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Knowledge First Approaches in Epistemology and Mind
edited by J. Adam Carter, Emma C. Gordon, and Benjamin W. Jarvis
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, Ox2 6dp, United Kingdom
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13. Sustaining Rules: A Model and Application
John Turri
14. ‘More Likely Than Not’: Knowledge First and the Role of Bare Statistical Evidence in Courts of Law 278
Michael Blome-Tillmann
Index
List of Contributors
Michael Blome-Tillmann (McGill University and University of Cambridge)
J. Adam Carter (University of Glasgow)
Mikkel Gerken (University of Southern denmark)
Emma C. Gordon (University of Edinburgh)
Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa (University of British Columbia)
Benjamin W. Jarvis
C. S. I. Jenkins (University of British Columbia)
Jesper Kallestrup (University of Edinburgh)
Christoph Kelp (University of Glasgow)
Clayton Littlejohn (King’s College London)
Heather Logue (Leeds University)
Aidan McGlynn (University of Edinburgh)
Anne Meylan (University of Basel)
d uncan p ritchard (University of California, Irvine and University of Edinburgh)
Joshua Schechter (Brown University)
Martin Smith (University of Edinburgh)
John Turri (University of Waterloo)
Timothy Williamson (Oxford University)
1 Knowledge First
An Introduction
J. Adam Carter, Emma C. Gordon,
and Benjamin W. Jarvis
1. Knowledge-First: A Background
‘Knowledge-First’ constitutes what is widely regarded as one of the most significant innovations in contemporary epistemology in the past twenty-five years. Knowledgefirst epistemology is (in short) the idea that knowledge per se is an epistemic kind with theoretical importance that is not derivative from its relationship to other epistemic kinds, such as rationality. Knowledge-first epistemology is rightly associated with Timothy Williamson (2000) in light of his influential book, Knowledge and Its Limits (KAIL). In KAIL, Williamson suggests that meeting the conditions for knowing is not constitutively explained by meeting the conditions for anything else, e.g., justified true belief.1 Accordingly, knowledge is conceptually and metaphysically prior to other cognitive and epistemic kinds. In this way, the concept know is a theoretical primitive. The status of know as a theoretical primitive makes it particularly suitable for use in making substantive constitutive and causal explanations of a number of other phenomena, including the nature of belief, the nature of evidence, and the success of intentional actions.2
As just indicated, Williamson takes the view in KAIL that knowledge—considered as a kind or type—has no constituents. (This should not be confused with the view that instances of knowledge aren’t at bottom physically constituted—Williamson is, in fact, a physicalist.)3 This negative idea seems to be that there are no further kinds that
1 That meeting the conditions for knowing is constitutively explained by meeting the conditions for justified true belief (or: justified, true belief plus some further “x”) has been, especially since the latter half of the twentieth century, the driving assumption behind the epistemological project termed “the analysis of knowledge”. For a recent overview of the analysis of knowledge, as a theoretical project within mainstream epistemology, see Ichikawa and Steup (2014). Cf., Shope (1983) and Jenkins and Ichikawa (2016, this volume).
2 Additionally, the status of know as a theoretical primitive makes it particularly suitable as a normative constraint or rule that governs certain actions (including speech acts such as assertion) and mental states, such as belief. For a recent overview of knowledge norms, see Benton (2015).
3 See, for example, Williamson (2000, §2.2).
constitute knowledge when collectively instanced; there is no correct theory that identifies the kind “knowledge” with some mix of distinct epistemic and cognitive kinds meeting specifiable conditions. Nevertheless, in KAIL, Williamson also offers a positive characterization of knowledge as the most general factive mental state.4 This further characterization of knowledge is interesting on at least two counts: first—and perhaps more controversially—because it implies that there are factive mental states—remembering that, seeing that, etc.; second, because it suggests that knowledge is, in some sense, the central or most general factive mental state since other factive mental states are more specific ways of knowing.5
The suggestion that there are, among mental states, some that are factive is provocative. Although Putnam-Burge semantic externalism entails that a person’s state of mind— in particular, what these states or mind are directed towards or about—depends on what kind of environment the person has interacted with,6 one might—even after accepting this species of externalism—still resist the idea that a person’s state of mind depends on what the facts—potentially outside of her—are. Moreover, while one might accept that whatever factive mental states there are derive from non-factive ones, this is clearly not Williamson’s idea. Williamson takes factive mental states to be at least on a par with non-factive ones.7 Moreover, with respect to the (allegedly) central mental factive state—knowing—and the central cognitive non-factive correlate—believing Williamson is clear that the former is no less explanatory than the latter. Even if it is possible to understand knowing as a kind of “apt” believing,8 it is also possible to understand believing as a kind of “botched” knowing.9 If we are to understand what it is to believe at least partly through what it is to know, then, given the prominence of belief in contemporary theories of mind, knowledge appears to be central, not only to epistemology, but also to the philosophy of mind
2. Knowledge-First: A Motivation
A central project within epistemology is to understand the proper assessment of belief. A central project within the philosophy of mind is to understand what a belief is. A not wholly implausible idea is that these central projects are, in fact, related. To understand better what a belief is, one needs to think about what happens when belief
4 Ibid., 34–7; 39–40.
5 For an earlier presentation of this idea, see Williamson (1995). The natural expression of a factive (stative) mental state in natural language is a factive mental state operator (FMSO); Williamson’s position is that knowledge is the most general FMSO.
6 Putnam’s (1975) classic externalist argument insists that mental content is individuated by features of one’s physical environment, whereas Burge’s (1986) argument adverts to features of one’s socio-linguistic environment. For an overview, see Lau and Deutsch (2014, §2) Cf., Carter et al. (2014) for an overview of varieties of externalism in the philosophy of mind and epistemology, and how they interface with one another.
7 See, for example, Williamson (2000, §1.5).
8 For a notable recent defence of this proposal, see Sosa (2015, Ch. 1).
9 Williamson (2000, 47).
goes right, and to understand better what happens when belief goes right, one needs to think about what beliefs are. If this idea seems odd, consider it in another context. To understand better what a president of the United States is, it helps to understand better what it looks like when the person occupying that office acts in accordance with the responsibilities and duties of the office. In principle, a person in office might try to violate the duties in any number of ways—he might refuse to give the State of the Union address, for example. However, for the purposes of gaining a fundamental understanding, it helps to consider first not the abundance of ways a president might shirk responsibilities and duties, but rather the way a competent president might act. Indeed, it may help to focus first on a case where the surrounding government is also relatively competent. One can subsequently understand all varieties of presidential dysfunction by way of contrast with the case of a harmonious United States federal government.
For some time, the dominant approach to the theory of belief has been functionalism (at least broadly construed)—so that, to a first approximation, beliefs are what they do, i.e. believing any particular proposition is largely a matter of occupying a certain role.10 Arguably, beliefs play a number of roles—assertions express them, actions are based on them, topical understanding consists in them, and so forth. Consequently, the approach of understanding belief by understanding its proper assessment might begin by considering what it is for belief to go right in each of these roles. In turn, we might gain some further insight about epistemic standards by considering what a person might want from her beliefs in each of these roles.
A natural suggestion—prompted, perhaps, by the fact that the most prominent tool in our conceptual repertoire for marking the quality of belief is the concept know—is that going right for belief is a matter of knowing. Williamson defends individual theses about the explanatory primacy of knowledge in KAIL—e.g., that it is the standard for proper assertion,11 that it is central to the explanation of action12—and others have defended further theses—e.g. that it is required for topical understanding.13 Arguably, a unifying feature of these individual theses is that the phenomena at issue are closely associated with belief—so that belief might even plausibly be at least partly constituted by its role in each case. A knowledge-first addition to this last plausible idea is that the role that beliefs play generally is parasitic on the role that they play when things go right so that the belief qualifies as knowledge: there are a surfeit of ways for a belief to fail in assertion, in action, in understanding etc., but we understand how beliefs can fail in these ways by considering what happens when they don’t fail—because the subject doesn’t merely believe, but rather knows.
10 For some seminal defences of this view, see Armstrong (1968), Fodor (1968), and Lewis (1972). For a critical overview, see Schwitzgebel (2006, §1.4).
