Problems of Knowledge

Michael Williams is Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He has previously held positions at Yale, the University of Maryland, and Northwestern.

• Introduction: The Very Idea of a Theory of Knowledge ; 1. The Standard Analysis ; 2. Knowledge without Evidence ; 3. Two Ideals ; 4. Unstable Knowledge ; 5. Agrippa's Trilemma ; 6. Experience and Reality ; 7. Foundations ; 8. The Problem of the Basis ; 9. Reduction and Inference ; 10. Coherence ; 11. The Myth of the System ; 12. Realism and Truth ; 13. Evidence and Entitlement ; 14. Knowledge in Context ; 15. Seeing and Knowing ; 16. Scepticism and Epistemic Priority ; 17. Induction ; 18. Projection and Conjecture ; 19. Relativism ; 20. Objectivity and Progress ; Conclusion: Epistemology After Scepticism?

A masterly introduction to epistemology and an original contribution, this book succeeds on both levels. Those who know Michael Williams's earlier work will not be surprised by the rich texture of his writing and by how well it conveys the history and geography of the land of epistemology, while staking out a position of his own within it. Without piling on references, never woodenly didactic, Williams's manuscript still shows his mastery of the subject, in both its historical length and its contemporary breadth. Ernest Sosa, Brown University