The linchpin of Williamson (2000)'s radically externalist epistemological program is an argument for the claim that no non-trivial condition is luminous—that no non-trivial condition is such that whenever it obtains, one is in a position to know that it obtains. I argue that Williamson's anti-luminosity argument succeeds only if one assumes that, even in the limit of ideal reflection, the obtaining of the condition in question and one's beliefs about that condition can be radically disjoint from one another. However, no (...) self-respecting defender of the luminosity of the mental would ever make such an assumption. Thus Williamson can only secure his controversial claims in epistemology by taking for granted certain equally controversial claims in the philosophy of mind. What emerges is that the best bet for defending an internalist epistemology against Williamson's attack is to take there to be a tight, intimate connection between (to take one example) our experiences and our beliefs upon reflection about the obtaining of those experiences, or between (to take another example) the rationality of our beliefs and our beliefs upon reflection about the rationality of those beliefs. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson (2000) reckons that hardly any mental state is luminous, i.e. is such that if one were in it, then one would invariably be in a position to know that one was. To this end he presents an argument against the luminosity of feeling cold— which he claims generalizes to other phenomenal states, such as e.g. being in pain. As we shall see, however, no fewer than four lines of argument for that conclusion can be extracted from Williamson’s remarks. (...) This is not to suggest that it is unclear which of these strategies is the one Williamson intends to present; but it is instructive to consider the others for the light they shed on the issue and on his own reasoning. Three of these strategies, including Williamson’s intended, fail with little hope of revival—so I shall argue. The fourth, which has escaped attention in the literature, is perhaps more promising, but I think it too can be resisted, and I sketch a possible line of attack. My aim here is not to defend the luminosity of phenomenal states per se— indeed, I am undecided about the matter—but, rather, to uncover the different strategies which emerge from Williamson’s discussion, and show that they fall short of refuting luminosity. (shrink)

Abstract:  Williamson argues that when one feels cold, one may not be in a position to know that one feels cold. He thinks this argument can be generalized to show that no mental states are such that when we are in them we are in a position to know that we are in them. I argue that his argument is a sorites argument in disguise because it relies on the implicit premise that warming up is gradual. Williamson claims that his (...) argument is not a sorites argument; I explain why he has not given us any reason to accept the claim. (shrink)