11 Other defenders of this view include DeRose (2002), Hawthorne (2004), and Stanley (2005).
12 See Fantl and McGrath (2002), Hawthorne (2004), Hawthorne and Stanley (2008), and Stanley (2005).
13 See, for example, Sliwa (2015) and Kelp (Forthcoming).
Of course, there are other theoretical alternatives for a belief’s going right—perhaps most obviously, the belief’s being rational or justified and the belief’s being true.14 It is well beyond the scope of this introduction to assess in depth whether these alternatives might fare better. However, it may be worth briefly noting some possible deficiencies: a rational or justified belief can fail to be true and a true belief can fail to be rational or justified, but both rationality and truth have claims as minimum standards for a belief’s having gone right. An irrational belief—even if true—is subject to revision should the subject ever become a better thinker or exert more effort to deliberating. If discovered by others as such, it may undermine one’s credibility in making assertions, and it is hard to see how it could play a central role in one’s understanding of some subject matter (e.g., economics). On the other hand, a false belief—even if rational—may not be the best one to transfer to another person through testimony. Moreover, any false belief may—through various inferences—ultimately lead to a further false instrumental belief—about how to satisfy some particular preferences—even when reasoning is good; and, false instrumental beliefs generally put one no closer to satisfying preferences when acted upon. Knowing has the virtue of entailing both that the belief is true and that the belief is rational, so it avoids all of these problems. In addition, it appears to have the very nice feature of being a widely available commodity—unlike, for instance, an alternative epistemic kind that requires Cartesian infallibility. There may be the additional difficulty in understanding why knowing—rather than mere justified true belief—should matter,15 but there’s at least the theoretical possibility that for a belief to go right, a certain harmony must obtain between mind and world—a certain harmony that does not obtain in “double-luck” cases of mere justified true belief.
Thus—while the matter is far from settled—it may be a greater threat to the knowledge-first program that a belief might go right in a multiplicity of nonknowledge ways. More precisely, one might imagine that different activities—e.g., assertion, action, the pursuit of understanding, etc.—make different demands on beliefs with the result that the “optimal” way of going about believing is different for each and not necessarily oriented towards knowing. On the other hand, unless there’s alignment—or at least an available optimal compromise—between this variety of demands on belief, it’s not clear that it should really be belief (rather than some other cognitive output) playing this total variety of roles since it would appear that belief can only be manufactured and managed in one particular way.
In fact, it may be that a greater threat still to the knowledge-first program need not find fault with the idea that knowledge per se is the uniquely relevant way that beliefs generally go right, but rather takes issue with the idea that (on-off) belief itself is especially central in the theory of mind. If, for instance, credences—or graded belief— are more important to understanding assertion, action, understanding, theory
14 This idea has been given both constitutive and teleological glosses, in the former case under the description of normativism about belief (e.g., Shah 2003; Shah and Velleman 2005), and in the latter case under the description of epistemic-value truth monism (e.g., Pritchard 2014).
15 For a recent discussion of this point, see Carter, Jarvis, and Rubin (2013). Cf., Pritchard and Turri (2014).
revision, etc., then belief could even turn out to be epiphenomenal.16 Given that it is not altogether clear whether evaluations of credence as knowledge make any sense, knowledge might turn out to be epiphenomenal as well. One way to understand the motivation for some work within the knowledge-first program, then, is to see it as attempting to undercut this kind of threat. Williamson’s views in KAIL on knowledge and evidence may be a case in point vis-à-vis credence and evidential probability. However, we might pick a different example entirely to illustrate the same general point: Williamson’s arguments against the “luminosity” of any mental conditions17 and, thus, in favour of fallible cognitive access to even “internal” sensations or feelings, e.g., of coldness or of pain—may serve to help undercut the possibility that experience might supplant belief as the most important information-carrying unit in psychology. Again, the underlying idea here: arguably, the knowledge-first program puts belief (rather than alternatives) at least very close to the center of cognition as well since, arguably, only beliefs are candidates for knowledge.
3. Knowledge-First: A Research Program
Timothy Williamson is the founder of the knowledge-first movement and has been its principal flagbearer. However, we think that it is useful to appreciate that the knowledgefirst research program is itself distinct and largely independent from the collection of knowledge-first theses Williamson has defended. Because the knowledge-first approach to epistemology and mind is a research program, it is fairly resistant to refutation even if any of these particular theses turns out to be false.
By way of example, consider a version of the view that Williamson defends in KAIL about assertion. According to this view, knowledge sets the quality standard for assertion, assertions that fall short of this standard (because the assertor doesn’t know) are ipso facto normatively defective (qua assertion) while assertions that meet the standard are not normatively defective in the same way, and this quality norm rather than any other norms, e.g. Gricean maxims18 of “quantity,” “relation,” or “manner,” provides the real essence of an assertion, i.e. something is an assertion solely because this quality norm (rather than some weaker or stronger one) applies to it.19 One might object to this view on the ground that it fails to account for the fact that assertion is multifarious.20 In certain contexts, assertion might be a tool for transferring beliefs— or perhaps more clearly, even knowledge21—from one person to another; in such cases, the quality standard of knowledge might well be appropriate and applicable. In other
16 Cf., Carter, Jarvis, and Rubin (Forthcoming).
17 Williamson (2000, Ch. 4). For a recent defence of Williamson’s anti-luminosity argument against various objections, see Srinivasan (2015).
18 E.g., Grice (1991).
19 See, however, Benton (2014) for further discussion and qualification on this point. Cf., Lackey (2007; 2008) for notable criticisms to both the necessity and sufficiency legs of the knowledge norm of assertion.
20 For a more revisionary line on this score, see Cappelen (2011).
21 This is, for example, the view advanced in Stalnaker’s (1978) knowledge-transfer model of assertion.
cases, however, assertion might merely be tool for trying out ideas (that one may not even believe), tentatively arguing for a hypothetical position, or even indirectly informing a person about one’s beliefs by directly stating (something like) their contents. In these kinds of cases, other quality norms are applicable.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, this particular objection succeeds; the targeted knowledge-first thesis is mistaken precisely because assertion is multifarious. Even still, it would not be clear how much the success of this objection would damage the knowledge-first program. To at least some extent, the objection succeeds because (1) the kind assertion is less natural than one might have initially thought, and relatedly (2) assertion is less straightforwardly and closely related to belief than one might have thought. In particular, we are imagining that assertion turns out chimerical rather than, for instance, always and everywhere an outward reflection of belief that is subject to similar standards as belief is.22 If the kind assertion is less natural than one might have thought, it becomes considerably less important to have an elegant theory of it— let alone a knowledge-based one. Indeed, it might be impressive enough to have a knowledge-based theory of some variety of assertion. Moreover, if assertion in general is not especially closely tied to belief, then, of course, belief—and, consequently, knowledge—might be marginally less important from a theoretical perspective than it might have been otherwise. But, the same condition also considerably lowers the expectation we should have about whether there should be a fully general knowledgebased theory of assertion. All in all, the hypothetical failure of this one particular knowledge-first thesis (about assertion)—at least in this particular way—seems to bear very little on the overall prospects of the knowledge-first program.
The more important general point is that it is always possible in principle to refute a knowledge-first thesis by showing that belief itself is not the cognitive vehicle that is most or even especially central to the phenomenon at issue in all possible cases. If this is true in every instance, then both belief and knowledge turn out not to be very interesting. But, as long as it is only true in a fairly restricted range of instances, the knowledge-first program is not especially in peril. It would be in peril if, even within the range of cases where belief is important, knowledge is also not important. But, this is not easy to show either. There are usually a number of different ways that knowledge could be of central importance for any phenomenon where belief plays an important role. It is certainly possible that the knowledge-first program will turn out to fail, but it is not a simple matter of refuting a certain number of the knowledge-first theses that Timothy Williamson has defended.
Finally, it is worth emphasizing that, in our opinion, the knowledge-first program does not hinge on accepting every element of Williamson’s metaphysical picture of (the state or concept of) knowledge. For instance, Williamson seems to place great emphasis on the fact that knowledge is not “factorizable.” On at least
22 For instance, this might be the case if we had compelling reason to reject the “belief-assertion parallel” according to which, as Williamson puts it, “believing p stands to asserting p as the inner stands to the outer” (255–6). See also Benton (2014, §3a).
some understanding of “factorizable,” knowledge would appear to be factorizable if the following biconditional were true:
A subject, S, knows <p> if and only if:
(1) S believes <p>;
(2) S’s believing <p> is a cognitive success in the sense that <p> is true; (3) S believes <p> as the result of exercising epistemic competences; and (4) (2) is attributable (3).
This “robust competence” theory appears to be a version of the JTB+ theories that Williamson generally dismisses.23 One might argue that success of the knowledge-first program hinges on rejecting this theory as a theory of knowledge, but rejecting this theory as a theory of knowledge does not obviously require rejecting the biconditional itself. Arguably, it only requires rejecting the knowing as the analysandum of the theory. One might accept the biconditional as part of a theory of epistemic competences or even as part of a theory of belief.24 Indeed, as long as the order of explanation or analysis does not flow exclusively from left to right, knowledge may be first in the (ordinary) sense that nothing else comes before it.25 Perhaps, in the context where knowing is not the analysandum of the biconditional, it is misleading to say that knowledge is factorizable; nevertheless, it is arguably strictly true that, so long as the biconditional is true, knowing is a conjunction of four factors (whether or not knowing has any explanatory or analytical priority). So, it’s not clear that knowledge being first—or the relative priority of knowledge—especially depends on Williamson being right about factorization.
