Timothy Williamson - Wikipedia Timothy Williamson From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search For the American politician in Rhode Island, see Timothy A. Williamson. Timothy Williamson FRSE FBA Williamson in 2014 Born (1955-08-06) 6 August 1955 (age 65) Uppsala, Sweden Nationality British Academic background Alma mater Balliol College, Oxford Thesis The Concept of Approximation to the Truth (1980) Influences Ruth Barcan Marcus Academic work Discipline Philosophy Sub-discipline Epistemology logic metaphysics philosophy of language School or tradition Analytic philosophy Institutions Trinity College, Dublin University College, Oxford University of Edinburgh New College, Oxford Doctoral students Maria Baghramian Amia Srinivasan Main interests Fuzzy logic Notable ideas Epistemicism knowledge as conceptually primitive knowledge-first epistemology modal logic as metaphysics Influenced John Hawthorne Jason Stanley Timothy Williamson FRSE FBA (born 1955) is a British philosopher whose main research interests are in philosophical logic, philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics. He is the Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford, and fellow of New College, Oxford. Contents 1 Education and career 2 Philosophical work 3 Publications 4 References 5 External links Education and career[edit] Born on 6 August 1955, Williamson's education began at Leighton Park School and continued at Henley Grammar School (now the Henley College). He then went to Balliol College, Oxford University. He graduated in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with first-class honours in mathematics and philosophy, and in 1980 with a doctorate in philosophy (DPhil) for a thesis entitled The Concept of Approximation to the Truth.[1] Prior to taking up the Wykeham Professorship in 2000, Williamson was Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh (1995–2000); fellow and lecturer in philosophy at University College, Oxford (1988–1994); and lecturer in philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin (1980–1988). He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 2004 to 2005. He is a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA),[2] the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters,[3] Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE), and a Foreign Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Philosophical work[edit] Williamson has contributed to analytic philosophy of language, logic, metaphysics and epistemology. On vagueness, he holds a position known as epistemicism, which states that every seemingly vague predicate (like "bald" or "thin") actually has a sharp cutoff, which is impossible for us to know. For instance, there is some number of hairs such that anyone with that number is bald, and anyone with even one more hair is not. In actuality, this condition will be spelled out only partly in terms of numbers of hairs, but whatever measures are relevant will have some sharp cutoff. This solution to the difficult sorites paradox was considered an astonishing and unacceptable consequence, but has become a relatively mainstream view since his defence of it.[4] Williamson is fond of using the statement, "no one knows whether I am thin" to illustrate his view.[5] In epistemology, Williamson suggests that the concept of knowledge is unanalysable. This went against the common trend in philosophical literature up to that point, which was to argue that knowledge could be analysed into constituent concepts. (Typically this would be justified true belief plus an extra factor.) He agrees that knowledge entails justification, truth and belief, but argues that it is conceptually primitive. He accounts for the importance of belief by discussing its connections with knowledge, but avoids the disjunctivist position of saying that belief can be analysed as the disjunction of knowledge with some distinct, non-factive mental state.[6] In metaphysics, Williamson defends necessitism, according to which necessarily everything is necessarily something, in short, that everything exists of necessity. Necessitism is associated with the Barcan formula: it is possible for something to have a property only if there is something which has that property. Thus, since it is possible for Wittgenstein to have had a child, there is something which is a possible child of Wittgenstein. However, Williamson has also developed an ontology of bare possibilia which he argues alleviates the worst consequences of necessitism and of the Barcan formula. It’s not that Wittgenstein’s possible child is concrete; rather, it is contingently non-concrete. Publications[edit] Identity and Discrimination, Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. Vagueness, London: Routledge, 1994. Knowledge and Its Limits, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. The Philosophy of Philosophy, Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Doing Philosophy: From Common Curiosity to Logical Reasoning, Oxford University Press, 2017. Suppose and Tell: The Semantics and Heuristics of Conditionals, Oxford University Press, 2020. Williamson has also published more than 120 articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. References[edit] ^ Timothy Williamson – New College, Oxford ^ British Academy Fellowship record Archived 6 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine ^ "Gruppe 3: Idéfag" (in Norwegian). Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Retrieved 16 January 2011. ^ Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). "Vagueness". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ^ Phil 2511: Paradoxes ^ Williamson, Timothy (10 October 2002). Knowledge and its Limits. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/019925656x.001.0001. ISBN 9780199256563. External links[edit] Profile at University of Oxford An in-depth autobiographical interview with Timothy Williamson Interview at 3:AM Magazine Academic offices Preceded by David Wiggins Wykeham Professor of Logic 2000–present Incumbent Professional and academic associations Preceded by Paul Snowdon President of the Aristotelian Society 2004–2005 Succeeded by Myles Burnyeat v t e Analytic philosophy Related articles Areas of focus Epistemology Language Mathematics Science Turns Aretaic Linguistic Logic Classical Mathematical Non-classical Philosophical Theories Anti-realism Australian realism Descriptivist theory of names Emotivism Functionalism Analytical feminism Logical atomism Logical positivism Analytical Marxism Neopragmatism Neurophilosophy Ordinary language Quietism Scientific structuralism Sense data Concepts Analysis (paradox of analysis) Analytic–synthetic distinction Counterfactual Natural kind Reflective equilibrium Supervenience Modality Actualism Necessity Possibility Possible world Realism Rigid designator Philosophers Noam Chomsky Keith Donnellan Paul Feyerabend Gottlob Frege Ian Hacking Karl Popper Ernest Sosa Barry Stroud Michael Walzer Cambridge Charlie Broad Norman Malcolm G. E. Moore Graham Priest Bertrand Russell Frank P. Ramsey Ludwig Wittgenstein Oxford G. E. M. Anscombe J. L. Austin A. J. Ayer Michael Dummett Antony Flew Philippa Foot Peter Geach Paul Grice R. M. Hare Alasdair MacIntyre Derek Parfit Gilbert Ryle John Searle P. F. Strawson Richard Swinburne Charles Taylor Bernard Williams Timothy Williamson Logical positivists Ernest Nagel Berlin Circle Carl Gustav Hempel Hans Reichenbach Vienna Circle Rudolf Carnap Kurt Gödel Otto Neurath Moritz Schlick Harvard Roderick Chisholm Donald Davidson Daniel Dennett Nelson Goodman Christine Korsgaard Thomas Kuhn Thomas Nagel Robert Nozick Hilary Putnam W. V. O. Quine John Rawls Pittsburgh School Robert Brandom Patricia Churchland Paul Churchland Adolf Grünbaum John McDowell Ruth Millikan Nicholas Rescher Wilfrid Sellars Bas van Fraassen Princeton Jerry Fodor David Lewis Jaegwon Kim Saul Kripke Richard Rorty Notre Dame Robert Audi Peter van Inwagen Alvin Plantinga Australian David Chalmers J. L. Mackie Peter Singer J. J. C. Smart Quietism James F. Conant Alice Crary Cora Diamond Category Index v t e Epistemology Epistemologists Thomas Aquinas Augustine of Hippo William Alston Robert Audi A. J. Ayer George Berkeley Laurence BonJour Keith DeRose René Descartes John Dewey Fred Dretske Edmund Gettier Alvin Goldman Nelson Goodman Paul Grice Anil Gupta Susan Haack David Hume Immanuel Kant Søren Kierkegaard Peter Klein Saul Kripke Hilary Kornblith David Lewis John Locke G. E. Moore John McDowell Robert Nozick Alvin Plantinga Plato Duncan Pritchard James Pryor Hilary Putnam W. V. O. Quine Thomas Reid Bertrand Russell Gilbert Ryle Wilfrid Sellars Susanna Siegel Ernest Sosa P. F. Strawson Baruch Spinoza Timothy Williamson Ludwig Wittgenstein Nicholas Wolterstorff Vienna Circle more... Theories Coherentism Constructivism Contextualism Empiricism Evolutionary epistemology Fallibilism Feminist epistemology Fideism Foundationalism Holism Infinitism Innatism Naïve realism Naturalized epistemology Phenomenalism Positivism Rationalism Reductionism Reliabilism Representational realism Skepticism Transcendental idealism Concepts A priori knowledge A posteriori knowledge Analysis Analytic–synthetic distinction Belief Common sense Descriptive knowledge Exploratory thought Gettier problem Induction Internalism and externalism Justification Knowledge Objectivity Privileged access Problem of induction Problem of other minds Perception Procedural knowledge Proposition Regress argument Simplicity Speculative reason Truth more... Related articles Outline of epistemology Faith and rationality Formal epistemology Meta-epistemology Philosophy of perception Philosophy of science Social epistemology Category Task Force Stubs Discussion Authority control BNE: XX972535 BNF: cb12931257c (data) CANTIC: a11689110 GND: 136468853 ISNI: 0000 0001 2123 8307 LCCN: n90665594 NKC: mub2012690012 NLK: KAC201606195 NTA: 119083531 ORCID: 0000-0002-4659-8672 PLWABN: 9810704134005606 SUDOC: 056827121 VIAF: 22271620 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n90665594 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Timothy_Williamson&oldid=991113546" Categories: 1955 births Living people 20th-century British philosophers 21st-century British philosophers Academics of the University of Edinburgh Analytic philosophers Philosophers of language Philosophers of mind Metaphysicians Fellows of New College, Oxford Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellows of University College, Oxford Academics of Trinity College Dublin Wykeham Professors of Logic Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Presidents of the Aristotelian Society People from Uppsala Atheist philosophers British social commentators Hidden categories: Webarchive template wayback links CS1 Norwegian-language sources (no) EngvarB from September 2017 Use dmy dates from September 2017 Articles with hCards Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLK identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with ORCID identifiers Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages العربية Deutsch فارسی Français Italiano Nederlands Polski Русский Suomi Svenska 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 28 November 2020, at 09:44 (UTC). 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