Luminosity and the Safety of Knowledge

:  In his recent Knowledge and its Limits, Timothy Williamson argues that no non‐trivial mental state is such that being in that state suffices for one to be in a position to know that one is in it. In short, there are no “luminous” mental states. His argument depends on a “safety” requirement on kn...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Pacific philosophical quarterly 2004-12, Vol.85 (4), p.396-406
Main Authors: NETA, RAM, ROHRBAUGH, GUY
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Epistemology. Philosophy of science. Theory of knowledge
Knowledge
Literary criticism
Philosophy
Williamson, Timothy
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary::  In his recent Knowledge and its Limits, Timothy Williamson argues that no non‐trivial mental state is such that being in that state suffices for one to be in a position to know that one is in it. In short, there are no “luminous” mental states. His argument depends on a “safety” requirement on knowledge, that one's confident belief could not easily have been wrong if it is to count as knowledge. We argue that the safety requirement is ambiguous; on one interpretation it is obviously true but useless to his argument, and on the other interpretation it is false.
ISSN:0279-0750
1468-0114
DOI:10.1111/j.1468-0114.2004.00207.x