A similar point could be made about Williamson’s ontological categorization of knowing as part of the mental domain.26 Categorizing knowing in this way might well boost knowledge’s credentials as a state worth understanding for the purposes of understanding the mind. However, if, for example, the appropriate way to understand belief is as an attempt at knowing (where mere belief is simply “botched” knowing), then knowledge looks to play an important role within the philosophy of mind whether or not it is a mental kind per se. Again, the general point is that one has to be careful not to assume that any particular part of Williamson’s metaphysics of (the state or concept of) knowledge is essential to the knowledge-first program.
Williamson’s complete picture of knowledge—including not only the metaphysics, but the variety of individual explanatory theses involving knowledge that he defends— is interesting in its own right. Our point in this section is not to dismiss either its truth or appeal. Rather, we wish to point out that, when it comes to the knowledge-first program, Williamson’s particular picture is important as a paradigm, not as the substance. In fact, his picture seems to constitute a particularly strong version of
23 Proponents of this kind of view, also referred to as robust virtue epistemology, include most notably John Greco (e.g., 2010; 2012) and Ernest Sosa (2009; 2015).
24 Cf. Carter, Jarvis, and Rubin 2013. 25 Cf. Ichikawa and Jarvis (2013, 138).
26 Williamson 2000 (Ch. 1).
a knowledge-first approach—which is particularly useful for appreciating what a knowledge-first approach might be, but may or may not be the most plausible version. After all, it is possible to think that knowledge is at the center of a wider or narrower range of phenomena, and—as some of our contributors will emphasize—there are a variety of ways in which knowledge exhibits priority (e.g. explanatory, conceptual, ontogenetic, epistemic, metaphysical, etc.) over other phenomena. We think, then, that it is actually a disservice to Williamson’s remarkable contribution to associate the knowledgefirst program too closely with the particular way that he has carried it forward.
4. Knowledge-First: The Volume
Given that there are a wide range of ways in which the knowledge-first program (or something approximating it) might succeed at least in part, there are a wide range of ways to engage with the program as well. A few of our contributors have elected to say something highly general about the program, but many have chosen to focus on specific knowledge-first theses or other aspects of knowledge that may be turn out to be relevant to evaluating the program at a later stage. In two cases—including the contribution from Williamson himself—authors have considered turning the methodology Williamson has applied to the study of knowledge to other phenomena (action and perception). We think this, too, may provide some insight about the knowledge-first program. However, given the diversity of topics covered within the volume, we also hope that the contributions not only help advance the understanding of the knowledge-first program, but also are of interest to philosophers and other researchers curious about other phenomena—including assertion, action, normativity, or mentality—independent of any particular interest in knowledge itself.
The articles in this volume fall well short—even collectively—of systematically addressing the virtues and vices of the knowledge-first program. However, we believe this result is appropriate. The purpose of the volume is to provide a relatively openended forum for creative and original scholarship that might ultimately bear on the knowledge-first program, rather than to provide a complete summary of knowledgefirst debates up until the present. Moreover, given that we believe the knowledge-first program is not only ambitious, but also flexible and resilient, it comes as no surprise to us that the volume falls well short—in our minds at least—of vindicating either the program’s adherents or opponents. Our intent is only to make some progress in shedding some further light on the subject matter. We think (and hope) that the volume succeeds in that modest aim.
5. Overview of Chapters
In what follows are brief overviews of each specific chapter in the volume, thirteen in total. Though the contributions to the volume differ substantially with regard to which
aspects of the knowledge-first program receive special focus, we think nonetheless that the contributions fall generally within two broad categories: (i) foundational issues with knowledge-first philosophy (including defenses and critiques of core elements of the project), and (ii) applications and new directions. The first half of the book contains papers which cluster around the former theme, and the second half, the latter.
5.1 Foundational issues
We begin with Clayton Littlejohn’s staunch defence of Knowledge-First epistemology, in ‘How and Why Knowledge is First’. Littlejohn’s dialectical aim has, as its focus, a sustained defense of the claim that one cannot have a reason in one’s possession unless it is something that one knows. This view is claimed to have advantages over a different way of thinking about epistemic status. On the ‘reasons-first’ approach to epistemic status, reasons and the possession of them are prior to epistemic status. In reversing this picture, Littlejohn reveals an important sense in which knowledge comes first— viz., in that we first come to have reasons in our possession by coming to know that certain things are true; there is nothing prior to knowing that puts these reasons in our possession. In the course of advancing this picture, Littlejohn furthermore offers a sophisticated defence of Williamson’s knowledge-evidence equivalence, (E=K).
In ‘Against Knowledge-First Epistemology’, Mikkel Gerken attacks, on several fronts, what is often cited as a theoretical advantage to regarding knowledge as a theoretical primitive—namely, that knowledge can be used to reductively analyse other epistemic phenomena. As Gerken sees it, proponents of such an approach commit a similar mistake to the one that they charge their opponents with—viz., the mistake of seeking to reductively analyse basic epistemic phenomena in terms of other allegedly more basic or fundamental phenomena. After leveling this charge against reductionist brands of knowledge-first epistemology, Gerken then challenges—taking the knowledge norm of assertion as his critical focus27 non-reductionist brands of knowledge-first epistemology. Gerken concludes by articulating an alternative to knowledge-first methodology that he calls “equilibristic epistemology”. According to equilibristic epistemology there isn’t a single epistemic phenomenon or concept that is “first”. Rather, there are a number of basic epistemic phenomena that are not reductively analysable although they may be co-elucidated in a non-reductive manner.
In ‘Mindreading Knowledge’, Aidan McGlynn, like Gerken, is critical of a core element of the knowledge-first program—in McGlynn’s case, the thesis that knowledge is a mental state in its own right.28 McGlynn challenges this thesis by way of calling into doubt a prominent empirically oriented strategy for defending it, one
27 For the classic defense of this position, according to which assertion is normatively constrained by the rule that one should assert only what one knows, see Williamson (1996). Other prominent defenders of the view include DeRose (2002), Hawthorne (2004), and Stanley (2005).
28 For detailed criticisms by McGlynn of other aspects of the knowledge-first program, see McGlynn (2014).
which has been advanced in recent work by Jennifer Nagel (2013). Nagel draws on work in developmental and comparative psychology with the aim of establishing that the concept of knowledge is acquired before the concept of belief, and she regards this conceptual priority claim as evidence for the metaphysical thesis that knowledge is a mental state. McGlynn argues that, on closer inspection, the results established in the developmental and comparative psychology literature fall well short of conclusively supporting Nagel’s conceptual priority claim, much less the stronger metaphysical claim that knowledge is a mental state in its own right.
Martin Smith is also critical of the core knowledge-first thesis that knowledge is a mental state. In his contribution ‘The Cost of Treating Knowledge as a Mental State’, Smith insists that embracing the mental state thesis carries certain costs that have not been widely appreciated. Of particular interest for Smith are costs associated with departing (as Knowledge-First proponents do) with internalism about the mental, where internalism is the thesis that one’s mental states are determined by one’s internal physical state. Internalism about the mental has been widely rejected amongst contemporary philosophers of mind.29 However, Smith argues, although philosophers of mind have converged on the falsity of internalism, the Knowledge-First proponent’s claim that knowledge is a mental state effectively takes us much further from internalism than anything philosophers of mind have converged upon.
In ‘On Putting Knowledge “First”’, Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa and C. S. I. Jenkins claim that various views which travel under the banner of “knowledge first” epistemology betray subtle differences in just how it is that they respectively regard knowledge as “first”. These differences, they argue, are problematic, in part because it is not straightforward to draw connections between certain of these views, which are under closer inspection more independent than they are often assumed to be. Ichikawa and Jenkins’s aim is, in the main, to tease apart various “knowledge first” claims, and explore what connections they do or do not have with one another, in the service of a clearer understanding of just what the knowledge first theses are and how these theses might be evaluated.
Rounding out the chapters focusing on foundational issues is Joshua Schechter’s ‘No Need for Excuses: Against Knowledge-First Epistemology and the Knowledge Norm of Assertion’. In this chapter, Schechter offers a two-tiered critique of the knowledgefirst program. Firstly, he surveys some of the “big-picture” objections to knowledge-first epistemology, and argues that they are not conclusive. Secondly, Schechter shifts his critical attention to a specific thesis endorsed by many knowledge-first epistemologists— the knowledge norm of assertion, and in particular, to the objection that it is intuitively appropriate for someone who has a strongly justified belief that p, but who doesn’t know that p, to assert that p. 30 Schechter argues that a standard reply to this objection
29 For an overview of externalist approaches to mental content, see Lau and Deutsch (2014).
30 The blamelessness reply to this line of objection is also defended by, along with Williamson (2000, 256–7), DeRose (2002) and Hawthorne and Stanley (2008).
on behalf of knowledge-first proponents—viz., that such assertions are improper but that the subject has an excuse and is therefore not blameworthy for making the assertion—is ultimately unworkable.
5.2 Applications and new directions
In KAIL’s opening paragraph, Williamson takes, as a starting point for discussion, an analogy between knowledge and action.
