Metaphysics of Knowledge

<em>The Metaphysics of Knowledge</em> presents the thesis that knowledge is an absolutely fundamental relation with an indispensable role to play in metaphysics philosophical logic and philosophy of mind and language. <p/>Knowledge has been generally assumed to be a propositional attitude like belief. But Keith Hossack argues that knowledge is not a relation to a content; rather it a relation to a fact. This point of view allows us to explain many of the concepts of philosophical logic in terms of knowledge. Hossack provides a theory of facts as structured combinations of particulars and universals and presents a theory of content as the property of a mental act that determines its value for getting knowledge. He also defends a theory of representation in which the conceptual structure of a content is taken to picture the fact it represents. This permits definitions to be given of reference truth and necessity in terms of knowledge. <p/>Turning to the metaphysics of mind and language Hossack argues that a conscious state is one that is identical with knowledge of its own occurrence. This allows us to characterise subjectivity and by illuminating the 'I'-concept allows us to gain a better understanding of the concept of a person. Language is then explained in terms of knowledge as a device used by a community of persons for exchanging knowledge by testimony. <em>The Metaphysics of Knowledge</em> concludes that knowledge is too fundamental to be constituted by something else such as one's functional or physical state; other things may cause knowledge but do not constitute it.