Assertion and belief without knowledge

Recent epistemology has been dominated by the knowledge first approach championed by Timothy Williamson and others, and its influence continues to grow, spreading into the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, and beyond. Proponents of the knowledge first approach have argued for the centrality and importance of knowledge in these areas of philosophy by arguing that there is something wrong with asserting or believing something that one doesn’t know, that assertion and belief are to be understood in terms of knowledge, and that a knowledge‐maximizing principle of charity is constitutive of the contents of one’s assertions and beliefs. I attack the knowledge first approach by developing more plausible accounts of assertion, belief, and the determination of content that break these supposed ties with knowledge.