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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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108Davidson's thinking causesIn Pascal Engel (ed.), Mental causation, Oxford University Press. 1995.
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4Interdisciplinary Core PhilosophyWiley-Blackwell. 2009.This collection includes papers that show some of the bearing of indisciplinary work on central questions of philosophy. Three main core subdisciplines are included, and the book is divided into corresponding sections: epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics Focuses on the core areas of Philosophy: epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics. Shows how interdisciplinary work can have important bearing even here
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155Man the rational animal?Synthese 122 (1-2): 165-78. 2000.This paper considers well known results of psychological researchinto the fallibility of human reason, and philosophical conclusionsthat some have drawn from these results. Close attention to theexact content of the results casts doubt on the reasoning that leadsto those conclusions
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40Symposium papers, comments and an abstract: Neither body nor soul. Then what? And what does it matter?Noûs 22 (1): 87-88. 1988.Are we souls, subjects of consciousness who exist and perdure fundamentally while unextended in space? Recent epistemological arguments for the negative leave me relatively cold; but other arguments are more moving, and we shall take note of them.
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134Metaphysics: An Anthology (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. 1999.This anthology, intended to accompany _A Companion to Metaphysics_, brings together over 60 selections which represent the best and most important works in metaphysics during this century. The selections are grouped under ten major metaphysical problems and each section is preceded by an introduction by the editors
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28RepliesIn Amrei Bahr & Markus Seidel (eds.), Ernest Sosa: Targeting His Philosophy, Springer. pp. 135-146. 2016.For me the two-day workshop was an excellent experience. It was very good to be reminded of all those issues that I had grappled with so intensely in earlier years, and I very much appreciated the opportunity to think about them again and to try to put them in perspective with the stimulus of the critical teams’ focused attention. I am very pleased and grateful for the intense attention and challenge to my views, and for the excellent comments. I will do my best to respond with some helpful disc…Read more
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91Methodology and Apt beliefSynthese 74 (3). 1988.The theory of knowledge has two sides - epistemology and a bridge to join them: that a belief is justified if and only if obtained by appropriate use of an adequate organon - a principle of theoretical epistemology requiring an organon or manual of practical methodology. Such organon justification is internalist. (How could one ever miss one's source for it?) But it leads briskly to skepticism on pain of regress or circularity - or so it is argued in section 1. In section 2 we consider the epist…Read more
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94Consciousness and self-knowledgeIn Brie Gertler (ed.), Privileged Access: Philosophical Accounts of Self-Knowledge, Ashgate. 2003.
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Skepticism and perceptual knowledgeIn Quentin Smith (ed.), Epistemology: new essays, Oxford University Press. pp. 121. 2008.
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124Précis of "A Virtue Epistemology" (Oxford University Press, 2007)Philosophical Studies 144 (1). 2009.This is a summary of "A Virtue Epistemology", the book that is the subject of this book symposium
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76Chisholm's Epistemic PrinciplesMetaphilosophy 34 (5): 553-562. 2003.An exposition and discussion of Chisholm's “epistemic principles.” These are compared with relevant views of Wilfrid Sellars and Richard Foley. A further comparison, with the approach favored by Descartes, is argued to throw light on the status of such principles.
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93Knowledge in ActionIn Amrei Bahr & Markus Seidel (eds.), Ernest Sosa: Targeting His Philosophy, Springer. pp. 1-13. 2016.It is argued that knowledge is a form of action. It is a kind of successful attempt to attain the truth. The success must avoid a particular sort of “epistemic luck”. It must derive from competence rather than luck. Knowledge, then, is a judgment or belief that aims at truth and attains accuracy not by luck but through the agent’s cognitive adroitness, so that the attainment is apt. A higher grade of knowledge then requires that the agent attain aptly not only the accuracy (truth) but even the a…Read more
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90Beyond scepticism, to the best of our knowledgeMind 97 (386): 153-188. 1988.Epistemology is too far-flung and diverse for a survey in a single essay. I have settled for a snapshot which, though perforce superficial and partial, might yet provide an overview. My perspective is determined by the books and articles prominent in the recent literature and in my own recent courses and seminars. Seeing that the boundaries of our field have shifted through the ages and are even now very ill-marked, I have chosen two central issues, each under vigorous and many-sided discussion …Read more
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60Replies to Richard Fumerton, John Greco, and Michael WilliamsInternational Journal for the Study of Skepticism 1 (2): 138-149. 2011.This is my response to three commentators—Richard Fumerton, John Greco, and Michael Williams—for a symposium on my book, Reflective Knowledge
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34Epistemology today: A perspective in retrospect (review)Philosophical Studies 40 (3). 1981.According to the main tradition, knowledge is either direct or indirect: direct when it intuits some perfectly obvious fact of introspection or a priori necessity; indirect when based on deductive proof stemming ultimately from intuited premises. Simple and compelling though it is, this Cartesian conception of knowledge must be surmounted to avoid skepticism. Seeing that the straight and narrow of deductive proof leads nowhere, C. I. Lewis wisely opts for a highroad of probabilistic inference. B…Read more
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114Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in EpistemologyCambridge University Press. 1991.From the back cover: "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 has collected his 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. The resulting book …Read more
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451A virtue epistemologyOxford University Press. 2007.Ernest Sosa argues for two levels of knowledge, the animal and the reflective, each viewed as a distinctive human accomplishment.