Knowledge and action are the central relations between mind and world. In action, world is adapted to mind. In knowledge, mind is adapted to world. When world is maladapted to mind, there is a residue of desire. When mind is maladapted to world, there is a residue of belief. Desire aspires to action; belief aspires to knowledge. The point of desire is action; the point of belief is knowledge (2000, 1).
The principal aim of Williamson’s contribution to this volume, ‘Acting on Knowledge’, is to develop and refine this analogy between knowledge and action in KAIL, the general schema of which is: knowledge is to belief as action is to intention. As Williamson himself articulates his project:
The analogy reverses direction of fit (mind to world, world to mind). The knowledge/belief side of the analogy corresponds to the inputs to practical reasoning, the action/intention side to its output. Insofar as desire is an input to practical reasoning, it belongs to the former side (the desire-as-belief thesis is considered sympathetically). When all goes globally well with practical reasoning, one acts on what one knows. Beliefs play the same local role as knowledge, and intentions the same local role as action, in practical reasoning. This is the appropriate setting in which to understand knowledge norms for belief and practical reasoning. Marginalizing knowledge in epistemology is as perverse as marginalizing action in the philosophy of action.
An advantage Williamson claims of developing this analogy rigorously is that opponents of knowledge-first epistemology are challenged to produce an equally systematic and plausible account of the relation between the cognitive and the practical.
Heather Logue, like Williamson, investigates an analogy—in her case, an analogy between knowledge and perception. In short, Logue asks: if knowledge is unanalysable, might also perception be? After all, the history of attempts to analyse the perceptual relation have been subject to counterexamples in such a way as to broadly mirror the track record of the post-Gettier literature.31 To the extent that the failure of the postGettier project motivates a knowledge-first approach, it is natural to wonder whether an analogous sort of failure to analyse (in a fashion that avoids counterexamples) the perceptual relation motivates a perception-first approach. Logue however argues that even if the perceptual relation turns out to be unanalysable, this does not necessarily
31 For an overview, see Shope (1983). The locus classicus of the Gettier problem is Gettier (1963). For an overview of various attempts to characterize the perceptual relation, see Crane and French (2016).
mean that we should embrace a perception-first approach. Though, as she suggests, there might nonetheless be an alternative motivation for a perception-first approach.
Duncan Pritchard and Jesper Kallestrup, in ‘Epistemic Supervenience, AntiIndividualism and Knowledge-First Epistemology’, investigate connections between knowledge-first epistemology and a metaepistemological thesis they’ve defended elsewhere (and in opposition to robust forms of virtue epistemology)32 under the description of epistemic anti-individualism. 33 Epistemic anti-individualism is a denial of the epistemic individualist’s claim that warrant—i.e., what converts true belief into knowledge—supervenes on internal physical properties of individuals, perhaps in conjunction with local environmental properties. Kallestrup and Pritchard have two central aims. First, they argue that “epistemic twin earth” thought experiments which reveal robust virtue epistemology (RVE) to be problematically committed to epistemic individualism also show that evidentialist mentalism34 is likewise committed to individualism. Second, they argue that, even though a knowledge-first approach in epistemology is in principle (unlike RVE and evidentialist mentalism) consistent with epistemic anti-individualism, this approach fails to offer a plausible account of epistemic supervenience. This point is, they suggest, a reason to pursue epistemic anti-individualism outside the knowledge-first framework.
In ‘Knowledge-First Virtue Epistemology’, Christoph Kelp connects what have thus far been independent knowledge-related research programs: virtue epistemology, which offers an account of knowledge in terms of agents’ intellectual virtues or abilities, and knowledge-first epistemology. Kelp’s primary aim in the chapter is to develop a knowledge-first virtue epistemological accounts of knowledge and justified belief 35 and to show that these accounts compare favourably with their traditionalist cousins.
Anne Meylan, in her chapter ‘In Support of the Knowledge-First Conception of the Normativity of Justification’ explores knowledge-first epistemology in connection with the New Evil Demon Problem (NEDP).36 In particular, Meylan argues that the knowledge-first solution to the NEDP fits well with a particular conception of the normativity of justification. Williamson (forthcoming) defends this conception, according to which a justified belief is one that satisfies some sort of “ought” or “should”, a view which runs contrary to the more established view of justified belief, as neither obligatory nor forbidden.37 The position she advances is that the knowledge-first conception of the normativity of justification, which is the one on which the knowledge-first solution to the NEDP relies, is superior to the more traditional view.
32 Prominent defenders of robust virtue epistemology include Greco (2010; 2012), Sosa (2009; 2010; 2015), and Zagzebski (1996).
33 See, for example, Kallestrup and Pritchard (2012; 2013; 2014).
34 The most classic defense of this view is developed in Conee and Feldman (2004).
35 For a complementary discussion of a knowledge-first approach to justified belief, see Kelp (2016).
36 For notable presentations of this problem, see Lehrer and Cohen (1983) and Cohen (1984). For a recent critical overview of the problem, and a survey of responses, see Littlejohn (2009).
37 This is a view that has been defended in various places by, among others, William Alston, e.g., (1989).
In ‘Sustaining Rules: A Model and Application’, John Turri places knowledge-first, in a hitherto unexplored way, as a normative standard for belief. One familiar way to think of knowledge as a normative standard for belief is as a rule that governs the propriety of believing, for example: one must: believe that p only if one knows that p. 38 Turri’s project explores a comparatively broader sense in which knowledge might be the normative standard for belief: by normatively sustaining cognition, and thereby, inquiry. This result is part of a wider project: to offer conditions under which any rule sustains a practice (cognitive or otherwise). On Turri’s proposal, a rule normatively sustains a practice when the value achieved by following the rule explains why agents continue following that rule—in a way that sustains the pattern of activity.
Finally, in ‘“More Likely Than Not” Knowledge First and the Role of Bare Statistical Evidence in Courts of Law’ Michael Blome-Tillmann argues that embracing a knowledge-first approach can help to resolve important epistemological problems in legal philosophy.39 Blome-Tillmann takes as a starting point a puzzle arising from the evidential standard Preponderance of the Evidence and its application in civil procedure. The evidential standard captured by Preponderance of the Evidence is usually glossed as “greater than .5 given the admissible evidence”. But this characterization generates puzzles,40 where our intuitions about whether a defendant should be found liable diverge in case pairs where the evidential probability captured this way is the same. Blome-Tillmann argues that the tension generated by such puzzles can be resolved fairly straightforwardly within a knowledge-first framework.
References
Alston, William P. 1989. Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Armstrong, David M. 1968. A Materialist Theory of the Mind. London: Routledge.
Benton, Matthew A. 2014. Gricean Quality. Noûs 50(4): 659–878. doi:10.1111/nous.12065.
Benton, Matthew A. 2015. Knowledge Norms. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/kn-norms/#SH1d.
Blome-Tillmann, Michael. 2015. Sensitivity, Causality, and Statistical Evidence in Courts of Law. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 4(2): 102–12.
Burge, Tyler. 1986. Individualism and Psychology. Philosophical Review 95(1): 3–45. Cappelen, Herman. 2011. Against Assertion. In Jessica Brown and Herman Cappelen, eds., Assertion: New Philosophical Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 21–48. Carter, J. Adam, Benjamin Jarvis, and Katherine Rubin. 2013. Knowledge: Value on the Cheap. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91(2): 249–63.
38 As Williamson puts it, “Knowledge sets the standard of appropriateness for belief”. For discussion on this point, see Williamson (2000, 47) and more recently McHugh (2011) and Littlejohn (2013). Cf., Benton (2015, §3).
39 See also Blome-Tillmann (2015).
40 For example, the “Gatecrasher Puzzle”, as noted in L. J. Cohen (1977).
Carter, J. Adam, Benjamin Jarvis, and Katherine Rubin. 2016. Belief without Credence. Synthese, 193(8): 2323–2351. doi:10.1007/s11229-015-0846-6.
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Jenkins, C. S. Ichikawa, and Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa. 2018. On Putting Knowledge First. In J. Adam Carter, Emma C. Gordon, and Benjamin Jarvis, eds., Knowledge First: Approaches in Epistemology and Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 113–31.
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Kallestrup, Jesper, and Duncan Pritchard. 2014. Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Twin Earth. European Journal of Philosophy 22(3): 335–57.
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Kelp, Christoph. Forthcoming. Towards a Knowledge-Based Account of Understanding. In Stephen Grimm, Christoph Baumberger, and Sabine Ammon, eds., Explaining Understanding: New Perspectives from Epistemology and the Philosophy of Science. London: Routledge.
