Williamson on the Evidence for Skepticism

Southwest Philosophical Studies 30:23-32 (2008)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Timothy Williamson has offered a novel approach to refuting external world skepticism in his influential book, Knowledge and Its Limits. The strategy employed by Williamson is to show that skeptics falsely attribute too much self-knowledge to the epistemic agent when they claim that one’s evidence is the same when in a “good case” as it would be in a similar “bad case.” Williamson argues that one’s evidence is not the same in a good case as it would be in a bad case. My contention is that Williamson’s account fails. In order to make his case against skepticism, Williamson must attribute an overly strong conception of evidence to the skeptic, which can be avoided by appealing to a phenomenal concept of evidence. Thus, a different approach must be taken to avoid skeptical consequences.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Evidence= Knowledge: Williamson's Solution to Skepticism?Stephen Schiffer - 2009 - In Patrick Greenough, Duncan Pritchard & Timothy Williamson (eds.), Williamson on Knowledge. Oxford University Press. pp. 183--202.
Williamson on skepticism and evidence.Richard Fumerton - 2000 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (3):629-635.
Evidence and Knowledge.Clayton Littlejohn - 2011 - Erkenntnis 74 (2):241-262.
Knowledge, evidence, and skepticism according to Williamson. [REVIEW]Anthony Brueckner - 2005 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (2):436–443.
Reply to commentators.Timothy Williamson - 1997 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (4):945-953.
Why Williamson should be a sceptic.Dylan Dodd - 2007 - Philosophical Quarterly 57 (229):635–649.
Mechanistic Evidence: Disambiguating the Russo–Williamson Thesis.Phyllis McKay Illari - 2011 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 25 (2):139-157.
How fallacious is the consequence fallacy?Wai-Hung Wong & Zanja Yudell - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 165 (1):221-227.
Interpretation and knowledge maximization.Aidan McGlynn - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 160 (3):391-405.
On doing better, experimental-style. [REVIEW]Jonathan M. Weinberg - 2009 - Philosophical Studies 145 (3):455 - 464.

Analytics

Added to PP
2013-01-27

Downloads
238 (#77,668)

6 months
6 (#202,901)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

John M. DePoe
University of Iowa (PhD)

Citations of this work

Justification by acquaintance.John M. DePoe - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):7555-7573.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references