Timothy Williamson > Quotes

“I’m not saying science is perfect, but life is too short for an infinite sequence of questionings, and questionings of questionings, and questionings of questionings of questionings…One must start somewhere.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“Anyway, you are right: actions based on true beliefs aren’t guaranteed to go better than actions based on false ones; but they’re much more likely to. Actions based on false beliefs go well only by luck.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“Since the number is either odd or even, it is either true that the number is odd or true that it is even. Therefore something is true but not certain. Either ‘The number of coins now on the train is odd’ is an example of truth without certainty, or ‘The number of coins now on the train is even’ is. We know that one of those two sentences is an example, although we are not in a position to know which of them it is. Zac was incorrect in claiming that truth implies certainty.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“According to your Nietzsche, the truth has fewest defenders not when it is dangerous but when it is boring. I prefer boring truths to interesting falsehoods.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“Modern logicians do not appeal to Aristotle’s authority in logic. They accept some of his logical claims and reject others, on their own merits. They have found Aristotle’s initial characterizations of truth and falsity an appropriate starting point for fruitful investigation. For logical purposes, there is no serious alternative to them.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“Zac is one of those who think a muddy river deeper than a clear one, because they cannot see the bottom.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“Competence with the English language no more requires acceptance of some law of non-contradiction or any other logical law than it requires acceptance of the theory of evolution or the historical reality of the Holocaust.”
― Timothy Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy

“Although empirical knowledge constrains the attribution of essential properties, results are more often reached through a subtle interplay of logic and the imagination. The crucial experiments are thought experiments.”
― Timothy Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy

“From a scientific point of view, there is far too little rational argument and use of evidence in politics, not too much. When you discourage respect for rational standards, Zac, the confusion you create is a smokescreen for politicians to hide behind, to avoid proper scrutiny, even though I’m sure you don’t intend it that way. If I accuse a politician of falsehood and he replies that ‘false’ is a dangerous word, people should laugh. We’d be in trouble if instead their reaction was to nod with respect.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“I’m not saying that all theories are equally probable on the evidence. I’m saying that many have non-zero probability, but some are more probable than others. One can be less personal about disagreements once one realizes that one is only saying that one’s point of view is more probable than one’s opponent’s, not that one is certainly right and he or she certainly wrong.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“But it’s fallibilism, not relativism, that gives us pause by reminding us we may be wrong. It emphasizes the risk that we are acting on false beliefs. Relativism dismisses that risk, because the beliefs are not false from the point of view of the believer.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“[W]hat is epistemically available simply on the basis of linguistic and conceptual competence [?] To a first approximation, the answer is: nothing.”
― Timothy Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy

“Morality is like the brakes, not the CD player. It tells us not to do certain things, like murder, and it’s not an optional extra.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“In science, you can be pretty confident that if a vital component of your total theory is hopelessly false, then the whole theory will make some false predictions. That works even if you can’t test the faulty component in isolation. The same applies to our decision-making. And our moral values are a vital component of our decision-making.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“Peacemakers sometimes have their own agenda. Zac selects his questions strategically, not at random. Questioning truth but not liberation has different effects from questioning liberation but not truth.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“A question may be easy to ask but hard to answer. Even if it is posed in dramatic and accessible terms, the reflections needed to select rationally between rival answers may be less dramatic and accessible. Such contrasts are commonplace in other disciplines; it would have been amazing if they had not occurred in philosophy. Impatience with the long haul of technical reflection is a form of shallowness, often thinly disguised by histrionic advocacy of depth. Serious philosophy is always likely to bore those with short attention-spans.”
― Timothy Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy

“we should be open to the idea that thinking just as much as perceiving is a way of learning how things are.”
― Timothy Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy

“The issue is your undermining of the authority of rational argument. What it liberates people to do is to act on their deepest prejudices, without having to justify them rationally. Don’t assume that what they do then will be politically acceptable to you. If they feel liberated to choose injustice and cruelty, you may not like the results. You may be the first to be lined up against the wall and shot.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“The dialectical nature of philosophical inquiry exerts general pressure to psychologize evidence, and so distance it from the non-psychological subject matter of the inquiry.”
― Timothy Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy

“What’s going on, Bob, is that Zac has a standard tactic when he’s faced with the threat of disagreement. He puts ‘it’s my point of view that…’ in front of whatever he said before. Whenever you challenge one of his claims, he shifts to the different claim that his previous claim is his point of view.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“But it’s fallibilism, not relativism, that encourages us to gather more evidence before taking our decisions. Fallibilism doesn’t mean we should wallow in our mistakes, or not try to correct those we can. Better evidence makes for better decision-making.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“Roxana: I insist. Sarah’s first question was ‘Is it true that there is life on other planets?’; call that the truth question. Her second question was ‘Is it certain that there is life on other planets?’; call that the certainty question. Your response to the truth question was ‘I don’t know’. Your response to the certainty question was ‘No’. Do you accept that those were your responses? Zac: Yeah, Roxana, they were, but where is all this heading? Roxana: You do not treat truth and certainty as the same. Your responses to the truth question and the certainty question were not equivalent. ‘I don’t know’ is quite different from ‘No’.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“My moral relativism only concerns moral beliefs, beliefs about what we ought to do. Moral relativism doesn’t tell you what you ought to do, so I needn’t be relativist about it. Moral relativism is absolutely true, not just true for me. It’s true whatever anyone thinks. It’s limited enough to be defensible, unlike Zac’s.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“The necessary is that whose negation counterfactually implies a contradiction.”
― Timothy Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy

“To get back to the point, I completely reject Zac’s idea that insisting on the difference between truth and falsity leads to dogmatism. Remember, truth isn’t certainty. Science insists on the difference between truth and falsity, but the scientific spirit also makes us self-critical and tolerant of contrary opinions, because we are all fallible. Whenever one asserts something, one should be willing to add ‘but I may be wrong’. The person one is disagreeing with may be right after all. In that sense I call myself a ‘fallibilist’. It’s the very importance of the distinction between truth and falsity that should make us humble, and tolerant of others. It is bigger than all of us.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“Zac: You don’t care whether people like you, do you, Roxana? Roxana: No. If I cared, I might become confused, like you. I do not even care whether I like myself. I prefer to take a purely logical point of view.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“That is not relativism. It is just an instance of the commonplace phenomenon that what a sentence expresses depends on the context in which it is uttered. In effect, Sarah says ‘Burping in my culture is rude’ and my brother says ‘Burping in my culture is polite’. Their statements are consistent, just as when Sarah says ‘I am a woman’ and my brother says ‘I am not a woman’. Once the statements are clarified, it is clear to both cultures that both Sarah and my brother spoke truly.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“Although knowledge and action are central to mind, mind is not central to world.”
― Timothy Williamson, WILLIAMSON:KNOWLEDGE & ITS LIMITS PAPER

“Well, if we are going to be really accurate, it’s like this. If you ask me about one of my present beliefs, I’ll say it is probably true, on my evidence. Science works with probabilities, not with definitive proofs. Each of my beliefs is probable, I hope, even though it’s not probable that all my beliefs together are true. That’s perfectly consistent. It’s like a lottery: before the draw is made, any given ticket will probably lose, even though of course it’s not probable that the tickets will all lose. There has to be a winner.”
― Timothy Williamson, Tetralogue: I'm Right, You're Wrong

“Many truths are never known by anyone.”
― Timothy Williamson, WILLIAMSON:KNOWLEDGE & ITS LIMITS PAPER