Knowledge is objective – Williams

Bernard Williams’ account argument for an Absolute Conception comes in his book on Rene Descartes but we will simply consider the arguments that Williams puts forward for it in its own terms.

The main argument concerns the idea that our concept of knowledge (what we ordinarily understand by it) is of something independent of us, something which is the test of knowledge and which knowledge aims to get right. In that sense knowledge is of something objective and we can say that knowledge itself is objective. So one of Williams arguments concerns exploring the thought that the idea of aiming to have knowledge of an independent world is having some sort of representation of the world. He says: 'if knowledge is what it claims to be, then it is knowledge of a reality which exists independently of that knowledge, and indeed... independently of any thought of experience' [Williams 1978: 64].

So using the word 'representation' to mean anything like knowledge, thought or experience which represents the world or reality as being a particular way, we can say: But if our conception of knowledge is of something independent of us, we must also think of the knowledge in question or the representation as distinct from, but depicting, a bit of the world. And thus our everyday understanding of knowledge must be of:

• • a representation, on the one hand, and the world, on the other.

Williams argues that the very idea of knowledge involves that. Anyone who did not understand that although knowledge represents the world being a particular way it is distinct from the world, would not understand what knowledge is.

But that contrast between knowledge/representation on the one hand and the world on the other which is set out in the first bullet point is itself something that we can think. It is another representation of how things are. So that thought/representation - also - is distinct from the state of affairs it depicts. Once we realise that then we realise that there must be a contrast (again) between:

• • a representation (of a representation, on the one hand, and the world, on the other), on the one hand, and the world (a more complicated bit of the world which includes us, now), on the other

But that (the 2nd bullet point) is itself something that we think. It's another representation. So it is distinct from the state of affairs it depicts. So now we must be thinking of... And so on.

Williams approaches this idea first by thinking of two distinct bits of knowledge (such as the weather in Preston and in Kendal) and how we must be able to conceive of how they are related (two observers making such claims are in different places: Preston and Kendal). He argues that implicit in the idea of knowledge is a conception of what all the potential bits of knowledge are knowledge of (the world / reality). And so to have an understanding of what knowledge is to have a conception of the world / reality about which all the bits of knowledge are. Such a conception is the absolute conception. So thinking of knowledge leads us by degrees to this idea of a conception of something independent of us. But he goes on to argue that this conception faces a dilemma (on p65).

• • What is the dilemma and how might he try to solve it?

There is a sort of second argument which helps explain Williams' own response to the dilemma but in which presupposes a knowledge of the long-standing philosophical distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Familiar in classical philosophy, this distinction was reintroduced into modern philosophy by the 17 century British Empiricist philosopher, John Locke (1632-1704) as the distinction between quantities or qualities like shape, weight, mass or velocity which seem to belong to things independently of observers, and other qualities such as taste, smell and colour which depend on peculiar psychological features of us. It was made more popular in the C17 by the rise of an atomistic natural philosophy promoted, amongst others, by the chemist Robert Boyle (1627-91).

Williams develops an account of the Absolute Conception in order to explain more fully what he takes to be an everyday understanding of what both knowledge and also merely true belief is (the main argument) But it also helps to explain the difference between things which are really 'out there' in the world and things which are just part of our local perspective on the world (for those with our eyes etc). The latter don't seem as objective, or as plausible candidates for knowledge.

• • Williams suggests that a modern view explains away the idea that objects really have colours. What kind of explanation does this?

  • If a modern scientific account can explain why we think / used to think that objects are coloured, what has to be included in the account?

  • So what picture of the absolute conception does this give?

  • How does this 2nd argument relate to the dilemma introduced on p65?

  • Does it work against the dilemma? Might the dilemma return in a different form?

  • Any other problems?

Essential reading. The extracts from:

Williams, B. (1978) Descartes London: Penguin pp64-65 and 242-249

This is on WebCT in the primary reading folder.

Other reading

You will find my thoughts about this idea here:

• • Fulford, K.W.M., Thornton, T. and Graham, G. (2006) Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry, Oxford: Oxford University Press pp347-351 (This is on WebCT in the secondary reading folder)

  • Thornton, T (2005) John McDowell, Chesham: Acumen pp 74-9 (This is on WebCT in the secondary reading folder.

Both are based on this, quite difficult!, text.

• • McDowell, J. (1983) ‘Aesthetic Value, Objectivity of World.’ in Schaper, E. (ed) Pleasure, Preference and Value: Studies in Philosophical Aesthetics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Today's slides are here.

Further thoughts on William’s argument are here on my blog.