There were lots of useful comments on the “pragmatics, belief and knowledge thread”:http://tar.weatherson.org/archives/004282.html and I wanted to follow up with a list of cases designed to spell out the consequences of the position and some choice-points in the development of the theory. (Although they may not look related, the cases below arose out of some considerations “Matt Weiner”:http://mattweiner.net/blog/archives/000508.html brought up in a response to my post.)
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There have been good comments on both of the epistemology posts from yesterday, as well as a number of examples showing that what I took to be an odd use of ‘at least’ is actually fairly standard. In the awareness post, Dennis Whitcomb pointed out that he had made a similar point to Williamson recently. Great minds think alike, or whatever it is one is meant to say when scooped. Since I wasn’t the first on this point, I may as well make up for it in quantity. So here’s another awareness example.

Rick is a middle-of-the-road singer-songwriter. He’s harmlessly strumming his guitar one day when he looks up and sees what looks like a convoy of five trucks bearing down on him. Fortunately, four of them are fake trucks that can’t do any real damage to him. Unfortunately, it (i.e. the fifth) is a real truck that will do real harm. He freezes in fear. Ilsa screams, “He has to get out of the way. Is he aware that there’s a giant truck bearing down on him?” Williamson answers, “No.”

One more baseball note. At the Giants game they just showed a Dodger fan who’d been hit in the face with a pie. This was wrong to do, even though given the reactions of the fans around him it seemed like it maximised utility. Then the Giants showed the results of the pie-ing on the big scoreboard. This was also wrong to do, even though it definitely maximised utility!

It’s baseball season again. And, as often as cable allows, that means getting to listen to Vin Scully. And before the first pitch there’s a passage worth noting.

bq. Welcome to SBC Park here in San Francisco, on a cool evening. It was I think 58 degrees last night when the ballgame started. It’s at least that, even a little lower I think.

In some cultures it is odd to use ‘at least’ in this context to mean ‘at least as cold’. I wonder if we could find of some examples of someone using ‘at least’ to mean ‘at least as short’ or ‘at least as light’.

It’s baseball season again. And, as often as cable allows, that means getting to listen to Vin Scully. And before the first pitch there’s a passage worth noting.

bq. Welcome to SBC Park here in San Francisco, on a cool evening. It was I think 58 degrees last night when the ballgame started. It’s at least that, even a little lower I think.

In some cultures it is odd to use ‘at least’ in this context to mean ‘at least as cold’. I wonder if we could find of some examples of someone using ‘at least’ to mean ‘at least as short’ or ‘at least as light’.

I don’t normally post this kind of report, but as a favour to old friends…

David Estlund reports that “Richard Heck”:http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~heck/ has reconsidered his “earlier decision to reject Brown’s offer”:http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2005/02/philosopher_hec.html and will be moving to Brown. I don’t have dates yet for when the move will happen. This is great news for Brown.

For a while Brown has been a little understrength on what we might broadly call formal philosophy – logic, philosophy of science and philosophy of mathematics. With their three hires this year (Heck, “Joshua Schechter”:http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/students/schechter/ and “Douglas Kutach”:http://www.philosophy.ttu.edu/kutach/) these areas have now become something of a strength for Brown.

UPDATE: Since someone using the handle ‘anon’ wanted to use this thread to start spreading anonymous unsubstantiated gossip, I’ve closed comments here. That’s too bad for those wanting to extend well-wishes to Brown, but it seemed all-things-considered-utility-maximising.

Jack is in fake bar country. Most of the bar-facades to the east only serve soda, and most of those to the west only serve pop, so they are not real bars. They do, however, look rather like bars from the outside. Jack is unaware of this problem. Fortunately the problem does not affect him, for the bar he is in front of is really a bar, and he plans to go in for a drink.

Question: Is Jack aware that he’s standing in front of a bar?

Jill and Jane are talking about Jane’s philosophy of sport class. It is common belief between the two of them that the only undergrads enrolled in the class are Manny, David and Bronson. Jane says that all the undergrads in her class are Red Sox fans. While it is true that Manny, David and Bronson are Red Sox fans, unbeknownst to Jane, Alex just enrolled in the class, and Alex is a Yankees fan. Jill believes Jane, and hence forms the beliefs that each of the students she thinks are in Jane’s class are Red Sox fans.

