T Williamson
Biographic Data
| ID | 10397 |
|---|---|
| NAME | T Williamson |
| GIVEN NAMES | T |
| FAMILY NAME | Williamson |
| SIGNATURE | WILLIAMSON T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4659-8672 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 61 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 215 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 61 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1946 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Parochial Hexagons: The Causes of Contact Number Variation in Territorial Networks
The territorial networks that humans create are examples of cellular networks, a broad class of polygonal structures that share a consistent set of geometrical and topological properties. Hexagonal polygons predominate in cellular networks, but previous studies of territorial networks have failed to determine whether measuring polygon contact number provides useful information as to how the network evolved. Here we argue that this was due to a fa…
Gillian K. Russell: Barriers to Entailment: Hume's Law and Other Limits on Logical Consequence
Moral Anti-Exceptionalism
This chapter defends an anti-exceptionalist realist approach to the normative, on which it requires no special treatment in metaphysics, epistemology, or semantics. It works within a standard intensional framework, where necessarily coextensive predicates express the same property. Thus a normative predicate and a non-normative one may express the same property, independently of any reductive naturalism. In particular, it explains how the antirea…
Law-Abiding Causal Decision Theory
In this paper we discuss how Causal Decision Theory should be modified to handle a class of problematic cases involving deterministic laws. Causal Decision Theory, as it stands, is problematically biased against your endorsing deterministic propositions (for example it tells you to deny Newtonian physics, regardless of how confident you are of its truth). Our response is that this is not a problem for Causal Decision Theory per se, but arises bec…
Theorizing about evidence
Acting on knowledge-how
The paper explains how to integrate the knowledge-first approach to epistemology with the intellectualist thesis that knowing-how is a kind of knowing-that, with emphasis on their role in practical reasoning. One component of this integration is a belief-based account of desire
Epistemological Consequences of Frege Puzzles
Frege puzzles exploit cognitive differences between co-referential terms (such as ‘Hesperus’ and ‘Phosphorus’). Traditionally, they were handled by some version of Frege’s distinction between sense and reference, which avoided disruptive consequences for epistemology. However, the Fregean programme did not live up to its original promise, and was undermined by the development of theories of direct reference; for semantic purposes, its prospects n…
Abduction, perception, emotion, feeling: Body maps and pattern recognition
Philosophical Method: A Very Short Introduction
What is philosophy and what are philosophers trying to achieve? Philosophical Method: A Very Short Introduction looks at the history of philosophy, including examples from history charting the successes and failures of philosophical thinking. Themes explored in detail include philosophy’s relationship to mathematics and science, common sense and its misinterpretations, the role of debate in the search for truth, and the importance of thought expe…
Hyman on Knowledge and Ability
Semantic Paradoxes and Abductive Methodology
This chapter provides a methodological case for maintaining classical logic even in the face of the semantic paradoxes. It advocates an abductive methodology for choosing, or adjudicating, logics (or, more specifically, logical theories), and notes that the semantic paradoxes constitute promising grounds for an abductive critique of classical logic. As the chapter notes, there is a strong prima facie abductive case for classical logic. This is no…
Replies to Bricker, Divers, and Sullivan
Précis of Modal Logic as Metaphysics
Modal Logic as Metaphysics
Timothy Williamson gives an original and provocative treatment of deep metaphysical questions about existence, contingency, and change, using the latest resources of quantified modal logic. Contrary to the widespread assumption that logic and metaphysics are disjoint, he argues that modal logic provides a structural core for metaphysics.
Boghossian and Casalegno on Understanding and Inference
In response to Paul Boghossian's objections in ‘Inferentialism and the epistemology of logic’, this paper defends counterexamples offered by Paolo Casalegno and the author to an inferentialist account of what it is to understand a logical constant, on which Boghossian had relied in his explanation of our entitlement to reason according to basic logical principles. The importance for understanding is stressed of non-inferential aspects of the use …
Reply to Peacocke
Reply to Horwich
Reply to Stalnaker
Précis of The Philosophy of Philosophy
Reply to Boghossian
Replies to Critics
This chapter presents Timothy Williamson's responses to the arguments presented by his critics in the preceding chapters.
