Timothy Williamson Book order

Exploring the nature of norms and values, this book posits that they can be understood and described like other aspects of reality. It compiles and elaborates on Timothy Williamson's extensive research on normativity and value, offering a comprehensive examination of how these concepts function within philosophical discourse.

Is philosophy a unique discipline, or are its methods more like those of other sciences than many philosophers think? Timothy Williamson explains clearly and concisely how contemporary philosophers think and work, and reflects on their powers and limitations.

What does 'if' mean? It is one of the most commonly used words in the English language, in itself a sign to the importance of conditional thinking to human cognitive life. We make conditional statements, ask conditional questions, and issue conditional orders. We need to think and talk conditionally for many purposes, from everyday decision-making to mathematical proof. Yet the meaning of conditionals has been debated for thousands of years. Suppose and Tell brings together ideas from philosophy, linguistics, and psychology to present a controversial new approach to understanding conditionals. It argues that in using 'if' we rely on psychological heuristics, methods which are fast and frugal and mostly, but not always, reliable. As a result philosophers and linguists have been led astray in theorizing about conditionals through trusting faulty data generated by such methods and prematurely rejecting simple theories on the basis of merely apparent counterexamples. This book shows how one such simple theory of conditionals can explain the data, and draws wider implications for the nature of meaning and its non-transparency to native speakers, vagueness in thought and language, and the need for semantics to attend to the unreliable heuristics underlying our judgments

As bold and provocative as its title, one of the worlds leading philosophers lays out in clear, accessible, and engaging terms his vision of philosophy, inviting the reader to agree or disagree, and thereby to enter into its practice. Jason Stanley, Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University

Timothy Williams was selected by The Observer as one of the “10 Best Modern European Crime Writers” for his series featuring Northern Italian police detective Piero Trotti. Now, 20 years after his last investigation, Trotti returns! After decades as a police detective in his Northern Italian hometown on the River Po, Commissario Piero Trotti has retired. But retirement brings him no respite. An old friend calls him to Siena to give him urgent news: a notorious hit man has returned to Italy to kill Trotti. The former inspector isn’t surprised to learn of the vendetta against him; Trotti has plenty of skeletons in his closet. His mistaken accusations and failed gambles have cost innocent lives in the course of his investigations. Though Trotti carries the burden of these deaths with him each day, now someone else has appeared to enact his own, long-awaited retribution. Traveling across Italy to escape his pursuer, Trotti revisits his own past and searches for clues to the cold-case murder of Valerio Gracchi, a leftist radical who became a national media sensation. But even the right answers may not save Trotti and his loved ones.

Commissario Trotti of Italy’s Polizia di Stato is called to the scene of the brutal murder of an old friend, schoolteacher Rosanna Belloni, who has been found bludgeoned in her apartment. Trotti’s superiors warn him off the case, but he is determined to hunt down the killer. There are lots of loose ends. Rosanna’s sister, a notorious drug addict, is missing. Is a recent, unexplained suicide in the River Po connected to the murder? Where does the discovery of a car dredged up from the delta fit in? Faced with a seemingly unsolvable mystery, Trotti must also grapple with obstructive colleagues and problems arising in his private life.

Northern Italy, 1993: After what seems like several lifetimes as a policeman in the Questura, Commissario Trotti is ready for retirement. Soon, he’ll be able to fulfill his dream of moving to the countryside villa he co-owns with his cousin, where his daily business will be tending to goats and chickens. But despite Trotti’s stubbornly old-fashioned investigative methods and his disregard for social niceties, there are several people trying to talk him out of retirement. Trotti’s boss offers him a golden opportunity as head of the Questura’s new child abuse division. Meanwhile, Fabrizio Bassi, a reckless, womanizing private detective who worked under Trotti years ago before being kicked off the force, approaches him for help. Bassi has been investigating the death of a murdered doctor, and he has a conspiracy theory that extends to the highest reaches of government. Trotti declines, annoyed by the request. But when Bassi is found in a ditch with a bullet in his head, Trotti decides to take on one last murder case after all.

April 1990: French-Algerian judge Anne Marie Laveaud has been living and working in the French Caribbean département of Guadeloupe for more than a decade, but her days are still full of surprises. She is only just starting to investigate the suspicious suicide of a high-profile environmental activist and media personality when she is pulled off the case. Is it because she was getting too close to the truth? But the new case she’s been assigned takes precedence. The naked body of a white woman has been discovered on a beach. The victim’s remains offer no clues about her final hours—she was found without any of her belongings, and it seems she had been dead at least three days before anyone spotted her corpse. What turned this woman’s vacation in paradise into a final nightmare? As always, the story of a murdered white woman attracts international media attention. The pressure is on Anne Marie to solve the murder quickly, before bad publicity destroys the island’s all-important tourist industry. From the Hardcover edition.

Four people with radically different outlooks on the world meet on a train and start talking about what they believe. Their conversation varies from cool logical reasoning to heated personal confrontation. Each starts off convinced that he or she is right, but then doubts creep in. In a tradition going back to Plato, Timothy Williamson uses a fictional conversation to explore questions about truth and falsity, and knowledge and belief. Is truth always relative to a point of view? Is every opinion fallible? Such ideas have been used to combat dogmatism and intolerance, but are they compatible with taking each opposing point of view seriously? This book presupposes no prior acquaintance with philosophy, and introduces its concerns in an accessible and light-hearted way. Is one point of view really right and the other really wrong? That is for the reader to decide.

A small-town kidnapping presents a major problem for Commissario Trotti—and draws us into CWA Award winner Timothy Williams' debut, set against the rich backdrop of a provincial Italian city. Northern Italy, 1978: Commissario Piero Trotti, trusted senior police investigator in an anonymous provincial city off the River Po, has two difficult cases to solve. A dismembered body has been found in the river, and it’s up to Trotti to figure out who the murder victim is. At the same time, an estranged friend approaches Trotti with a desperate personal plea: his six-year-old daughter—Trotti’s own goddaughter—has been kidnapped. In the wake of the high-profile kidnapping of Aldo Moro, president of Italy’s majority party, faith in law enforcement is at an all-time low, and it’s no surprise the distraught father isn’t willing to take this matter to the police.