Ernest Sosa extends his distinctive approach to epistemology, intertwining issues concerning the role of the will in judgment and belief with issues of epistemic evaluation. Questions about skepticism and the nature of knowledge are at the forefront. The answers defended are new in their explicit and sustained focus on judgment and epistemic agency. While noting that human knowledge trades on distinctive psychological capacities, Sosa also emphasizes the role of the social in human knowledge. Basic animal knowledge is supplemented by a level of reflective knowledge focused on judgment, and a level of 'knowing full well' that is distinctive of the animal that is rational.

Judgment and Agency

Politics & Social Sciences

Sosa, Ernest

Philosophy

Oxford University Press

Epistemic Explanations: A Theory of Telic Normativity, and What it Explains

Epistemic Explanations develops an improved virtue epistemology and uses it to explain several epistemic phenomena. Part I lays out a telic virtue epistemology that accommodates varieties of knowledge and understanding particularly pertinent to the humanities. Part II develops an epistemology of suspension of judgment, by relating it to degrees of confidence and to inquiry. Part III develops a substantially improved telic virtue epistemology by appeal to default assumptions important in domains of human performance generally, and in our intellectual lives as a special case. This reconfigures earlier virtue epistemology, which now seems a first approximation. This part also introduces a metaphysical hierarchy of epistemic categories and defends in particular a category of secure knowledge.

Reflective Knowledge: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume II

Reflective Knowledge argues for a reflective virtue epistemology based on a kind of virtuous circularity that may be found explicitly or just below the surface in the epistemological writings of Descartes, Moore, and now Davidson, who on Sosa's reading also relies crucially on an assumption of virtuous circularity. Along the way various lines of objection are explored. In Part I Sosa considers historical alternatives to the view developed in Part II. He begins with G.E. Moore's legendary proof, and the epistemology that lies behind it. That leads to classical foundationalism, a more general position encompassing the indirect realism advocated by Moore. Next he turns to the quietist naturalism found in David Hume, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and P.F. Strawson. After that comes Thomas Reid's commonsense alternative. A quite different option is the subtle and complex epistemology developed by Wilfrid Sellars over the course of a long career. Finally, Part I concludes with a study of Donald Davidson's distinctive form of epistemology naturalized (as Sosa argues). The second part of the book presents an alternative beyond the historical positions of Part I, one that defends a virtue epistemology combined with epistemic circularity. This alternative retains elements of the earlier approaches, while discarding what was found wanting in them.

A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume I

A Virtue Epistemology presents a new approach to some of the oldest and most gripping problems of philosophy, those of knowledge and skepticism. Ernest Sosa argues for two levels of knowledge, the animal and the reflective, each viewed as a distinctive human accomplishment. By adopting a kind of virtue epistemology in line with the tradition found in Aristotle, Aquinas, Reid, and especially Descartes, he presents an account of knowledge which can be used to shed light on different varieties of skepticism, the nature and status of intuitions, and epistemic normativity.

Clarendon Press

A Virtue Epistemology presents a new approach to some of the oldest and most gripping problems of philosophy, those of knowledge and skepticism. Ernest Sosa argues for two levels of knowledge, the animal and the reflective, each viewed as a distinctive human accomplishment. By adopting a kind of virtue epistemology in line with the tradition found in Aristotle, Aquinas, Reid, and especially Descartes, he presents an account of knowledge which can be used to shed light on different varieties of skepticism, the nature and status of intuitions, and epistemic normativity.

Reflective Knowledge argues for a reflective virtue epistemology based on a kind of virtuous circularity that may be found explicitly or just below the surface in the epistemological writings of Descartes, Moore, and now Davidson, who on Sosa's reading also relies crucially on an assumption of virtuous circularity. Along the way various lines of objection are explored. In Part I Sosa considers historical alternatives to the view developed in Part II. He begins with G.E. Moore's legendary proof, and the epistemology that lies behind it. That leads to classical foundationalism, a more general position encompassing the indirect realism advocated by Moore. Next he turns to the quietist naturalism found in David Hume, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and P.F. Strawson. After that comes Thomas Reid's commonsense alternative. A quite different option is the subtle and complex epistemology developed by Wilfrid Sellars over the course of a long career. Finally, Part I concludes with a study of Donald Davidson's distinctive form of epistemology naturalized (as Sosa argues). The second part of the book presents an alternative beyond the historical positions of Part I, one that defends a virtue epistemology combined with epistemic circularity. This alternative retains elements of the earlier approaches, while discarding what was found wanting in them.

Ever since Plato, philosophers have faced one central question: what is the scope and nature of human knowledge? In this volume the distinguished philosopher Ernest Sosa collects essays on this subject written over a period of twenty-five years. All the major topics of contemporary epistemology are covered: the nature of propositional knowledge; externalism versus internalism; foundationalism versus coherentism; and the problem of the criterion.

Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in Epistemology (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)

Cambridge University Press

Ever since Plato it has been thought that one knows only if one's belief hits the mark of truth and does so with adequate justification. The issues debated by Laurence BonJour and Ernest Sosa concern mostly the nature and conditions of such epistemic justification, and its place in our understanding of human knowledge.     Presents central issues pertaining to internalism vs. externalism and foundationalism vs. virtue epistemology in the form of a philosophical debate.  Introduces students to fundamental questions within epistemology while engaging in contemporary debates.  Written by two of today’s foremost epistemologists.  Includes an extensive bibliography.

Epistemic Justification: Internalism vs. Externalism, Foundations vs. Virtues (Great Debates in Philosophy)

BonJour, Laurence

Wiley/Blackwell

In this concise book, one of the world's leading epistemologists provides a sophisticated, revisionist introduction to the problem of knowledge in Western philosophy. Modern and contemporary accounts of epistemology tend to focus on limited questions of knowledge and skepticism, such as how we can know the external world, other minds, the past through memory, the future through induction, or the world’s depth and structure through inference. This book steps back for a better view of the more general issues posed by the ancient Greek Pyrrhonists. Returning to and illuminating this older, broader epistemological tradition, Ernest Sosa develops an original account of the subject, giving it substance not with Cartesian theology but with science and common sense.
Descartes is a part of this ancient tradition, but he goes beyond it by considering not just whether knowledge is possible at all but also how we can properly attain it. In Cartesian epistemology, Sosa finds a virtue-theoretic account, one that he extends beyond the Cartesian context. Once epistemology is viewed in this light, many of its problems can be solved or fall away.
The result is an important reevaluation of epistemology that will be essential reading for students and teachers.

Epistemology (Princeton Foundations of Contemporary Philosophy)

Princeton University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sosa, Ernest. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Sosa, Ernest

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sosa, Ernest. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Judgment and Agency

Judgment and Agency

Epistemic Explanations: A Theory of Telic Normativity, and What it Explains

Reflective Knowledge: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume II

A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume I

A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume I

Reflective Knowledge: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume II

Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in Epistemology (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)

Epistemic Justification: Internalism vs. Externalism, Foundations vs. Virtues (Great Debates in Philosophy)

Epistemology (Princeton Foundations of Contemporary Philosophy)