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104Nature unmirrored, epistemology naturalizedSynthese 55 (1). 1983.A. Knowledge and Justification: The nature of epistemic justification and its supervenience.B. Understanding and Validation: Two projects of epistemology, one to understand justification, the other to promote it.
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1171Dreams and philosophyProceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 79 (2). 2005.That conception is orthodox in today’s common sense and also historically. Presupposed by Plato, Augustine, and Descartes, it underlies familiar skeptical paradoxes. Similar orthodoxy is also found in our developing science of sleep and dreaming.[2] Despite such confluence.
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99Surviving mattersNoûs 24 (2): 297-322. 1990.Life may turn sour and, in extremis, not worth living. On occasion it may be best, moreover, to lay down one's life for a greater cause. None of this is any news, debatable though it may remain, in general or case by case. Now comes the news that life does not matter in the way we had thought. No resurgence of existentialism, nor tidings from some ancient religion or some new cult, the news derives from the most sober and probing philosophical argument (the extraor- dinary Parfit, 1984, Part III…Read more
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3Philosophical Skepticism and Epistemic CircularityIn Keith DeRose & Ted A. Warfield (eds.), Skepticism: a contemporary reader, Oxford University Press. 1999.
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210Intuitions and meaning divergencePhilosophical Psychology 23 (4): 419-426. 2010.Survey results are in the first instance utterances, which require interpretation. Moreover, when the results seem to involve disagreement in intuitive responses to a thought experiment, the results are most directly responsive to the scenario as envisaged by the particular subject, where the text of the example can give rise to relevantly different scenarios, depending on how the scenario is shaped by the subjects involved, under the guidance of the text. All of this opens up a defense of intui…Read more
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27Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in EpistemologyPhilosophical Review 102 (3): 421. 1993.
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119Précis of Knowing Full Well (Princeton University Press, 2011)Philosophical Studies 166 (3): 597-598. 2013.
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286Hypothetical reasoningJournal of Philosophy 64 (10): 293-305. 1967.In his important monograph, Hypothetical Reasoning, Nicholas Rescher develops a modal theory in order to throw some light on the nature of hypothetical reasoning and on the so-called "problem of counterfactual conditionals." I should like both to expound the theory and consider its application.
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1064The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence versus Foundations in the Theory of KnowledgeMidwest Studies in Philosophy 5 (1): 3-26. 1980.
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122Varieties of CausationGrazer Philosophische Studien 11 (1): 93-103. 1980.According to nomological accounts of causation causal connections among events or states must be mediated by contingent laws of nature. Three types of causal connection are cited and discussed in opposition to such nomological accounts: (a) material causation (as when a zygote is generated by the union of an ovum and a sperm); (b) consequentialist causation (as when an apple is chromatically colored as a result of being red); (c) inclusive causation (as when a board is on a stump in consequence …Read more
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96Classical analysisJournal of Philosophy 80 (11): 695-710. 1983.The first paragraph of the article reads: "Classical analysis is concerned neither with cataloguing usage nor with intellectual therapy (except of course by aiming to satisfy curiosity and remove puzzlement). Of recent sorts of analysis, it's the attempt to find the "logical structure of the world" or the "logical form" of various facts that chiefly claims our attention. But philosophers in every period have been absorbed by such analysis. Think of the Greek search for real definitions. Or think…Read more
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107Responses to four criticsPhilosophical Studies 166 (3): 625-636. 2013.This alleged disagreement is only verbal, however, given my anti-intellectualist conception of a suitably broad category of ‘‘belief.’’ Although this broad conception figures large in my earlier writings, it figures not at all in the book under discussion, which helps explain H&H’s reaction. Here now is how I make the relevant distinctions and try to clarify what reflective knowledge amounts to, and how it comes in degrees
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116Generic reliabilism and virtue epistemologyPhilosophical Issues 2 79-92. 1992.Problems for Generic Reliabilism lead to a more specific account of knowledge as involving the exercise of intellectual virtues or faculties.
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1291Epistemic Justification: Internalism Vs. Externalism, Foundations Vs. VirtuesWiley-Blackwell. 2003.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 fundame…Read more
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53The Relevance of Moore and WittgensteinIn Albert Casullo & Joshua C. Thurow (eds.), The a Priori in Philosophy, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 186. 2013.
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33Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in EpistemologyCambridge University Press. 1991.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. 'Sosa is one of the most prominent and most import…Read more
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3A Virtue EpistemologyPhilosophical Studies 143 (3): 427-440. 2009.In my remarks, I discuss Sosa's attempt to deal with the sceptical threat posed by dreaming. Sosa explores two replies to the problem of dreaming scepticism. First, he argues that, on the imagination model of dreaming, dreaming does not threaten the safety of our beliefs. Second, he argues that knowledge does not require safety, but a weaker condition which is not threatened by dreaming skepticism. I raise questions about both elements of his reply.
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84The coherence of virtue and the virtue of coherenceSynthese 64 (1). 1985.Polyfacetic epistemology would answer the skeptic, provide how-to-think manuals, explain how we know, and more. To some it is the project of assuring oneself, of validating one's knowledge or supposed knowledge, turning it into real and assured knowledge, thus defeating the skeptic. To others it is a set of rules or instructions, a guide to the perplexed, a manual for conducting the intellect. To others yet it is a meta-discipline, but one whose purpose is not nearly so much guidance as understa…Read more
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151Knowing Full WellPrinceton University Press. 2010.In this book, Ernest Sosa explains the nature of knowledge through an approach originated by him years ago, known as virtue epistemology. Here he provides the first comprehensive account of his views on epistemic normativity as a form of performance normativity on two levels. On a first level is found the normativity of the apt performance, whose success manifests the performer's competence. On a higher level is found the normativity of the meta-apt performance, which manifests not necessarily f…Read more
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23Rastreamento, competência e conhecimento/Tracking, competence and knowledgeManuscrito 30 (2): 423-458. 2007.Formas diferentes de externalismo epistemológico são discutidas. O conceito de rastreamento é analisado, e o papel do conceito de virtude epistêmica é investigado.In this paper different forms of epistemological externalism are discussed. The concept of tracking is analyzed, and the role of the concept of epistemic virtue is investi-gated
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108Davidson's thinking causesIn Pascal Engel (ed.), Mental causation, Oxford University Press. 1995.
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98Serious philosophy and freedom of spiritJournal of Philosophy 84 (12): 707-726. 1987.I wish to lay out a view of “serious” philosophy, and to consider recent attacks on that view from the side of the “free spirited” philosophy: deconstruction and textualism, hermeneutics, critical theory, and the new pragma-tism. Without defining what all forms of freedom have in common, I shall draw from them a combined critique against seriousness. I will also examine, occasionally and in passing, positive ideas conjured up by the free. But mainly I wish to consider their combined critique of …Read more