Williamson on knowledge
Reputation and Reliability in Collective Goods: The Case of the Online Encyclopedia Wikipedia
An important organizational innovation enabled by the revolution in information technologies is `open source' production which converts private commodities into essentially public goods. Similar to other public goods, incentives for reputation and group identity appear to motivate contributions to open source projects, overcoming the social dilemma inherent in producing such goods. In this paper we examine how contributor motivations affect the t…
The Philosophy of Philosophy
Preface. Introduction. 1. The Linguistic Turn and the Conceptual Turn. 2. Taking Philosophical Questions at Face Value. 3. Metaphysical Conceptions of Analyticity. 4. Epistemological Conceptions of Analyticity. 5. Knowledge of Metaphysical Modality. 6. Thought Experiments. 7. Evidence in Philosophy. 8. Knowledge Maximization. Afterword. Must Do Better. Appendix 1. Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic. Appendix 2. Counterfactual Donkeys. Biblio…
Knowledge and Scepticism
Scepticism is a disease in which healthy mental processes run pathologically unchecked. Our cognitive immunity system, designed to protect our conception of the world from harmful errors, turns destructively on that conception itself. Since we have false beliefs, we benefit from the ability to detect our mistakes; removing our errors tends to do us good. Our cognitive immunity system should be able to destroy bad old beliefs, not just prevent the…
Knowing and Asserting
This paper aims to identify the constitutive rule(s) of assertion, conceived by analogy with the rules of a game. That assertion has such rules is by no means obvious; perhaps it is more like a natural phenomenon than it seems. One way to find out is by supposing that it has such rules, in order to see where the hypothesis leads and what it explains. That will be done here. The hypothesis is not perfectly clear, of course, but we have at least a …
Contextualism, Subject-Sensitive Invariantism and Knowledge of Knowledge
I schematises the evidence for an understanding of ‘know ’ and other terms of epistemic appraisal that embodies contextualism or subject-sensitive invariantism, and distinguishes between those two approaches. §II argues that although the cases for contextualism and sensitive invariantism rely on a principle of charity in the interpretation of epistemic claims, neither approach satisfies charity fully, since both attribute metalinguistic errors to…
Everything
Generalizing the Lottery Paradox
This paper is concerned with formal solutions to the lottery paradox on which high probability defeasibly warrants acceptance. It considers some recently proposed solutions of this type and presents an argument showing that these solutions are trivial in that they boil down to the claim that perfect probability is sufficient for rational acceptability. The argument is then generalized, showing that a broad class of similar solutions faces the sam…
Converse Relations
Conditionalizing on Knowledge
A theory of evidential probability is developed from two assumptions:(1) the evidential probability of a proposition is its probability conditional on the total evidence;(2) one's total evidence is one's total knowledge. Evidential probability is distinguished from both subjective and objective probability. Loss as well as gain of evidence is permitted. Evidential probability is embedded within epistemic logic by means of possible worlds semantic…
Reply to Commentators
In their intriguing comments, Paul Horwich and Stephen Schiffer accept one main thesis of Vagueness, that vague sentences express true or false propositions in borderline cases. Neither of them denies the further thesis that we cannot know which truth-values those propositions have. Of course I will concentrate on their objections to more specific features of my view, hoping that this will not obscure the many points of agreement
Replies to Commentators
Scepticism and Evidence
Rational thinkers respect their evidence. Properly understood, that is a platitude. But how can one respect one's evidence unless one knows what it is? So must not rational thinkers know what their evidence is
Reputation and Reliability in Collective Goods: The Case of the Online Encyclopedia Wikipedia
An important organizational innovation enabled by the revolution in information technologies is `open source' production which converts private commodities into essentially public goods. Similar to other public goods, incentives for reputation and group identity appear to motivate contributions to open source projects, overcoming the social dilemma inherent in producing such goods. In this paper we examine how contributor motivations affect the t…
Bivalence and subjunctive conditionals
Reply to Boghossian
Knowability and Constructivism
If anti-realism is defined as the principle that all truths are knowable, then anti-realists have a reason to revise logic. For an argument first published by Fitch seems to reduce anti-realism to absurdity within classical but not constructivist logic. One might try to sever this link between anti-realism and revisionism in logic by giving either a modified version of anti-realism not vulnerable to Fitch's argument within classical logic or a mo…
Precis of Vagueness
Hyman on Knowledge and Ability
Ethics, Supervenience and Ramsey Sentences
In "From Metaphysics to Ethics", Frank Jackson presents an impressively\nsystematic conception of modal reality and its relation to our thought. His\naccount of ethics is a test case for this conception. I will argue that Jackson's reasoning for his conclusions about ethics is unsound
Abduction, perception, emotion, feeling: Body maps and pattern recognition
Reply to Horwich
Précis of The Philosophy of Philosophy
Epistemicist Models: Comments on Gómez‐Torrente and Graff
The full-text of this article is not currently available in ORA, but you may be able to access the article via the publisher copy link on this record page. Citation: Williamson, T. (2002). 'Epistemicist models: comments on Gómez-Torrente and Graff', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64(1), 143–150. [Available at http://www.wiley.com]
