如何理解知识的基始性?

How to Understand the Primeness of Knowledge?

威廉姆森在《知识及其限度》中提出了知识优先的认识论,引起了国内外学者的广泛关注和争论;其中,如何理解知识的基始性是一个难点问题。通过重构威廉姆森对知识基始性的论证和逐一考察文献中的三种典型反驳:基于因果联系的反驳、基于自由重组测试的反驳和基于普遍性程度的反驳,我们发现,威廉姆森的理论中有足够的思想资源来应对这些反驳,并且纵观整个讨论也可以得出几个比较重要的推论:基始条件并不唯一,但与合成条件是截然分开的;基始性并不蕴涵不可分析性,而只是排除了知识优先面临的一个障碍;基始条件的存在意味着重要的是内外条件之间的联系,而非内外主义之争,这对当下关于因果关系的研究也有一定的启示。

Timothy Williamson developed a brand of knowledge first epistemology in Knowledge and Its Limits,which has attracted enormous attention and discussions;among them,how to understand the primeness of knowledge is a difficult problem.Through reconstruction of Williamson’s argument for the primeness of knowledge and examination of three typical refutations in the literature:refutation based on causal connection,refutation based on free recombination test and refutation based on level of generality,we found that,there are enough intellectual resources in Williamson’s theory to deal with these refutations,and several important corollaries follow from the whole discussion:although the prime conditions are not unique,they are totally separated from the composite conditions.The primeness does not imply unanalyzability,but only removes an obstacle to firstness of knowledge.The existence of prime conditions means that what is important is the relation between internal and external conditions,rather than the debates between internalism and externalism,which also has some implications for the current research on causality.