Abstract:

A trend that has emerged in British and American epistemology recently is the so-called “factual turn”, which is directly against internalism. The emergence of this turn has been attributed to the influences from the following three aspects: McDowell’s disjunctivism, Williamson’s Knowledge and Its Limits, whose essential idea of “knowledge first” means resorting to factuality, and Dancy’s “practical realism” in which only facts can be good reasons for action or belief. This article raises the following objections to the factual turn. First, in the era of scientific creation today, the ways of knowing that highlight imagination and construction are supposed to be more in line with the needs of the times. Second, Williamson’s statement of only believing what you know is an idealization. In effect, when having insufficient knowledge, we often can only believe first and then further look for evidence to confirm. Third, as far as the relationship between knowledge and facts is concerned, facts alone are not enough, as they need to be explained and grasped. Fourth, Williamson’s theory of “evidence equals knowledge (E=K)” may encounter challenges.

Key words: factual turn, evidence, internalism, externalism