"Knowledge and Its Limits presents a systematic new conception of knowledge as a fundamental kind of mental state sensitive to the knower's environment. It makes a major contribution to the debate between externalist ad internalist philosophies of mind, and breaks radically with the epistemological tradition of analysing knowledge in terms of true belief. The theory casts light on a wide variety of philosophical issues: the problem of scepticism, the nature of evidence, probability and assertion, the dispute between realism and anti-realism and the paradox of the surprise examination. Williamson relates the new conception to structural limits on knowledge which imply that what can be known never exhausts what is true. The arguments are illustrated by rigorous models based on epistemic logic and probability theory. The result is a new way of doing epistemology for the twenty-first century."--BOOK JACKET.

Timothy Williamson's 2000 book Knowledge and Its Limits is perhaps the most important work of philosophy of the decade. Eighteen leading philosophers have now joined forces to give a critical assessment of ideas and arguments in this work, and the impact it has had on contemporary philosophy. They discuss epistemological issues concerning evidence, defeasibility, scepticism, testimony, assertion, and perception, and debate Williamson's central claim that knowledge is amental state.

An exploration of various themes common to the broad tradition of Western philosophy. What do we mean by a relation? Is a relation a transcendental object or something only operative in the world of concrete things? What is the difference between a universal and particular? Is there clarity in the way we represent an object or only clarity in the way a thing is composed? What is the difference between knowledge before the fact (apriori) and knowledge after the fact (aposteriori)? These are all questions that pertain to our understanding of who we are and the world in which we live. Broader issues such as the relation between space and time, art and nature, are also touched on, with particular emphasis on modern developments in physics and biology. The fixity of space and time is something that has come to be questioned, as is the fixity and origin of the human species. These are dealt with in a way that is conformable to modern thinking yet which remains sensitive to broader historical concerns.

The realities of mankind's cognitive situation are such that our knowledge of the world's ways is bound to be imperfect. None the less, the theory of unknowability--agnoseology as some have called it--is a rather underdeveloped branch of philosophy. In this philosophically rich and groundbreaking work, Nicholas Rescher aims to remedy this. As the heart of the discussion is an examination of what Rescher identifies as the four prime reasons for the impracticability of cognitive access to certain facts about the world: developmental inpredictability, verificational surdity, ontological detail, and predicative vagrancy. Rescher provides a detailed and illuminating account of the role of each of these factors in limiting human knowledge, giving us an overall picture of the practical and theoretical limits to our capacity to know our world.

This is an essay on the possibility and limits of knowledge, in general, and scientific knowledge, in particular. In Chapter 1 the postulates of Kantian critical philosophy are broadened to make contact with modern cognitive theories; it is argued that all knowledge should be regarded as an exclusively human product rather than the work of a transcendental being. On this basis the fundamental question posed in this text concerns the limits of knowledge defined by the limitations of instruments of observation, classificationn and analysis, and the limitations of researchers as individuals and as scientific communities. In this last respect, it is argued that current systems for the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge, while making such knowledgem while making such knowledge possible, also favour its sterility. Two specific areas of science are analysed from these points of view: psychiatry and standard cosmology.

Argues for a transactionally situated approach to science and medicine in order to meet the needs of marginalized groups. The Limits of Knowledge provides an understanding of what pragmatist feminist theories look like in practice, combining insights from the work of American pragmatist John Dewey concerning experimental inquiry and transaction with arguments for situated knowledge rooted in contemporary feminism. Using case studies to demonstrate some of the particular ways that dominant scientific and medical practices fail to meet the health needs of marginalized groups and communities, Nancy Arden McHugh shows how transactionally situated approaches are better able to meet the needs of these communities. Examples include a community action group fighting environmental injustice in Bayview Hunters Point, California, one of the most toxic communities in the US; gender, race, age, and class biases in the study and diagnosis of endometriosis; a critique of Evidence-Based Medicine; the current effects of Agent Orange on Vietnamese women and children; and pediatric treatment of Amish and Mennonite children.

While Francis Bacon continues to be considered the 'father' of modern experimental science, his writings are no longer given close attention by most historians and philosophers of science, let alone by scientists themselves. In this new book Dennis Desroches speaks up loudly for Bacon, showing how we have yet to surpass the fundamental theoretical insights that he offered towards producing scientific knowledge. The book first examines the critics who have led many generations of scholars - in fields as diverse as literary criticism, science studies, feminism, philosophy and history - to think of Bacon as an outmoded landmark in the history of ideas rather than a crucial thinker for our own day. Bacon's own work is seen to contain the best responses to these various forms of attack. Desroches then focuses on Bacon's Novum Organum, The Advancement of Learning and De Augmentis, in order to discern the theoretical - rather than simply the empirical or utilitarian - nature of his programme for the 'renovation' of the natural sciences. The final part of the book draws startling links between Bacon and one of the twentieth century's most important historians/philosophers of science, Thomas Kuhn, discerning in Kuhn's work a reprise of many of Bacon's fundamental ideas - despite Kuhn's clear attempt to reject Bacon as a significant contributor to the way we think about scientific practice today. Desroches concludes, then, that Bacon was not simply the 'father' of modern science - he is still in the process of 'fathering' it.

Impossible Desire and the Limits of Knowledge in Renaissance Poetry examines the limits of embodiment, knowledge, and representation at a disregarded nexus: the erotic carpe diem poem in early modern England. These macabre seductions offer no compliments or promises, but instead focus on the lovers' anticipated decline, and—quite stunningly given the Reformation context—humanity's relegation not to a Christian afterlife but to a Marvellian 'desert of vast Eternity.' In this way, a poetic trope whose classical form was an expression of pragmatic Epicureanism became, during the religious upheaval of the Reformation, an unlikely but effective vehicle for articulating religious doubt. Its ambitions were thus largely philosophical, and came to incorporate investigations into the nature of matter, time, and poetic representation. Renaissance seduction poets invited their auditors to participate in a dangerous intellectual game, one whose primary interest was expanding the limits of knowledge. The book theorizes how Renaissance lyric's own fragile relationship to materiality and time, and its self-conscious relationship to making, positioned it to grapple with these 'impossible' metaphysical and representational problems. Although attentive to poetics, the book also challenges the commonplace view that the erotic invitation is exclusively a lyrical mode. Carpe diem's revival in post-Reformation Europe portends its radicalization, as debates between man and maid are dramatized in disputes between abstractions like chastity and material facts like death. Offered here is thus a theoretical reconsideration of the generic parameters and aspirations of the carpe diem trope, wherein questions about embodiment and knowledge are also investigations into the potentialities of literary form.

Tavel (physics, Vassar College) developed the text from a course for nonscience majors over many years. He draws analogies from the arts, humanities, and social sciences, and keeps the technical and mathematical details to the bare minimum. He does not provide a bibliography. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.