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Sosa, Ernest. 2009. A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge (Vol. 1). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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J. Adam Carter, Emma C. Gordon, and Benjamin W. Jarvis
Stalnaker, Robert C. 1978. Assertion. In Peter Cole, ed., Syntax and Semantics: Pragmatics, volume 9. Cambridge, MA: Academic Press, 315–32. Stanley, Jason. 2005. Knowledge and Practical Interests. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williamson, Timothy. Forthcoming. Justifications, Excuses, and Skeptical Scenarios. In Julien Dutant and Fabian Dorsch, eds., The New Evil Demon. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williamson, Timothy. 1995. Is Knowing a State of Mind? Mind 104(415): 533–65. Williamson, Timothy. 1996. Knowing and Asserting. Philosophical Review 105(4): 489–523. Williamson, Timothy. 2000. Knowledge and Its Limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, Linda Trinkaus. 1996. Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Part I
Foundational Issues
How and Why Knowledge is First
Clayton Littlejohn
1. Introduction
It is an extremely common mistake.1 People think that our beliefs cannot attain any sort of positive epistemic status unless they are based on good reasons.2 according to the reasons-first approach to epistemic status, reasons and the possession of them are prior to epistemic status.3 In point of fact, the opposite is true. When you know that something is true, it is true that you have reasons in your possession, but you possess these reasons as a result of coming to know. There is nothing prior to knowing that puts these reasons in your possession. Because of this, the proponents of reasons-first epistemology are mistaken in thinking that the possession of reasons is a necessary precondition for the attainment of status. Thus, there is an important sense in which knowledge comes first. It comes first in the sense that, at the beginning, we come to have reasons in our possession by coming to know that certain things are true.
1 I have benefited from conversations with Maria alvarez, robert audi, Bill Brewer, Wesley Buckwalter, John Callanan, adam Carter, Elijah Chudnoff, Chris Cowie, Jonathan Dancy, Christina Dietz, trent Dougherty, Julien Dutant, Mikkel Gerken, Sandy Goldberg, ali Hasan, Scott Hagaman, John Hawthorne, Jennifer Hornsby, robert Howell, Nick Hughes, John Hyman, Maria Lasonen-aarnio, Dustin Locke, Heather Logue, Errol Lord, Jack Lyons, Brent Madison, aidan McGlynn, rachel McKinnon, Jon Matheson, ram Neta, Duncan Pritchard, Susanna Siegel, Chris tucker, John turri, and tim Williamson. I also thank four anonymous referees for their helpful feedback on an earlier draft.
2 an anonymous referee reminded me that this is often assumed in stating agrippa’s trilemma. among the defenders of the view that justification requires the support of reasons/evidence are Comesana (2010), Conee and Feldman (2004), and McDowell (1998). While this view is commonly held, it is not commonly argued for. I have never seen an argument for it. Some authors (e.g., Gibbons (2010)) define ‘reason’ as something that occupies a certain theoretical role (i.e., that of making things reasonable), but this approach trivializes the claim and conflicts with an approach that thinks that we have some independent grip on the notion of a reason. as I think the claim is non-trivial and think we have an independent grip on the notion, I will not follow his lead.
3 These reasons are usually understood as evidence. For arguments that a subject’s reasons for believing things consists of a subject’s (apparent) evidence, see adler (2002) and Shah (2006). a subject’s reason for ϕ-ing is a motivating reason, a special kind of explanatory reason (i.e., a reason why a subject ϕ’d). an important constraint on a theory of motivating reasons is that they can be good reasons to ϕ. See Dancy (2000). For a general discussion of the relationship between reasons of different kinds and the ontology of reasons, see alvarez (2010) and Littlejohn (forthcoming).
Knowledge is first because it is distinctive. There is nothing else that could put us in a position to believe, do, or feel things for reasons. according to the knowledge-first view defended here, you cannot have a reason in your possession unless it is something you know. reasons are facts and the possession of them requires knowledge. In defending this view, I shall defend a crucial part of the view that your evidence is all and only what you know (E=K). Much of the literature on E=K has been concerned with questions about whether evidence has to consist of truths, whether it can be inferential, and whether Gettier cases cause trouble for E=K.4 Defenders of E=K have done a nice job fending off challenges on these fronts, but some issues haven’t been explored in sufficient depth.5 It seems that knowledge requires justified or appropriate belief.6 If it does, E=K implies that your evidence includes p only if you appropriately or justifiably believe p. If knowing p does require justifiably or appropriately believing p, E=K tells us two surprising things about the possession of evidence. The first is that you cannot possess something as evidence unless you believe it.7 This rules out the possibility that your non-inferential beliefs are justified by virtue of being supported by evidence.8 Some alternative story has to be told about how
4 McGlynn (2014) provides a detailed survey and critical discussion of this literature.
5 The challenges have focused on things like whether evidence can be inferential, whether it must be propositional or factive, whether evidence has to be believed, and whether the externalist implications of E=K are acceptable. For a discussion of whether evidence can be inferential, see Bird (2004) and Neta (2008). For discussion of whether evidence has to be propositional, see Dougherty (2011). For discussion of whether propositional evidence is factive and requires belief, see Littlejohn (2012, forthcoming) and Williamson (2009). For discussion of the externalist implications, see Pritchard (2012).
6 I will treat these notions interchangeably. Maria alvarez has convinced me (whether she intended to or not) that this holds only for mature humans. There are some non-human animals where it seems that they know things but cannot be held accountable in the way that they would have to be to make sense of the idea that their actions, emotions, or beliefs are justified. On my view, then, the relation between knowledge and justification is akin to the way that utilitarians conceive of the relation between being right and being optimific. a heroic dog might perform optimific actions. It is an open question whether they have acted rightly. They might know that it is time for dinner. It is an open question whether this belief is justified. If this is a good idea, it is probably hers. If it is not, it is probably mine.
7 This clashes with many of the standard claims about propositional justification (e.g., that it does not require belief but does require reasons or evidence). Obviously, I will have to defend it further on. If you wanted to offer a knowledge-first approach to propositional justification, you could do it in terms of what you’re in a position to know, but then you’d have to give up some of the standard views about the relation between propositional justification and basing.
8 For further defense of the idea that there’s nothing that is your reason for believing p if your belief is non-inferential, see Littlejohn (forthcoming) and McGinn (2012). One argument for the view that there is nothing that is your reason for believing p when that belief is non-inferential uses McDowell’s (1978) characterization of a subject’s reasons and points out that on this gloss only that which is known independently from believing p could be your reason for believing p readers who want to insist that cases of non-inferential belief are cases in which there’s something that is your reason for believing what you do are free to introduce their own conception of a subject’s reasons, but the standard glosses on it do not allow for non-inferential beliefs to be based on reasons. a simple point that is often neglected is that Unger’s (1975) argument that all propositionally specified reasons have to be known to be a subject’s reasons holds true for all the relevant verbs, even those used to talk about beliefs that are not formed through inference. For further arguments for the knowledge requirement, see Hornsby (2007, 2008) and Hyman (1999).
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categorically that he would raze Leningrad to the ground. That is important for me.
JODL: You are referring to the naval document, I assume, the document of the SKL, the Naval Operations Staff.
COL. POKROVSKY: You will now be handed Document L-221 and will be shown the passage where it is written that, on 16 July 1941, during a conference in the Führer’s headquarters, the following statement was made:
“The Finns are claiming the district of Leningrad. The Führer wants to raze Leningrad to the ground and then hand it over to the Finns.”
Have you found the passage?
JODL: Yes, I have found the place.
COL. POKROVSKY: This took place on 16 July 1941, did it not?
JODL: The document was written on 16 July 1941, yes.
COL. POKROVSKY: That was considerably earlier than the date you received the report from the Leningrad front?
JODL: Yes, it was 3 months before then.
COL. POKROVSKY: It was also long before the day when explosions and fires first occurred in Kiev. Is that correct?
JODL: Quite correct.
COL. POKROVSKY: It was clearly not by accident that in the directive you drew up yourself and in the statements you made before the Tribunal, you declared that the Führer had again decided to raze Leningrad to the ground. It was not the first time he had made this decision.
JODL: No, this decision, if it actually was a decision—and the statements made at this conference—I learned for the first time here in Court. I personally did not take part in the discussion, nor do I know whether the words were said in that way. My remark that the Führer had again taken a decision refers to the verbal order he had given to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army shortly before, perhaps 1 or 2 days earlier. It is quite clear that there was already talk of this and that in the order I am referring to—a letter of the High
Command of the Army of 18 September—and in that way the word “again” is to be explained. I was quite unaware of the fact, and I heard of it for the first time here in Court. It was only here in Court that I heard of the conference taking place at all.
COL. POKROVSKY: Very well. The Tribunal will probably be able to judge precisely when Hitler made this statement for the first time.
You have declared that you knew nothing about reprisals against the Jews?
JODL: No.
COL. POKROVSKY: And yet you have just referred to Document Number 053-PS.
[The document was submitted to the defendant.]
It is a report from Koch, personally signed by him. Maybe you will confirm that it states quite clearly that Koch held the civilian population of the city responsible for the Kiev fires and exterminated the entire Jewish population of Kiev, numbering some 35,000 souls, over half of whom were women. That is what the report says. Is it correct?
