Groundless Belief: An Essay on the Possibility of Epistemology - Second Edition

by Michael Williams

Overview

Inspired by the work of Wilfrid Sellars, Michael Williams launches an all-out attack on what he calls "phenomenalism," the idea that our knowledge of the world rests on a perceptual or experiential foundation. The point of this wider-than-normal usage of the term "phenomenalism," according to which even some forms of direct realism deserve to be called phenomenalistic, is to call attention to important continuities of thought between theories often thought to be competitors. Williams's target is not phenomenalism in its classical sense-datum and reductionist form but empiricism generally. Williams examines and rejects the idea that, unless our beliefs are answerable to a "given" element in experience, objective knowledge will be impossible.



Groundless Belief was first published in 1977. This second edition contains a new afterword in which Williams places his arguments in the context of some current discussions of coherentism versus the Myth of the Given and explains their relation to subsequent developments in his own epistemological views.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691222028
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	12/08/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	741 KB

About the Author

Michael Williams is Charles and Emma Morrison Professor of Humanities at Northwestern University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Preface to the Second Edition ix

I Introduction: Epistemology and Scepticism 1

2 The Appeal to the Given 25

3 The Regress of Justification 60

4 Meaning or Theory? 116

5 Basic Propositions 145

Afterword 183

Index 203

What People are Saying About This

Richard Rorty

Groundless Belief is by far the clearest, most vigorous, and most convincing presentation of the case for antifoundationalism that has so far appeared.
— Richard Rorty, Stanford University

Richard Rorty, Stanford University

Groundless Belief is by far the clearest, most vigorous, and most convincing presentation of the case for antifoundationalism that has so far appeared.

From the Publisher

"Groundless Belief is by far the clearest, most vigorous, and most convincing presentation of the case for antifoundationalism that has so far appeared."—Richard Rorty, Stanford University

Editorial Reviews

"[An] intriguing work.... Williams has an array of deft, decisive arguments directed at the views of Lewis, Ayer, Chisholm, Sellars, Bennett, et al.... Tightly argued."—-Alan Hart, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

From the Publisher

[An] intriguing work.... Williams has an array of deft, decisive arguments directed at the views of Lewis, Ayer, Chisholm, Sellars, Bennett, et al.... Tightly argued.
— Alan Hart

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

[An] intriguing work.... Williams has an array of deft, decisive arguments directed at the views of Lewis, Ayer, Chisholm, Sellars, Bennett, et al.... Tightly argued.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research - Alan Hart