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Timothy Williamson (born 1955) is a British philosopher whose main research interests are in philosophical logic,
philosophy of language In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of Meaning (philosophy of language), meanin ...
,
epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...
and
metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
. He is the
Wykeham Professor The University of Oxford has three statutory professorships named after William of Wykeham, who founded New College. Logic The Wykeham Professorship in Logic was established in 1859, although it was not known as the Wykeham chair until later. ...
of Logic at the
University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...
, and fellow of New College, Oxford.


Education and career

Born on 6 August 1955, Williamson's education began at
Leighton Park School Leighton Park School is a co-educational independent school for both day and boarding pupils in Reading in South East England. The school's ethos is closely tied to the Quaker values, having been founded as a Quaker School in 1890. The school's ...
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 Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
degree with first-class honours in mathematics and philosophy, and in 1980 with a doctorate in philosophy (
DPhil A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
) for a thesis entitled ''The Concept of Approximation to the Truth''. Prior to taking up the Wykeham Professorship in 2000, Williamson was Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the
University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 1 ...
(1995–2000); fellow and lecturer in philosophy at University College, Oxford (1988–1994); and lecturer in philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin (1980–1988). He has been visiting professor at
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
,
Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
, MIT, the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 2004 to 2005. He is a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the
Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick Unive ...
, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE), and a Foreign Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Since 2022 he is visiting professor at the Università della Svizzera Italiana.


Philosophical work

Williamson has contributed to
analytic Generally speaking, analytic (from el, ἀναλυτικός, ''analytikos'') refers to the "having the ability to analyze" or "division into elements or principles". Analytic or analytical can also have the following meanings: Chemistry * ...
philosophy of language In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of Meaning (philosophy of language), meanin ...
,
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from prem ...
,
metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
and
epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...
. 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 The sorites paradox (; sometimes known as the paradox of the heap) is a paradox that results from vague predicates. A typical formulation involves a heap of sand, from which grains are removed individually. With the assumption that removing a sin ...
was considered an astonishing and unacceptable consequence, but has become a relatively mainstream view since his defence of it. Williamson is fond of using the statement, "no one knows whether I am thin" to illustrate his view. In
epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...
, Williamson suggests that the concept of
knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distin ...
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 Definitions of knowledge try to determine the essential features of knowledge. Closely related terms are conception of knowledge, theory of knowledge, and analysis of knowledge. Some general features of knowledge are widely accepted among philos ...
plus an extra factor.) He agrees that knowledge entails justification, truth and
belief A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to tak ...
, 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. Williamson also argues against the traditional distinction of knowing-how and knowing-that. He says that knowledge-how is a type of knowledge-that. Williamson argues that knowledge-how does not relate one's ability. As an example, he gives a ski instructor who knows how to perform a complex move without having the ability to do it himself.Stanley, J. and Williamson, T. (2001) ‘Knowing How’, The Journal of Philosophy 98(8): 411–444 In
metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
, 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

* ''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


External links


Profile
at University of Oxford
An in-depth autobiographical interview with Timothy Williamson

Interview
at 3:AM Magazine
Università della Svizzera Italiana professors
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williamson, Timothy 1955 births 20th-century British non-fiction writers 20th-century British philosophers 20th-century essayists 21st-century British non-fiction writers 21st-century British philosophers 21st-century essayists Academics of the University of Edinburgh Academics of Trinity College Dublin Analytic philosophers Aristotelian philosophers Atheist philosophers British atheists British logicians British male essayists British social commentators Epistemologists Fellows of New College, Oxford Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellows of University College, Oxford Living people Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Metaphysicians Ontologists People from Uppsala Philosophers of language Philosophers of logic Philosophers of mathematics Philosophers of mind Philosophy academics Philosophy teachers Philosophy writers Presidents of the Aristotelian Society Social critics Social philosophers Wykeham Professors of Logic