Peacocke's Theory of Modality
Sense, Validity and Context
Unreflective Realism
Trends in Collective Bargaining. A Summary of Recent Experience
Converse Relations
On Knowledge of the Unknowable
Journal Article On knowledge of the unknowable Get access Timothy Williamson Timothy Williamson Trinity CollegeDublin 2, Ireland Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Analysis, Volume 47, Issue 3, June 1987, Pages 154–158, https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/47.3.154 Published: 01 June 1987
VII—Equivocation and Existence
Journal Article VII—Equivocation and Existence Get access Timothy Williamson Timothy Williamson Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 88, Issue 1, 1 June 1988, Pages 109–128, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/88.1.109 Published: 09 September 2015
Bivalence and subjunctive conditionals
Knowability and Constructivism
If anti-realism is defined as the principle that all truths are knowable, then anti-realists have a reason to revise logic. For an argument first published by Fitch seems to reduce anti-realism to absurdity within classical but not constructivist logic. One might try to sever this link between anti-realism and revisionism in logic by giving either a modified version of anti-realism not vulnerable to Fitch's argument within classical logic or a mo…
Modern Anti-Realism and Manufactured Truth
Identity and Discrimination
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Identity and Discrimination. By Timothy Williamson (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Pp. ix + 173. Price £30.00.) Roy A. Sorensen Roy A. Sorensen New York University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 42, Issue 166, January 1992, Pages 95–98, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220453 Published: 01 January 1992
Does Assertibility Satisfy the S4 Axiom
En este artículo se intenta mostrar que el principio (AA) tiene consecuencias falsas. Dicho principio es el siguiente (donde ‘ser afirmable’ abrevia ‘ser afirmable de manera justificada’): (AA) Si es afirmable que P, entonces es afirmable que es afirmable que P. (AA) está implícito en las objeciones de Dummett a las teorías del significado en términos de condiciones de verdad. Según Dummett dichas teorías violan la conexión necesaria entre uso y …
Vagueness
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Vagueness. By Timothy Williamson. (London: Routledge, 1994. Pp. xiii + 325. Price £35-oo.) Rosanna Keefe Rosanna Keefe Robinson College, Cambridge Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 45, Issue 180, July 1995, Pages 392–394, https://doi.org/10.2307/2219664 Published: 01 July 1995
What makes it a heap?
Knowing and Asserting
This paper aims to identify the constitutive rule(s) of assertion, conceived by analogy with the rules of a game. That assertion has such rules is by no means obvious; perhaps it is more like a natural phenomenon than it seems. One way to find out is by supposing that it has such rules, in order to see where the hypothesis leads and what it explains. That will be done here. The hypothesis is not perfectly clear, of course, but we have at least a …
Logics of Provability
Unreflective Realism
Strong Boethius’ Thesis and Consequential Implication
Reply to Commentators
In their intriguing comments, Paul Horwich and Stephen Schiffer accept one main thesis of Vagueness, that vague sentences express true or false propositions in borderline cases. Neither of them denies the further thesis that we cannot know which truth-values those propositions have. Of course I will concentrate on their objections to more specific features of my view, hoping that this will not obscure the many points of agreement
Sense, Validity and Context
Precis of Vagueness
Vagueness
A New Introduction to Modal Logic
Conditionalizing on Knowledge
A theory of evidential probability is developed from two assumptions:(1) the evidential probability of a proposition is its probability conditional on the total evidence;(2) one's total evidence is one's total knowledge. Evidential probability is distinguished from both subjective and objective probability. Loss as well as gain of evidence is permitted. Evidential probability is embedded within epistemic logic by means of possible worlds semantic…
Margins for Error: A Reply
I address Peter Mott's ‘Margins for Error and the Sorites Paradox’ (The Philosophical Quarterly, 48 (1998), pp. 494–503). Mott criticizes my account of inexact knowledge, on which it satisfies margin for error principles of the form ‘If one knows in a given case, one avoids false belief in sufficiently similar cases’. Mott's arguments are shown to be fallacious because they ignore the fact that our knowledge of inexact knowledge is itself inexact…
Scepticism and Evidence
Rational thinkers respect their evidence. Properly understood, that is a platitude. But how can one respect one's evidence unless one knows what it is? So must not rational thinkers know what their evidence is
Ethics, Supervenience and Ramsey Sentences
In "From Metaphysics to Ethics", Frank Jackson presents an impressively\nsystematic conception of modal reality and its relation to our thought. His\naccount of ethics is a test case for this conception. I will argue that Jackson's reasoning for his conclusions about ethics is unsound
Knowledge and its Limits
The book develops a conception of epistemology in which the notion of knowledge is explanatorily fundamental. It reverses the traditional programme of trying to analyse knowledge as a combination of truth, belief, and other factors, such as justification. Rather, belief is a state whose successful form is knowledge, and justification is on the basis of knowledge, which is acquainted with evidence. Knowing is as much a mental state as believing, b…
Philosophy (53 works) · Epistemology (46 works) · Computer Science (34 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (29 works) · Philosophy and Theoretical Science (26 works) · Philosophy (19 works) · Library science (16 works) · Citation (15 works) · Classical Philosophy and Thought (14 works) · Contemporary philosophy (14 works)