Question: Is Jill aware that Bronson is a Red Sox fan?

Answers below the fold.
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Here are a couple of quotes from Williamson’s “summary of his book”:http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0149.2004.0356a.x/full/ in the _Philosophical Books_ symposium.

bq. Since Gettier’s refutation of the analysis of knowledge as justified true belief, one attempted analysis of knowledge after another has succumbed to counterexamples.

And later in the article…

bq. Knowledge is the norm of belief: a flat-out belief is fully justified if and only if it constitutes knowledge.

Now these don’t particularly look consistent. If Gettier is right, then there are (relatively nearby) possible worlds in which someone has a justified true belief that is not knowledge. Which is to deny, among other things, that a belief is justified only if it constitutes knowledge. But Williamson holds that Gettier is right, and that a belief is justified only if it constitutes knowledge. What gives?

One plausible solution (that doesn’t ultimately work) is that Williamson is making an order of analysis point. If the second quote is correct, then _knows_ is necessarily coextensive with _justifiably truly believes_. But that doesn’t show that the JTB *analysis* of knowledge is correct, any more than necessary coextension shows that we can analyse _being the number two_ as _being a member of the number two’s singleton set_. (The 2, {2} example is one Kit Fine has used in a number of places and I’m borrowing here.) That is an interesting position, one I actually have a fair bit of sympathy for, but it can’t be what Williamson wants. Because he’s argued explicitly elsewhere that Gettier cases show that there are _counterexamples_ to the JTB analysis, not just that it gets the order of analysis wrong.

From the article it looks like the way to resolve the apparent contradiction is that Williamson thinks that the Gettier cases only work if we interpret ‘justified’ as ‘justified by the best version of internalist epistemology’. He doesn’t think that there are counterexamples to an _externalist_ version of JTB. I don’t think this is particularly plausible. The intuitions supporting Gettier cases don’t turn on whether we’re internalists or externalists about justification.

The summer European conference circuit is looking very interesting. This conference is being organised by my old grad-school colleague “Konrad Talmont-Kaminski”:http://bacon.umcs.lublin.pl/~ktalmont/index.html

bq.. *Kazimierz Naturalised Epistemology Workshop*
2nd-6th September 2005
Kazimierz Dolny, Poland

The second half of the 20th Century has witnessed the rapid growth of an approach to epistemology that gives up on the idea of a first philosophy and argues for a close partnership with sciences such as biology, psychology, cognitive science and information theory. As a result of the cross-pollination of ideas, naturalised epistemology has come to include a great richness of methodologies and approaches.

The workshop will bring together a number of leading experts with post-graduates and researchers. Over the five days, the speakers will lead workshop groups that will focus on issues arising out of their work; in particular, issues of naturalised normativity.

KNEW’05 is supported by the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology, UMCS; the Department of Theory of Knowledge, KUL; and by the Philosophy Students Society, KUL. KNEW’05 is being organised by Konrad Talmont-Kaminski (UMCS) and Arkadiusz Gut (KUL).

p. How often will you get a chance to go to a conference supported by a department of theory of knowledge?!

The summer European conference circuit is looking very interesting. This conference is being organised by my old grad-school colleague “Konrad Talmont-Kaminski”:http://bacon.umcs.lublin.pl/~ktalmont/index.html

bq.. *Kazimierz Naturalised Epistemology Workshop*
2nd-6th September 2005
Kazimierz Dolny, Poland

The second half of the 20th Century has witnessed the rapid growth of an approach to epistemology that gives up on the idea of a first philosophy and argues for a close partnership with sciences such as biology, psychology, cognitive science and information theory. As a result of the cross-pollination of ideas, naturalised epistemology has come to include a great richness of methodologies and approaches.

The workshop will bring together a number of leading experts with post-graduates and researchers. Over the five days, the speakers will lead workshop groups that will focus on issues arising out of their work; in particular, issues of naturalised normativity.

KNEW’05 is supported by the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology, UMCS; the Department of Theory of Knowledge, KUL; and by the Philosophy Students Society, KUL. KNEW’05 is being organised by Konrad Talmont-Kaminski (UMCS) and Arkadiusz Gut (KUL).

p. How often will you get a chance to go to a conference supported by a department of theory of knowledge?!