JODL: I know that very well indeed, but I only found this document here in the document room; and I used it as a good piece of evidence for the incidents in Kiev. The existence of the document was unknown to me until I came to Nuremberg and it never went to the OKW either. At all events, it never came into my hands. I do not know whether it was ever sent.
COL. POKROVSKY: You also did not know whether the Jews were exterminated or not? Is that true?
JODL: I certainly believe it today. There can be no more doubt about that; it has been proved.
COL. POKROVSKY: Very well. In the document submitted by your defense counsel as Exhibit Number Jodl-3, Document Number 1780-PS, Page 6 of your document book, in the last entry made on that page, you will read the following: “A large proportion of senior generals will leave the Army.”
This refers to the entry in your diary of 3 February 1938. Do you remember?
JODL: Yes, that is from my diary.
COL. POKROVSKY: Are we to understand that resignations from the Army could take place at any time, in other words, that any general could retire or resign from the Army whenever he wanted to? That is what you say here.
JODL: At that time, I believe it was quite possible. In the year 1938 I knew of no decree which prohibited it.
COL. POKROVSKY: Very well. In Document Number Jodl-64, Exhibit Number AJ-11, which was submitted by your defense counsel, we find a passage which, for some reason or other, was not read into the record; and I would like to quote it now. It is the testimony of General Von Vormann, who states under oath that you, together with General Von Hammerstein, often used such expressions as “criminal” and “charlatan,” when referring to Hitler?
Do you confirm the accuracy of that testimony, or has Vormann expressed himself incorrectly?
JODL: To the best of my knowledge, and in all good conscience, I believe that he is confusing two things. In talking about the Führer, I very often said that I looked on him as a charlatan; but I had no cause or reason to consider him a criminal. I often used the expression “criminal”; but not in connection with Hitler, whom I did not even know at the time. I applied it to Röhm. I repeatedly spoke of him as a criminal, in my opinion; and I believe that Vormann is confusing these statements just a little. I often used the expression “charlatan”; that was my opinion at the time.
COL. POKROVSKY: That is to say, you considered Röhm a criminal and the Führer a charlatan? Is that correct?
JODL: Yes, that is right, because at that time it was my opinion. I knew Röhm, but I did not know Adolf Hitler.
COL. POKROVSKY: Then how are we to explain that you accepted leading posts in the military machine of the German Reich, after the man whom you yourself described as a charlatan had come to power?
JODL: Because in the course of the years I became convinced —at least during the years from 1933 to 1938—that he was not a charlatan but a man of gigantic personality who, however, in the end assumed infernal power. But at that time he definitely was an outstanding personality.
COL. POKROVSKY: Did you receive the Golden Party Badge of the Hitler Party?
JODL: Yes, I have already testified to that and confirmed it.
COL. POKROVSKY: In what year did you receive the badge?
JODL: On 30 January 1943.
COL. POKROVSKY: Was it after that when you came to the conclusion that Hitler was not a “charlatan”? Did you hear my question?
JODL: Yes. It became clear to me then that he was, as I said before, a gigantic personality, even if with certain reservations.
COL. POKROVSKY: And after you had reached that conclusion you promptly received the Golden Party Badge? I thank you.
I have no more questions, Your Honor.
DR. NELTE: I should like to call the attention of the Tribunal to the Document Number USSR-151, which was submitted by Colonel Pokrovsky. I should like to ask for this document to be admitted only if General Österreich can be produced as a witness for crossexamination. My reasons for this are the following:
1. The document as submitted contains the heading “Aussagen” or “statements,” but we cannot make out before whom these statements were made.
2. The document contains no mention of the place where it was drawn up.
3. The document is not an affidavit, although according to the last paragraph General Österreich set it down in his own handwriting; and, therefore, it could have been certified as a statement under oath.
Because of the severity of the accusation which this document brings forward against the administration of the prisoner-of-war
system, it is necessary in my opinion to order this general to appear here in person.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes; go on.
DR. NELTE: Those are the reasons for my request. In conclusion I should just like to point out that General Von Graevenitz is no longer alive. At all events, he cannot be located. I tried to find him as a witness on behalf of Defendant Keitel.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it a fact that this document was offered in evidence as long ago as February or March?
DR. NELTE: I do not remember that, nor—and I know this for certain—was it issued to us through the Document Division. I am seeing this document for the first time now. But perhaps Colonel Pokrovsky can give some information about it.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will consider your request.
DR. NELTE: May I also call the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that the document is dated 28 December 1945, and it is to be assumed that General Österreich can also be produced by the people who took his testimony at that time.
COL. POKROVSKY: Mr. President, I believe that I can give some information about this document. It was submitted by the Soviet Delegation on 12 February 1946, when it was accepted as evidence by the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, just a moment. Was it translated into German then or was it read in Court?
COL. POKROVSKY: I have just received a memorandum from our document room. The document was submitted on 13 February, at the time when I was presenting documentary evidence with regard to the subject of prisoners of war. It is all I have on the matter.
I personally assume that the document was translated into German as a matter of course at that time. I have almost no doubt about it. However, we can easily make sure.
THE PRESIDENT: Do any other defendants’ counsel wish to reexamine the defendant?
DR. EXNER: First of all, I should like to put one question which came up again during the interrogation by the Defense Counsel. It
was a point which seems to me in need of clarification.
One of the Defense Counsel reminded you of the photographs which were shown us here depicting atrocities in the occupied countries, and you said that the pictures were genuine.
What do you mean by that?
JODL: I meant to say that it was not trick photography, at which the Russian propagandists were past masters, according to my experience. I meant that they were pictures of actual events. But I also meant to say that the pictures offered no proof of whether it was a matter of atrocities at all, nor did they show who committed them. The fact that they were found in the possession of Germans would even lead us to assume that they were pictures of things which had been perpetrated by the enemy, by the forces of Tito or perhaps the Ustashi. Generally one does not take a picture of one’s own acts of cruelty if any were ever committed.
DR. EXNER: Very well. The English Prosecutor has submitted a new document, 754-PS, dealing with the destructions during the retreat in Norway. Why in this purely military Führer Decree did you write: “The Führer had agreed to the proposals of the Reich Commissioner for the occupied Norwegian territories, and has given his orders accordingly....” and so on? Why did you deliberately put in “to the proposals,” and so forth?
JODL: In issuing orders I had a kind of secret code for the commanders-in-chief. If an order was the result of an agreement between the OKW and the Führer, then I started with the words “The Führer has decreed....”
If a decree originated from the Führer himself, I started the decree with a preamble which gave the Führer’s reasons and the arguments in favor. Then, after the preamble, I wrote “The Führer, therefore, has decreed....”
If the Führer was prompted by the proposal of a nonmilitary agency to issue a decree, then, as a matter of basic principle, I added, “The Führer, on the proposal of this or that civil authority, has decided....” In this way the commanders-in-chief knew what it was all about.
DR. EXNER: Did you draft this decree—Document Number 754PS—without objection or resistance?
JODL: This decree originated in much the same manner as the Commando Order. One of the Führer’s civilian adjutants advised me that Terboven wished to speak to the Führer. He had had trouble with the Wehrmacht in Norway because of the evacuation of the civilian population from northern Norway. The civilian adjutant said he wanted to advise me first before he established connections with Terboven by telephone. Thereupon I at once had inquiries made through my staff of the commander in Norway-Finland. I was told that the Wehrmacht—the commander of the Wehrmacht in Norway had rejected Terboven’s proposals and did not consider them possible on such a large scale. In the meantime Terboven had spoken with the Führer. I then remonstrated with the Führer and told him that, in the first place, the decree and Terboven’s intention were not practicable on such a scale, and secondly, that there was no necessity for it on such a large scale. I said that it would be better to leave it to the discretion of Generaloberst Rendulic to decide what he wanted or had to destroy for military reasons. The Führer however, incited by Terboven, insisted on the decree’s being issued on the grounds of these arguments which I had to set down. But it was certainly not carried out to this extent. This is also shown by the report of the Norwegian Government, and it can also be seen from personal discussions between me and my brother.
DR. EXNER: Now let us turn to something else. When there were drafts and proposals to be submitted to the Führer, you often voiced objections and presented arguments. It seems remarkable that when matters contrary to international law were contemplated you raised no objections on the grounds of international law or on moral grounds, but you mostly voiced objections of a practical nature or from considerations of opportunity Can you tell us briefly why you acted in this manner?
JODL: I already told you that when I gave my reasons for the formulation of the proposal not to renounce the Geneva Convention.
DR. EXNER: Namely?
JODL: This form had to be chosen to meet with any success with the Führer.
DR. EXNER: Yes, that is sufficient. Now, you said yesterday...
MR. ROBERTS: Your Lordship, I object to this merely in the interest of time, because it is exactly the same evidence which was given yesterday; and, in my submission, it is pure repetition.
DR. EXNER: This discussion at Reichenhall was mentioned today. Please tell us briefly how it came about that you made such statements in Reichenhall or how such directives as you described today were decided upon in Reichenhall?
