Realism and Knowledge First. Interview with Timothy Williamson

Abstract

The renowned British philosopher Timothy Williamson talks about his philosophical views and main lines of research. Williamson is a metaphysical realist in a broad sense. Fir him there are true or false answers to questions about all aspects of reality. Classical logic is a universal true theory. Knowledge-first epistemology is an alternative to the traditional belief-first epistemology. The former takes the concept of knowledge as a basic concept, explaining other epistemic concepts, including belief, in its terms, whereas the latter does the opposite. Knowledge, not truth, is the fundamental epistemic good. The Gettier problem and the skeptical problem that arise within traditional epistemology are ill posed and therefore cannot be solved. Hybrid epistemological theories do not satisfy the principles of simplicity and beauty and are refuted by counter-examples. Epistemic contextualism is problematic, and relativism violates the semantics of the phenomena being explained. Knowledge does not entail knowledge about knowledge. Knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that. The distinction between a priori and a posteriori is superficial, and there are no analytical truths. The concept of qualia is unhelpful for solving the problems related to consciousness. The so-called “hard problem” of consciousness points to an area of conceptual confusions in which we do not know how to reason properly. Speculative metaphysics is quite a respectable enterprise. But progress in metaphysics is not automatic; it requires the right methodology.