For Knowledge-First: Approaches in Epistemology and Mind, (eds.) J.A. Carter, E. Gordon & B. Jarvis, (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Knowledge-First: An Introduction J. Adam Carter, Emma C. Gordon & Benjamin W. Jarvis Knowledge-First: A background ‘Knowledge-First’ constitutes what is widely regarded as one of the most significant innovations in contemporary epistemology in the past 25 years. Knowledge-first 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 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 . 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 20 th 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). 4 Ibid., 34-37; 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.