JODL: I have already testified about the conversation with the Führer.
DR. EXNER: Yes, it was only a question of provisions...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, the defendant has just told us that he has given evidence about this already.
DR. EXNER: Yes, about the conversation which preceded it, but you did not testify about the actual conversation at Reichenhall.
JODL: No, I have not yet spoken of the actual conversation at Reichenhall.
DR. EXNER: Please be brief.
JODL: In regard to this conversation at Reichenhall—that is, the orientation of the three officers of my staff—Warlimont’s description is somewhat different from mine. He is confusing here the earlier events with the later ones, which is not surprising, because from 20 July until the time he was arrested, he was ill at home with severe concussion of the brain and complete loss of memory. Up to the time he was captured he was no longer fit for service. That my description is the right one may be readily seen from the notes in the War Diary of the Naval Operations Staff. It is stated there that these divisions would be transferred to the East only to prevent Russia from taking the Romanian oil fields.
DR. EXNER: I should like to correct one point which, it seems to me, was presented erroneously by the Russian prosecutor. He said that Göring and Keitel did not consider the war against Russia to be a preventive war. On Page 5956 of the record (Volume IX, Page 344)
it states that Göring, too, considered the war to be a preventive one and that he only differed in opinion from the Führer insofar as he would have chosen a different period of time for this preventive war. Keitel was, in general, of the same opinion.
Furthermore, the Russian prosecutor submitted a document, Number 683-PS. I do not know what exhibit number he gave. I cannot quite see how this document is to be connected with Jodl; and I have the idea that may be a matter of signature, for the document is signed “Joel,” who is not at all identical with the Defendant Jodl. I just wanted to draw attention to this point. Perhaps there is simply a mistake in the names.
Further, the Prosecution said that the defendant made a remark about partisans being hanged upside down, and so on.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, you have simply made a statement, which you are not entitled to do, about this document. If you want to prove it by evidence you should ask the witness about it. You have told us that this document has nothing to do with Jodl, and that the signature on it is somebody else’s. Why didn’t you ask the witness?
I am told just now that it has already been proved that it isn’t Jodl’s document.
DR. EXNER: The translations this morning were bad; I do not remember having heard that. I do not know whether it is permissible for me now in this connection to read something from a questionnaire? It is only one question and an answer in connection with this remark about the hanging of prisoners, and so on. Is that permissible?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, if it arises out of the cross-examination.
DR. EXNER: Yes; the Russian prosecutor brought up the question of whether the defendant made this remark during the discussions about the prisoners, in connection with the guerrilla directive—that members of guerrilla bands could also be quartered during combat.
There it says:
“Question: Is it true or not...?”
Oh yes, I must say that is my Document Number Jodl-60, Exhibit Number AJ-7. Page 189 of Volume III of my document book. It is an interrogatory of General Buhle, which was made in America. Then it says:
“Question: ‘According to a stenographic transcript, you also took part in a report on the military situation on the evening of 1 December 1942, which resulted in a lengthy discussion between the Führer and Jodl as to combating partisans in the East. Is that correct?’
“Answer: ‘I took part in this discussion, but I no longer remember the exact date.’ ”
THE PRESIDENT: What page did you say, Dr. Exner?
MR. ROBERTS: My Lord, it is the third page of the third book— or the third document in the third book.
DR. EXNER: It is Page 189. I have just read Question 4. Now I come to Question 5:
“Question: ‘Is it or is it not correct that on this occasion Jodl asked the Führer to return the directive which had been drawn up in his office relative to the combating of partisans?’
“Answer: ‘That is correct.’
“Question 6: ‘Is it or is it not correct that in this draft the burning of villages was expressly prohibited?’
“Question 7: ‘Is it or is it not correct that the Führer wanted to have this prohibition rescinded?’
“Answer: ‘Since I never had the draft of the directive in my hands, I do not know for certain if the burning of villages was expressly prohibited. However this is to be assumed, because I remember that the Führer protested against individual provisions of the directive and demanded the burning down of villages.’
“Question 8: ‘Is it or is it not correct that the Führer also had misgivings about the draft because he did not want any
restrictions to be placed on soldiers who were directly engaged in combating the partisans?’ ”
According to the minutes Jodl stated in reply:
“This is out of the question here. During the fighting they can do whatever they like, they can hang them, hang them upside down or quarter them; it says nothing about that. The only limitation applies to reprisals after the fighting in those areas in which the partisans were active....
“Answer: ‘It is correct that the Führer had fundamental misgivings about these restrictions. Jodl’s remark is correct as far as its contents are concerned. I can no longer recall his exact words.’
“Question 9: ‘Is it or is it not correct that following this remark all those present’—Führer, Keitel, Kranke, and you yourself—‘including the Führer, laughed and the Führer abandoned his standpoint?’
“Answer: ‘It is probable that all of us laughed on account of Jodl’s remark. Whether after this the Führer really abandoned his standpoint I do not know for certain. However, it seems probable to me.’
“Question 10: ‘Then how were the expressions “hang, hang upside down, quartered,” interpreted?’
“Answer: ‘The expressions, “hang,” “hang upside down,” “quartered,” could in this connection only be interpreted as an ironical remark and be understood to mean that in accordance with the directive no further restrictions were to be placed on the soldiers in combat.’
“Question 11: ‘Could you perhaps say something about Jodl’s fundamental attitude towards the obligation of the Wehrmacht to observe the provisions of international law in wartime?’
“Answer: ‘I do not know Jodl’s fundamental attitude. I only know that Keitel, who was Jodl’s and my own immediate
superior, always endeavored to observe the provisions of international law...’
“Question 12: ‘Did you ever have the experience yourself that Jodl influenced the Führer to issue an order which violated international law?’
“Answer: ‘No.’ ”
THE PRESIDENT: None of that last part arises out of the crossexamination.
DR. EXNER: Did you have anything to do with prisoners of war?
JODL: I had nothing at all to do with prisoners of war It was the general Armed Forces Department which dealt with them.
DR. EXNER: Now, one last question.
It is alleged by the Prosecution, and during yesterday’s examination it was reaffirmed, that there was or had been a conspiracy between political and military leaders for the waging of aggressive wars and that you were a member of that conspiracy. Can you say anything else about that before we finish?
JODL: There was no conspiracy...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, the Tribunal does not think that that really arises out of the cross-examination. Anyhow, he said it already; he said that he was not a member of a conspiracy. There is no use repeating his evidence.
DR. EXNER: It was again said yesterday that there was a very close connection with the Party and the members of the Party and, of course, that is connected with the conspiracy. That is why I should have thought the question permissible.
THE PRESIDENT: He said already that he was not a member of the conspiracy.
DR. EXNER: In that case, I have no further questions.
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, I merely wish to join in the objection which Dr. Nelte has raised to the written statement of Lieutenant General Von Österreich. I refer to the reasons which he has given. That is all.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr Biddle): Defendant Jodl, you spoke—I think it was the day before yesterday—about the number of SS divisions at the end of the war. Do you remember that?
JODL: Yes.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): I think you said there were 35 at the end of the war. Is that right, 35 about?
JODL: If I remember rightly, I said between 35 and 38.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Right. Now, what I want to be clear about is this. You were referring only to Waffen-SS divisions, were you not? Only the Waffen-SS?
JODL: Yes, only the Waffen-SS. It is true they were...
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Were they completely coordinated into the Army and under the command of the Army?
JODL: For tactical operations they came under the Wehrmacht commanders, but not for disciplinary matters. As regards the latter their superior was, and remained, Himmler, even when they were fighting.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Was discipline the only thing that brought them under Himmler’s jurisdiction?
JODL: He was also looked upon as their commander for all practical purposes. That is seen from the fact that the condition of the divisions, their equipment, and their losses were frequently or almost exclusively reported to the Führer by Himmler himself.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): When had they been co-ordinated into the Army? When? What year?
JODL: They were co-ordinated into the Wehrmacht at the beginning of the war, at the moment when the Polish campaign began.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Now, only one other question, about Russia; I want to see if I understood your point of view clearly. You feared an invasion of Germany by Russia; is that right?
JODL: I expected, at a certain moment, either political blackmail on the strength of the large troop concentration or an attack.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Now, please, Defendant, I asked you if you did not fear an attack by Russia. You did at one time, did
you not?
JODL: Yes, I was afraid of that.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): All right. When was that? When?
JODL: It began through...
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): When did you fear it? When did you first fear that attack?
JODL: I had that fear for the first time during the summer of 1940; it arose from the first talks with the Führer at the Berghof on 29 July.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Then from the military point of view, from that moment on, it was necessary for you to attack first, was it not?
JODL: After the political clarification, only then; up to then it had only been a conjecture.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): How could you afford to wait for the political clarifying work if you were afraid of an immediate attack?
JODL: For that reason we increased our defensive measures to begin with, until the spring of 1941. Up to then we only took measures for defense. It was not until February 1941 we began concentrating troops for an attack.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Now, then, just one other question. I am not at all clear on this. During that attack did you then advise that Germany attack first, or did you advise that Germany should not attack? What was your advice? You saw this danger; what did you do about it?
JODL: That problem, too, like most of the others, was the subject of a written statement I made to the Führer in which I drew his attention to the tremendous military effects of such a decision. One knew of course how the campaign would begin, but no human being could imagine how it would end...
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): We have heard all that. I did not want to go into that. What I wanted to get at is this: You were afraid that Russia was going to attack. If that was true, why didn’t you advise Germany to attack at once? You were afraid Russia would
attack, and yet you say you advised against moving into Russia. I do not understand.
JODL: That is not the case. I did not advise against marching into Russia; I merely said that if there were no other possibility and if there was really no political way of avoiding the danger, then I, too, could only see the possibility of a preventive attack.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): That is all. Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant can return to the dock.
[The defendant left the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner?
DR. EXNER: I have four witnesses to bring before the Tribunal, but I should like to begin by making a request. In consideration of my lame leg may I leave it to my colleague Jahrreis to question these four witnesses?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly, Dr. Exner.
Dr Exner, the Tribunal wishes me to say that we allow another counsel to examine the witnesses as an exception to our general rule that only one counsel may appear in court and in the presentation of the case on behalf of the defendant. We will make this exception in your favor.
PROFESSOR DR. HERMANN JAHRREISS (Counsel for Defendant Jodl): In that case, with the permission of the Tribunal, I will call the first witness, General Horst Freiherr von ButtlarBrandenfels.
[The witness Von Buttlar-Brandenfels took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your name, please?
GENERAL HORST FREIHERR VON BUTTLARBRANDENFELS (Witness): Horst Freiherr von Buttlar-Brandenfels.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat the oath after me: I swear by God—the Almighty and Omniscient—that I will speak the pure truth —and will withhold and add nothing.
[The witness repeated the oath.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
DR. JAHRREISS: Witness, were you in the Wehrmacht Operations Staff during the war?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: Yes.
DR. JAHRREISS: During what period?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: I was a member of the Wehrmacht Operations Staff from 1 January 1942 until 15 November 1944.
DR. JAHRREISS: What was your position on the staff?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: I was first General Staff officer of the Army, and in my capacity as department chief I was in charge of the Operations Department of the Army.
DR. JAHRREISS: I am going to have a document shown you, Document Number 823-PS, Exhibit Number RF-359. It is in document book Jodl, second volume, Page 158. Will you please be good enough to have a look at it.
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: Do you want me to read the whole document?
DR. JAHRREISS: I want you to glance through it. Who is the author of the document?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: It is written by the Wehrmacht Operations Staff, Department QU, Administration Group.
DR. JAHRREISS: By whom is it signed?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: It is signed by me.
DR. JAHRREISS: By you. To what extent is that document connected with the Defendant Jodl?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: The document has nothing at all to do with the Defendant Jodl.
DR. JAHRREISS: Then please will you look at the signatures at the upper right-hand corner on the first page; there is an initial which can be read as a “J.”
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: That must be a mistake. The initial is exactly the same as the one which appears below in the signature to the written note, and this initial is that of the Chief of the Quartermaster Department, Colonel Polleck.
DR. JAHRREISS: Colonel Polleck?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: If you will look at Page 2, you will see two signatures at the bottom. The first must be that of the expert. I cannot recognize it for certain. I take it for the signature of the Senior Administrative Counsellor Niehments.
DR. JAHRREISS: You mean the initial behind which there are the Numbers 4 or 9 for the date?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: I mean the top one.
DR. JAHRREISS: The top one?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: The top one. The bottom initial is the signature, the initials of Colonel Polleck. When the document had been submitted to the Chief of the OKW it was returned to me. Then I initialed it again at the top, and marked it for the Quartermaster Department, that is the “QU” underlined at the top. Then it was again initialed by the “QU” chief, and after that it is marked “Administrative Group” and initialed again by the man who dealt with it. In addition I should like to point out that all this relates to prisoners of war, and that was a field of work with which Jodl actually had nothing to do. In the quartermaster and organizational branches of the Armed Forces Operations Staff we had several fields of work which, although they came from his staff...
DR. JAHRREISS: Just a minute, Witness. I do not mind your giving us a lecture, but I should like to get to the point. There are remarks in the margin of this document, do you see them?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: Yes.
DR. JAHRREISS: Is any one of them written by Jodl?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: No, they are initialed with a “K” for Field Marshal Keitel.
DR. JAHRREISS: But the French Prosecution assert that these are comments made by Jodl on the prisoner-of-war question; and if I understood you correctly, you mean to say that this was not possible at all for reasons of competency?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: Apart from the fact that there is not a mark on the document made by Jodl, it is unlikely that Jodl
had any knowledge of the affair at all, because of the way in which it had to be dealt with.
DR. JAHRREISS: But is it not correct, Witness, that Department “QU” came under Jodl?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: Actually, it is correct, but in “QU” Department, just as in “Org.” Department there were several fields of work which the Generaloberst had given up and which were dealt with either directly by the head of the department, or through the deputy chief, with the Chief of the OKW.
DR. JAHRREISS: You say prisoner-of-war questions were among those, is that true?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: Among other things also the question of prisoners of war.
DR. JAHRREISS: What other work did this Department “QU” have?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: As its main task or in its first department, “QU-1,” Department “QU” looked after nothing but supplies and also supervised the provisioning of the various theaters of war, which came directly under the OKW. The second department was occupied mainly with military administration, and the third department dealt with general questions, such as the prisoner-of-war system—for example, questions concerning international law and so on.
DR. JAHRREISS: Then I have just one more question about these organizational matters. Were all the departments of the Armed Forces Operations Staff in the Führer’s headquarters?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: No; for example we had the “Org.” Department, an organizational department, which was not located at headquarters but in the neighborhood of Berlin.
DR. JAHRREISS: If I have understood you correctly, the affairs of Department “QU” by-passed Jodl, so to speak, and were handled with the Chief of OKW?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: Not in every case, but in a certain number of cases.
DR. JAHRREISS: At all events the question of prisoners of war?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: Certainly, the question of prisoners of war.
DR. JAHRREISS: Thank you. Witness, what position did you have at the beginning of the war?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: At the beginning of the war I was the second General Staff officer in the Central Department of the General Staff of the Army.
DR. JAHRREISS: Would you speak a little more slowly. And what were your duties there?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: My department dealt with the filling of positions in the higher command offices for mobilization.
DR. JAHRREISS: Those of the General Staff officers of the OKW too?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: Yes, those, too.
DR. JAHRREISS: General, do you know who was meant to be Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff in the event of mobilization from 1 October 1939 on?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: Yes, General Von Sodenstern was meant to hold this position for the next mobilization year.
DR. JAHRREISS: Am I to understand that if the war had broken out after 1 October—let us say on 5 or 6—then Jodl would not have been Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff at all?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: I am not sure of the date on which the new mobilization year of 1939 to 1940 began. From that time on...
MR. ROBERTS: I submit this testimony is not relevant to any issue in this case at all, and it may be somewhat interesting to know the answers that are submitted have no relevancy at all.
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t quite understand what the relevancy of the evidence at the moment is.
DR. JAHRREISS: Mr. President, if the Prosecution are right that the Defendant Jodl belonged to a group of conspirators aiming at world conquest and if, as the Prosecution say, that group of conspirators obtained use of the German state machine to achieve their aims, then it must be a somewhat peculiar state system when
conspirators are changed periodically To that extent I believe the case must be presented to the Tribunal for consideration.
THE PRESIDENT: Has he been given the dates of his exchanges, without any cross-examination? He went to Vienna at a certain date, he came back at another date, and we have no challenge of that.
DR. JAHRREISS: Mr. President, that is a different question. The Defendant Jodl has said that if mobilization was decreed before 1 October he was Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff and had to leave Vienna for Berlin. Now the witness says that this was only up to the new mobilization year and that then the other would have come along if the war had broken out 14 days later. I think...
THE PRESIDENT: Surely that is extraordinarily remote, Dr. Jahrreiss. You show us a matter of surmise about what would have happened if something else would have happened. That does not help us very much.
DR. JAHRREISS: Mr. President, the testimony of the witness is not a mere conjecture. He only said that the person who held this important position was disposed of in a routine manner according to date. That was the only thing to be shown.
May I continue, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: No, in the interest of time and an expeditious trial, the Tribunal rules you may not go into that.
DR. JAHRREISS: Witness, if I now ask you about a certain field of activity which you just mentioned, it is because I assume that you have particularly expert knowledge of it. Is it true that you were officially connected with the suppression of partisans?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: Yes. The chief authority for combating guerrillas was turned over to my department toward the end of the summer of 1942, and the tactical basis for combating guerrillas was dealt with by my department from that date on.
DR. JAHRREISS: Are you familiar with the pamphlet on the suppression of partisans, issued in May 1944?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: Yes, the leaflet was drawn up in my department.
