Knowledge and Its Limits 1st Edition

by Timothy Williamson (Author)

5 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0199256563

ISBN-10: 019925656X

Why is ISBN important?

Trade in your item
Get a $1.25
Gift Card.

Trade in
Learn More

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Share <Embed>

Buy used On clicking this link, a new layer will be open

$9.96 On clicking this link, a new layer will be open

Condition: Used - Very Good

In Stock. Sold by Eborn Books - Salt Lake City

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

28 Used from $9.95

+ $3.99 shipping

Turn on 1-Click ordering

Buy new On clicking this link, a new layer will be open

$50.00 On clicking this link, a new layer will be open

In Stock.

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it Saturday, Oct. 22? Order within and choose Saturday Delivery at checkout. Details

26 New from $19.78

FREE Shipping.

Turn on 1-Click ordering

Ship to:

Select a shipping address:

More Buying Choices

26 New from $19.78 28 Used from $9.95

54 used & new from $9.95

See All Buying Options

Free%20Two-Day%20Shipping%20for%20College%20Students%20with%20Amazon%20Student

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.

Knowledge and Its Limits

$50.00 FREE Shipping. In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Frequently Bought Together

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

27

Hardcover
$28.67
Saul A. Kripke

31

Paperback
$25.66
Timothy Williamson

4

Paperback
$34.82
John Rawls

102

Paperback
$32.97
Timothy Williamson

3

Paperback
$26.41
Derek Parfit

25

Paperback
$43.66

NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

Product Details

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1 edition (December 19, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 019925656X
ISBN-13: 978-0199256563
Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 0.7 x 6.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #794,163 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #286 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Philosophy > Epistemology
- #708 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Epistemology

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars

5 star		100%
4 star		0%
3 star		0%
2 star		0%
1 star		0%

Write a customer review

See all 5 customer reviews

Top Customer Reviews

wintry and uncompromising exactitude

ByA customeron December 12, 2003

Format: Paperback

Here is a great line from a review of Williamson's book by N.M.L. Nathan: "I much admired its wintry and uncompromising exactitude."

The point is partly that Williamson displays a new level of logical precision in epistemology. His ability to spell things out explicitly can be scary.

Perhaps the point is also, partly, that there is almost no humor in this book (unless you count things like, "It is at best negligent to bury someone without evidence that he is dead, even if he is in fact dead" (p. 245)).

Given the history of this subject, the leading idea, viz., that knowledge is conceptually primitive and central to the analysis of concepts like "evidence", "assertion", and maybe even "belief" itself, is novel and bold. It's remarkable to see this now, thousands of years after Plato's Theatetus.

This is mainly a work of epistemology, but philosophers of mind should read it too. Williamson's defense of broadness and the causal efficacy of knowledge is creative and, to me, persuasive.

See also Williamson's sharp defense of a knowledge norm as defining the social practice of assertion. This is a terrific object-lesson in how to relate individual mental states to social practices.

I think the much-discussed anti-luminosity argument is merely clever, and actually the weakest part of the book. But I also think that one could accept most of the rest of the book while holding that knowledge (not, of course, lack-of-knowledge) is in some relevant sense luminous.

0Comment 62 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Groundbreaking Epistemology

ByA customeron December 22, 2002

Format: Hardcover

The last several decades have seen epistemology bogged down in various reductionist attempts to define knowledge in non-circular terms. Williamson adopts the view that knowledge is a primitive state. If he is right, epistemology cannot consist in the attempt to give a reductive analysis of knowledge. Williamson then demonstrates the interest of his brand of non-reductive epistemology, by drawing radical conclusions from his characteristically precise arguments about a host of topics from self-knowledge to the nature of evidence. This is the most important book in epistemology in decades, written by the leading living philosopher outside of normative ethics and history.

0Comment 32 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

ByKrzysztof Kuczmaon October 12, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A fantastic piece of analysis.

0CommentWas this review helpful to you?YesNo

ByPaolo Natalion November 10, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Wonderful

0CommentWas this review helpful to you?YesNo

ByA customeron November 3, 2002

Format: Hardcover

This may well be the most important work in epistemology to have appeared in the last decade. Like its author's other works, it is precise, deep, startlingly creative and deeply thought-provoking -- a first-rate piece of analytic philosophy!

0Comment 20 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Customer Images

See all customer images

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Knowledge and Its Limits

Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway

This item: Knowledge and Its Limits

Set up a giveaway

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?

Vagueness (Problems of Philosophy) Paperback

Timothy Williamson

5

$45.95
Modal Logic as Metaphysics Paperback

Timothy Williamson

3

$26.41
The Philosophy of Philosophy (The Blackwell / Brown Lectures in Philosophy, Vol. 2) Paperback

Timothy Williamson

4

$34.82

Conditions of Use
Privacy Notice
Interest-Based Ads
© 1996-2016, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates