I begin by criticizing reductionist knowledge-first epistemology according to which knowledge can be used to reductively analyze other epistemic phenomena. My central concern is that proponents of such an approach commit a similar mistake to the one that they charge their opponents with. This is the mistake of seeking to reductively analyze basic epistemic phenomena in terms of other allegedly more fundamental phenomena. I then turn to non-reductionist brands of knowledge-first epistemology. Specifically, I (...) consider the knowledge norms of assertion and contrast them with an alternative that I have developed elsewhere (Gerken 2011, 2012a, 2013b, 2014, 2015a, 2015c, MS). On the basis of the critical discussion, I question whether a knowledge-first program that is both plausible and distinctive has been identified. On a more positive note, I sketch the contours of an alternative that I label ‘equilibristic epistemology.’ According to this approach, there isn’t a single epistemic phenomenon or concept that is “first.” Rather, there are a number of basic epistemic phenomena that are not reductively analyzable although they may be co-elucidated in a non-reductive manner. This approach preserves some grains of truth in knowledge-first epistemology. For example, it preserves the idea that knowledge can be taken to be explanatorily basic and unanalyzable. However, since no single epistemic phenomenon is first, knowledge is not first. (shrink)

Knowledge-first epistemology places knowledge at the normative core of epistemological affairs: on this approach, central epistemic phenomena are to be analyzed in terms of knowledge. This study offers a defence of an integrated, naturalistic knowledge-first account of justified belief, reasons, evidence and defeat, permissible assertion and action, and the epistemic normativity of practical and theoretical reasoning. On this account, the epistemic is an independent normative domain organized around one central etiological epistemic function: generating (...) knowledge. In turn, this epistemic function generates epistemic norms of proper functioning that constitute the epistemic domain, and govern moves in our epistemic practice, such as forming beliefs, asserting, and reasoning. (shrink)

This paper examines three reasons to think that Craig's genealogy of the concept of knowledge is incompatible with knowledge-first epistemology and finds that far from being incompatible with it, the genealogy lends succour to it. This reconciliation turns on two ideas. First, the genealogy is not history, but a dynamic model of needs. Secondly, by recognizing the continuity of Craig's genealogy with Williams's genealogy of truthfulness, we can see that while both genealogies start out from (...) specific needs explaining what drives the development of certain concepts rather than others, they then factor in less specific needs which in reality do not come later at all, and which have also left their mark on these concepts. These genealogies thereby reveal widespread functional dynamics driving what I call the de-instrumentalization of concepts, the recognition of which adds to the plausibility of such instrumentalist approaches to concepts. (shrink)

Since the publication of Timothy Williamson’s Knowledge and its Limits, knowledge-first epistemology has become increasingly influential within epistemology. This paper discusses the viability of the knowledge-first program. The paper has two main parts. In the first part, I briefly present knowledge-first epistemology as well as several big picture reasons for concern about this program. While this considerations are pressing, I concede, however, that they are not conclusive. To determine the (...) viability of knowledge-first epistemology will require philosophers to carefully evaluate the individual theses endorsed by knowledge-first epistemologists as well as to compare it with alternative packages of views. In the second part of the paper, I contribute to this evaluation by considering a specific thesis endorsed by many knowledge-first epistemologists – the knowledge norm of assertion. According to this norm, roughly speaking, one should assert that p only if one knows that p. I present and motivate this thesis. I then turn to a familiar concern with the norm: In many cases, it is intuitively appropriate for someone who has a strongly justified belief that p, but who doesn't know that p, to assert that p. Proponents of the knowledge norm of assertion typically explain away our judgments about such cases by arguing that the relevant assertion is improper but that the subject has an excuse and is therefore not blameworthy for making the assertion. I argue that that this response does not work. In many of the problem cases, it is not merely that the subject’s assertion is blameless. Rather, the subject positively ought to make the assertion. Appealing to an excuse cannot be used to adequately explain this fact. (Nor can we explain this fact by appealing to some other, quite different, consideration.) Finally, I conclude by briefly considering whether we should replace the knowledge norm of assertion with an alternative norm. I argue that the most plausible view is that there is no norm specifically tied to assertion. (shrink)

'Knowledge-First' constitutes what is widely regarded as one of the most significant innovations in contemporary epistemology in the past 25 years. Knowledge-first epistemology is the idea that knowledge per se should not be analysed in terms of its constituent parts (e.g., justification, belief), but rather that these and other notions should be analysed in terms of the concept of knowledge. This volume features a substantive introduction and 13 original essays from leading and (...) up-and-coming philosophers on the topic of knowledge-first philosophy. The contributors' essays range from foundational issues to applications of this project to other disciplines including the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of perception, ethics and action theory. Knowledge First: Approaches in Epistemology and Mind aims to provide a relatively open-ended forum for creative and original scholarship with the potential to contribute and advance debates connected with this philosophical project. (shrink)

According to epistemological disjunctivism (ED), ordinary perceptual experience ensures an opportunity for perceptual knowledge. In recent years, two distinct models of this idea have been developed. For Duncan Pritchard (Epistemological disjunctivism, 2012, Oxford University Press; Epistemic angst: Radical skepticism and the groundlessness of our believing, 2012, Princeton University Press), perception provides distinctly powerful reasons for belief. By contrast, Clayton Littlejohn (Journal of Philosophical Research, 41, 201; Knowledge first, 2017, Oxford University Press; Normativity: Epistemic and practical, 2018, Oxford (...) University Press) and Alan Millar (The nature and value of knowledge: Three investigations, 2010, Oxford University Press; Philosophical Issues, 21, 332) argue for a version of ED in terms of a “knowledge first” program, on which perception directly provides knowledge, without relying on antecedent reasons or justification. Specifically, both Littlejohn and Millar argue that “reasons first” ED faces a problematic regress. In this article, I defend “reasons first” ED by arguing that experience provides a type of reason that escapes the regress. I also argue that reasons are a fundamental aspect of ED, especially in its anti-skeptical stance. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to develop a view that I call “Evidential Knowledge First”. To do so, first, I consider a traditional way of developing evidentialism, which I call Traditional Evidentialism, and argue that, while it vindicates the roles we expect evidence to play, it struggles accounting for cases of non-inferential justification and non-inferential knowledge (§2-3). I then consider a view we might call “Technically Evidentialism”, which we get when we jointly take two (...) core claims of knowledge-first epistemology, e.g., E=K and J=K. These claims jointly entail the evidentialist idea that justification supervenes on evidence, while avoiding the problem faced by Traditional Evidentialism. However, and contra Traditional Evidentialism, the resulting view doesn’t account for the roles evidence plays in justifying our beliefs (§4). This brings us to Evidential Knowledge-First, which develops traditional evidentialism against the background of knowledge-first epistemology in a way that retains the best features of both views (§5). Evidential Knowledge-First provides us with a novel two-tiered account of knowledge. As we will see, a core feature of my view is that it entails that cases of non-inferential knowledge are cases of knowledge without justification. I argue that this is a benefit of the view (§6). (shrink)

Process reliabilism -- Virtue reliabilism: justified belief -- Virtue reliabilism: knowledge -- Knowledge first virtue reliabilism -- The competition -- The safety dilemma -- Lottery cases.

According to anti‐reductionism in the epistemology of testimony, testimonial entitlement is easy to come by: all you need to do is listen to what you are being told. Say you like anti‐reductionism; one question that you will need to answer is how come testimonial entitlement comes so cheap; after all, people are free to lie.This paper has two aims: first, it looks at the main anti‐reductionist answers to this question and argues that they remain unsatisfactory. Second, it goes (...) on a rescue mission on behalf of anti‐reductionism. I put forth a novel, knowledge‐first anti‐reductionist account, which I dub ‘Testimonial Contractarianism’. According to the view defended here, in virtue of the social contract in play, compliance with the norms governing speech acts is the default position for speakers. Insofar as norm compliance is the default for speakers, I argue, all else equal, entitlement to believe is the default for hearers. (shrink)

This paper commences by making a case for a naturalized approach to knowledge‐first epistemology. On this basis it then goes on to describe and defend a naturalized, functionalist account of group knowledge. It then contrasts this with Jennifer Lackey's (2021) account of the epistemological status of groups.

During the last 20 years, knowledge-centered approaches have become increasingly popular in analytic epistemology. Rather than trying to account for knowledge in other terms, these approaches take knowledge as the starting point for the elucidation of other epistemic notions (such as belief, justification, rationality, etc.). Knowledge-centered approaches have been so influential that it now looks like epistemology is undergoing a factive turn. However, relatively little has been done to explore how knowledge-centered views fare (...) in new fields inside and beyond epistemology strictly understood. This volume aims at remedying this situation by putting together contributions that investigate the significance of knowledge in debates where its roles have been less explored. The goal is to see how far knowledge-centered views can go by exploring new prospects and identifying new trends of research for the knowledge-first program. Extending knowledge-centered approaches in this way not only promises to deliver novel insights in these neglected fields, but also to revisit more traditional debates from a fresh perspective. As a whole, the volume develops and evaluates the knowledge-first program in original and fertile ways. (shrink)

I will claim that the distinction Craig French describes between “specific realizations of knowledge” and “means of knowing”, after respective theorisations by Timothy Williamson and Quassim Cassam, can be seen as a faultline between epistemology on the one hand, and the analysis of ordinary language use on the other. The possibility of this disjunction, I believe, raises the question as to whether the latter kind of analysis has anything to contribute to epistemology at all. Cassam’s “explanatory” conception (...) of ways of knowing is shown to be inconsistent as an epistemology, and prone to use of unfair examples even considered as the analysis of ordinary discourse for expressions of knowledge. Nonetheless, in order to argue that this is the case, the “explanatory” conception helps us to consider the better mode of analysis for explanations of knowledge in philosophy. (shrink)

According to a tradition reaching back to Plato, questions about the nature of knowledge are to be answered by offering an analysis in terms of truth, belief, justification, and other factors presumed to be in some sense more basic than knowledge itself. In light of the apparent failure of this approach, knowledge first philosophy instead takes knowledge as the starting point in epistemology and related areas of the philosophies of language and mind. Knowledge (...) cannot be analyzed in the traditional sense, but this does not make it mysterious or unimportant. On the contrary, we are freed to use our grasp of what knowledge is to elucidate the nature of belief, justification, evidence, the speech act of assertion, and the demands on action and practical reasoning, and to treat knowledge as a purely mental state in its own right. Knowledge First? offers the first overview and critical evaluation of knowledge first philosophy as a whole. (shrink)

Recent knowledge first epistemology features a number of different accounts of justified belief, including a knowledge first reductionism according to which to believe justifiably is to know Sutton, Littlejohn, Williamson, a knowledge first version of accessibilism Millar and a knowledge first version of mentalism Bird. This paper offers a knowledge first version of virtue epistemology and argues that it is preferable to its knowledge first epistemological rivals: (...) only knowledge first virtue epistemology manages to steer clear of a number of problems that its competition encounters. (shrink)

In the 21st century knowledge-centered approaches, which take knowledge as the starting-point for elucidation of other epistemic notions (e.g. belief, rationality), have come to the fore in analytic epistemology. This volume extends the knowledge-first program by exploring how these approaches fare in new fields inside and beyond epistemology.

This book is about the nature and value of knowledge. At its core is a simple idea: we can answer many interesting and difficult philosophical questions by reflecting on the role (purpose, function) of epistemic evaluation in human life. I call this approach ‘function-first epistemology’. I use this method to illuminate the nature and value of knowledge, the foundations of epistemic normativity, the epistemology of testimony, and skepticism.

I discuss three understandings of the idea of “Knowledge First Epistemology”, i.e. Timothy Williamson’s suggestion that we should take knowledge as a starting point, rather than trying to analyze it. Some have taken this to be a suggestion about the role of the concept of knowledge, but Williamson also seems to be concerned with intuition-based metaphysics. As an alternative, I develop the idea that knowledge may be a social kind that can be understood through (...) a functional analysis in the tradition of Edward Craig. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to relate two trending topics in contemporary epistemology: the discussion of group knowledge and the discussion of knowledge-first approach. In social epistemology no one has seriously applied and developed Williamson’s theory of knowledge-first approach to the case of group knowledge yet. For example, scholars of group knowledge typically assume that knowledge is analyzed in terms of more basic concepts, such as group belief or acceptance, (...) group justification, and so on. However, if Williamson’s theory of knowledge is correct, these are not good analyzes for understanding group knowledge. For, in such framework, knowledge is not analyzed in terms of belief and justification, and the same should apply to group knowledge. Thus, we propose to analyze which consequences Williamson’s theory has for social epistemology, namely for an understanding of group knowledge. The questions that will guide this article are the following: What is a knowledge-first approach to group knowledge? And what does a knowledge-first approach teach us with regard to one of the most pressing issues of social epistemology, namely the dispute between summativists and non-summativists accounts of groups? We claim that a knowledge-first account of group knowledge can be offered and that it favors non-summativism. (shrink)

This paper aims to outline, and argue for, an approach to episodic memory broadly in the spirit of knowledge-first epistemology. I discuss a group of influential views of epsiodic memory that I characterize as ‘two-factor accounts’, which have both proved popular historically and have also seen a resurgence in recent work on the philosophy of memory. What is common to them is that they try to give an account of the nature of episodic memory in which the (...) concept of knowledge plays no explanatory role. I highlight some parallels between these two-factor accounts and attempts to give a reductive definition of knowledge itself. I then discuss some problems two-factor accounts of episodic memory face in explaining the distinctive sense in which episodic recollection involves remembering personally experienced past events, before sketching an alternative approach to episodic memory, which takes as basic the idea that episodic memory involves the retention of knowledge. I argue that we can give an exhaustive constitutive account of what episodic memory is, and how it differs from other types of mental states, by considering what particular type of knowledge is retained in episodic memory, and what exactly having that knowledge consists in. (shrink)

I develop a challenge for a widely suggested knowledge-first account of belief that turns, primarily, on unknowable propositions. I consider and reject several responses to my challenge and sketch a new knowledge-first account of belief that avoids it.

The traditional approach to the analysis of knowledge sees it as a true belief meeting further conditions. I discuss an empirical challenge to this traditional approach, which I call the argument from development. Briefly, the argument is that belief cannot be conceptually prior to knowledge because children acquire the concept of knowledge first. Several prominent scientists and philosophers have argued that this latter claim is supported by many findings with infants and young children. Here, I defend (...) the traditional approach by raising three challenges to the argument from development: the competence-performance challenge, the double-standard challenge, and the underdetermination challenge. I conclude that the developmental data are fully compatible with children acquiring the concept of belief first. In closing, I also argue that further research is needed to investigate when children acquire a concept of knowledge. (shrink)

I motivate and develop a novel account of the epistemic assessability of suspension as a development of my knowledge-first, virtue-epistemological research program. First, I extend an argument of Ernest Sosa's for the claim that evidentialism cannot adequately account for the epistemic assessability of suspension. This includes a kind of knowledge-first evidentialism of the sort advocated by Timothy Williamson. I agree with Sosa that the reasons why evidentialism fails motivate a virtue-epistemological approach, but argue that my (...) knowledge-first account is preferable to his view. According to my account, rational belief is belief that manifests proper practical respect for what it takes to know. Beliefs are the only primary bearers of epistemic evaluation since they are the only candidates for knowledge. However, suspension can manifest a derivative kind of practical respect for what it takes to know. Thus, we can explain why the same sort of assessment is applicable to both belief and suspension, and why belief has a privileged claim to these properties. Lastly, I'll look at Sosa's and Williamson's treatments of Pyrrhonian skepticism, which treats a certain kind of suspension as the epistemically superior practice, and argue that my account provides a better anti-skeptical response than either of their approaches. (shrink)

The knowledge-first solution to the New Evil Demon Problem (NEDP) goes hand in hand with a particular conception of the normativity of justification, one according to which a justified belief is one that satisfies some sort of ought or should (Williamson forthcoming). This claim is incompatible with another, well accepted, view that regards the normativity of justification. According to this established view, a justified belief is rather something that is neither obligatory, nor forbidden (see e.g. Alston 1989, 1993, (...) 2006; Ginet 1975). The purpose of this contribution is to settle the debate between these two irreconcilable conceptions of the normativity of justification. The main upshot is that the knowledge-first conception of the normativity of justification, the one on which the knowledge-first solution to the NEDP relies, seems in fact superior. (shrink)

This paper is a response to “Inferential Evidence” by Jeffrey Dunn, in which he argues that my account of evidence is internally inconsistent, and that any form of Bayesian epistemology excludes evidence gained by inductive inference (which my account allows). In response, I show how the alleged inconsistency dissolves once the process of gaining evidence by inductive inference is fully articulated into the relevant stages, with due attention to the potential role of recognitional capacities.

There is a New Idea in epistemology. It goes by the name of ‘knowledge first,’ and it is particularly associated with Timothy Williamson’s book Knowledge and Its Limits. In slogan form, to put knowledge first is to treat knowledge as basic or fundamental, and to explain other states—belief, justification, maybe even content itself—in terms of knowledge, instead of vice versa. The idea has proven enormously interesting, and equally controversial. But deep foundational questions (...) about its actual content remain relatively unexplored. We think that a wide variety of views travel under the banner of ‘knowledge first’ (and that the slogan doesn’t help much with differentiating them). Furthermore, we think it is far from straightforward to draw connections between certain of these views; they are more independent than they are often assumed to be. Our project here is exploratory and clarificatory. We mean to tease apart various ‘knowledge first’ claims, and explore what connections they do or do not have with one another. Our taxonomy is offered in §2, and connections are explored in §3. The result, we hope, will be a clearer understanding of just what the knowledge first theses are. We conclude, in §4, with some brief suggestions as to how we think the various theses might be evaluated. (shrink)

I provide a novel knowledge-first account of justification that avoids the pitfalls of existing accounts while preserving the underlying insight of knowledge-first epistemologies: that knowledge comes first. The view I propose is, roughly, this: justification is grounded in our practical knowledge (know-how) concerning the acquisition of propositional knowledge (knowledge-that). I first refine my thesis in response to immediate objections. In subsequent sections I explain the various ways in which this thesis (...) is theoretically superior to existing knowledge-first accounts of justification. The upshot is a virtue-theoretic, knowledge-first view of justification that is internalist-friendly and able to explain more facts about justification than any other available view. (shrink)

On a widely suggested knowledge-first account of belief, to believe p is to phi as if one knew p. I challenge this view by arguing against various regimentations of it. I conclude by generalizing my argument to alternative knowledge-first views suggested by Williamson and Wimmer.

[This papers explores a novel case for the normativity of knowledge for belief – something that is compatible with the knowledge/factual awareness distinction I've explored elsewhere.] There are two different kinds of enkratic principles for belief: evidential enkratic principles and normative enkratic principles. It’s frequently taken for granted that there’s not an important difference between them. But evidential enkratic principles are undermined by considerations that gain no traction at all against their normative counterparts. The idea that such an (...) asymmetry exists between evidential and normative enkratic principles is surprising all on its own. It is also something that calls out for explanation. Similarly, the considerations that undermine evidential enkratic principles also undermine certain narrow-scope evidential principles. This too generates explanatory questions. I show how a knowledge-first view of rationality can easily address these explanatory questions. Thus we have one more reason to put knowledge first in [some areas of] epistemology. (shrink)

What should knowledge first theorists say about the value of knowledge? In this paper I approach this issue by arguing for a single ‘modest knowledge first claim’ about the value of knowledge. This is that the special value of knowledge isn’t merely instrumental value relative to true belief. I show that MKF is inconsistent with the version of the Platonic stability theory that Williamson defends in Knowledge and its Limits. I then argue (...) in favour of MKF by arguing that Williamson’s stability theory fails for reasons that plausibly generalise to any theory of the value of knowledge that is inconsistent with MKF. Crucial to this argument is a putative adequacy condition on philosophical theories of the value of knowledge: that, in order to fully explain the special value of knowledge, a theory must identify respects in which knowledge is more valuable than true belief that give enquirers adequate reason for preferring knowledge to true belief. I conclude by suggesting that this adequacy condition is the source of a more general dilemma for proponents of philosophical theories of the value of knowledge. (shrink)

This idea that what is distinctive of intentional performances (or at least of those intentional performances that amount to skilled actions) is one’s practical knowledge in it —i.e., knowledge of what one is doing while doing it— famously traces back to Anscombe ([]1963] 2000). While many philosophers have theorized about Anscombe’s notion of practical knowledge (e.g., Setiya (2008), Thompson et al. (2011), Schwenkler (2019), O’Brien (2007)), there is a wide disagreement about how to understand it. This paper (...) investigates how best to understand practical knowledge for it to play the desired explanatory role in a reductive theory of intentional action, of intention-in-action, and of control-in-action. I argue that practical knowledge ought to be construed as a dynamic knowledge state and that structured practical senses (Pavese 2015) are needed to model it. (shrink)

The book develops and synthesises two main ideas: contextualism about knowledge ascriptions and a knowledge-first approach to epistemology. The theme of the book is that these two ideas fit together much better than it's widely thought they do. Not only are they not competitors: they each have something important to offer the other.

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 3, Page 674-678, September 2021.

Descartes has a Clarity First epistemology: (i) Clarity is a primitive (indefinable) phenomenal quality: the appearance of truth. (ii) Clarity is prior to other qualities: obscurity, confusion, distinctness – are defined in terms of clarity; epistemic goods – reason to assent, rational inclination to assent, reliability, and knowledge – are explained by clarity. (This is the first of two companion entries; the sequel is called, "Descartes's Method for Achieving Knowledge.").

In Delusions and Beliefs, Kengo Miyazono proposes an extended and convincing argument for the thesis that delusions are malfunctional beliefs. One of the key assumptions for this argument is that belief is a biological notion, and that the function of beliefs is a product of evolution. I challenge the thesis that evolutionary accounts can furnish an epistemologically satisfying account of beliefs because evolutionary success does not necessarily track epistemic success. Consequently, also delusions as beliefs cannot be explained in a satisfactory (...) manner by looking at beliefs’ evolutionary function. How can we then salvage the notion of delusions as epistemologically relevant malfunctioning beliefs? I propose that knowledge-first epistemology gives us a way out. Knowledge-first accounts argue that knowledge is more primitive than belief. That is, knowledge is not a kind of successful beliefs ; instead, beliefs are failed attempts at knowledge. Being a belief derives from the norms of knowledge. Explaining the epistemology of beliefs through the primitive norms of knowledge, we can also explain why delusions are malfunctional beliefs: The cognitive and psychological defects that produce delusions block the beliefs from becoming knowledge. Consequently, delusions are attempts at knowledge that have failed particularly badly. (shrink)

There are two central kinds of epistemological mistakes: believing things you shouldn’t, and failing to believe things that you should. The knowledge-first program offers a canonical explanation for the former: if you believe something without knowing it, you violate the norm to believe only that which you know. But the explanation does not extend in any plausible way to a story about what’s wrong with suspending judgment when one ought to believe. In this paper I explore prospects for (...) a knowledge-centering account of positive epistemic norms that describe epistemic duties to believe. (shrink)

What is it to base a belief on reasons? Existing attempts to give an account of the basing relation encounter a dilemma: either one appeals to some kind of neutral process that does not adequately reflect the way basing is a content‐sensitive first‐personal activity, or one appeals to linking or bridge principles that over‐intellectualize and threaten regress. We explain why this dilemma arises, and diagnose the commitments that are key obstacles to providing a satisfactory account. We explain why they (...) should be rejected anyway, and then offer a new, knowledge‐first virtue epistemological theory of the basing relation that shows how we can substantially theorize about mental processes without these commitments. The resulting view plausibly captures the way in which basing is an inherently mental and content‐sensitive process. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between evidentialism, knowledge‐first epistemology, (E=K) in particular, and justification. Evidentialism gives an account of justified belief in terms of evidence but is silent on the nature of evidence. Knowledge‐first tells us what evidence is but stands in need of an agreed account of justification. So each might be able to supply what the other lacks. I argue that the combination of evidentialism, (E=K), and some plausible principles leads to the scepticism (...) familiar from the Agrippan trilemma. I develop an Evidentialist Knowledge‐First view of justification that avoids scepticism by rejecting the entailment of justification by knowledge. This combination turns out to have unpalatable consequences. Nonetheless, the process of reaching that conclusion teaches lessons both to the evidentialist (regarding what evidence could be) and to the knowledge‐firster (regarding what justification is). (shrink)

In this excellent and well-argued book, Michael Hannon defends two primary claims: first, the function of knowledge-attributions is primarily that of flagging reliable informants; second, proper ep...

The Orthodox View (OV) of the relation between epistemic justification and knowledge has it that justification is conceptually prior to knowledge—and so, can be used to provide a noncircular account of knowledge. OV has come under threat from the increasingly popular “Knowledge First” movement (KFM) in epistemology. I assess several anti-OV arguments due to three of KFM’s most prominent members: Timothy Williamson, Jonathan Sutton, and Alexander Bird. I argue that OV emerges from these attacks (...) unscathed. (shrink)

Much has been written on Newton’s concept of matter, as well as Newton’s laws. Meanwhile, the metaphysical and epistemological relationships between these two principal features of Newtonian philosophy are relatively unexplored. Among the existing accounts of the relationship between bodies and laws, two are especially compelling: the “law-constitutive” approach from Katherine Brading and the “formal-cause” approach from Zvi Biener and Eric Schliesser. Both accounts argue that Newton’s bodies are (at least partially) metaphysically dependent on the laws. That is, according to (...) Brading, Biener, and Schliesser, Newtonian laws are ontologically prior to the bodies they govern. In this article, I reply to Brading, Biener, and Schliesser. I develop negative arguments against their approaches by closely examining three features of Newton’s ontology—forms, particles, and active principles—and their relationship to the laws. I also offer an explanation as to why “law-first” approaches have (understandably) dominated recent Newtonian exegesis. Finally, I present a positive argument for what I believe to be a superior alternative: Newton’s law-first approach is purely pragmatic. It is a feature of his experimental philosophy that we should begin our inquiry into the metaphysical constituents of the universe with the laws that arise from them. This does not entail, however, that Newton views laws as constituting or forming physical bodies. Newton’s metaphysics should be interpreted as “matter-first,” with bodies giving rise to laws, whereas his epistemology should be interpreted as “law-first,” with knowledge of laws giving rise to knowledge of bodies. (shrink)

This paper explores the consequences of applying two natural ideas from epistemology to decision theory: (1) that knowledge should guide our actions, and (2) that we know a lot of non-trivial things. In particular, we explore the consequences of these ideas as they are applied to standard decision theoretic puzzles such as the St. Petersburg Paradox. In doing so, we develop a “knowledge-first” decision theory and we will see how it can help us avoid fanaticism with (...) regard to the St. Petersburg puzzle and related puzzles. The result will be a decision theory that gives a novel, but well-motivated, reason for discounting small probabilities when making decisions. We examine the merits and demerits of such a decision theory. (shrink)

Most current work in epistemology deals with the evaluation and justification of information already acquired. In this book, Jaakko Hintikka instead discusses the more important problem of how knowledge is acquired in the first place. His model of information-seeking is the old Socratic method of questioning, which has been generalized and brought up-to-date through the logical theory of questions and answers that he has developed. Hintikka also argues that philosophers' quest for a definition of knowledge is (...) ill-conceived and that the entire notion of knowledge should be replaced by the concept of information. He offers an analysis of the different meanings of the concept of information and of their interrelations. The result is a new and illuminating approach to the field of epistemology. (shrink)

Could it be right to convict and punish defendants using only statistical evidence? In this paper, I argue that it is not and explain why it would be wrong. This is difficult to do because there is a powerful argument for thinking that we should convict and punish defendants using statistical evidence. It looks as if the relevant cases are cases of decision under risk and it seems we know what we should do in such cases (i.e., maximize expected value). (...) Given some standard assumptions about the values at stake, the case for convicting and punishing using statistical evidence seems solid. In trying to show where this argument goes wrong, I shall argue (against Lockeans, reliabilists, and others) that beliefs supported only by statistical evidence are epistemically defective and (against Enoch, Fisher, and Spectre) that these epistemic considerations should matter to the law. To solve the puzzle about the role of statistical evidence in the law, we need to revise some commonly held assumptions about epistemic value and defend the relevance of epistemology to this practical question. (shrink)

What Is Scientific Knowledge? is a much-needed collection of introductory-level chapters on the epistemology of science. Renowned historians, philosophers, science educators, and cognitive scientists have authored 19 original contributions specifically for this volume. The chapters, accessible for students in both philosophy and the sciences, serve as helpful introductions to the primary debates surrounding scientific knowledge.First-year undergraduates can readily understand the variety of discussions in the volume, and yet advanced students and scholars will encounter chapters rich enough (...) to engage their many interests. The variety and coverage in this volume make it the perfect choice for the primary text in courses on scientific knowledge. It can also be used as a supplemental book in classes in epistemology, philosophy of science, and other related areas. (shrink)