Edward Craig argues that the standard philosophical project of analysing the concept of knowledge has radical defects, and he offers a more illuminating approach, which builds up the concept from a hypothesis about the social function of knowledge and the needs that it fulfils.

In this illuminating study Craig argues that the standard practice of analyzing the concept of knowledge has radical defects--arbitrary restriction of the subject matter and risky theoretical presuppositions. He proposes a new approach similar to the "state-of-nature" method found in political theory, building the concept up from a hypothesis about its social function and the needs it fulfills. Shedding light on much that philosophers have written about knowledge, its analysis and the obstacles to its analysis, and the debate over skepticism, this compelling work will be of interest to students and scholars of epistemology and the philosophy of language.

'much of what he has to say about familiar themes of analytic epistemology ... is interesting and frequently offers a new perspective on old problems' Matthias Steup, St. Cloud State University, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 101, No. 4, (October 1992)