particular reason in some particular occasions to put that default status under examination. Since we enjoy the default status to claim knowledge, those who wishes to challenge that status must provide reason for so doing: e.g., an accused enjoy default innocence-status in court, and that who hopes to undermine that innocence needs to provide sufficient reason and evidence to support that claim.

The danger with this approach is that a skeptic can simply argue that we are operating under different conception of knowledge, but that disagreement alone is not reason to reject skepticism nor the traditional conception of knowledge under which skepticism operates. What is being articulated is simply a disagreement concerning our epistemic relation to the world.

[Ryan Garrett · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Effective in description and down-to-earth in example, yet another worthwhile intro to the topic. His description of skepticism and his pointing out of its (dangerous) ungirding of most contemporary theories such as relativism and deconstructionism is excellent. Not my favorite on the topic, but still good and valuable for yet another perspective.

[Kadin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Challenging, but entirely approachable. Does not assume prior knowledge, though such knowledge would be of benefit. Will need to supplement with further reading in the field and will probably reread at some point.

[Tomas Serrien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of the most important questions in modern epistemology.

[Claire]

Recommended in YouTube video "Introduction to Epistemology" by Academy of Ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Icb...

[Scott]

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20013143

[Kiera Boudibiua · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a student of philosophy, I really enjoyed reading this book.