Ernest Sosa's Intellectual Autobiography

Soochow Journal of Philosophical Studies No. 42 (August 2020), 105-143 © Soochow University

Ernest Sosa’s Intellectual Autobiography

Ernest Sosa 

Preface

The following is an imaginary interview with Ernest Sosa, conducted by the imaginary Q(uestioner). It combines content from four actual interviews as follows: first, one in Five Questions for Epistemologists, conducted by Vincent Hendricks and Duncan Pritchard; second, one conducted by Juan Comesaña, and published more than a decade ago, in the now defunct Ephilosopher; third, one conducted by Richard Marshall, and published in 3:AM Magazine on Friday, September 16th, 2016; finally, fourth, one conducted by Amrei Bahr and Markus Seidel of the University of Münster, in January of 2017, and published in a German journal, Information Philosophie. This exercise in imagination provides a sort of intellectual autobiography, and enables broad reflection on the discipline of philosophy, and epistemology in particular.

 Editor’s Note: Ernest Sosa (born June 17, 1940) has been honored as “one of the most important epistemologists of the last half-century”. He is also credited as the founder of contemporary virtue epistemology. To celebrate his 80th birthday, and to pay tribute to his great contributions to the world and his outstanding achievement in philosophy, the editor of Soochow Journal of Philosophical Studies specially invites Sosa to compose an intellectual autobiography for the journal. Sosa deliberately designs this autobiography in the mode of an imaginary interview, which is quite characteristic of his own writing style, by combining four of his previous actual interviews. The outcome here not only manifests his virtuous thoughts, but also his skillful reflection on philosophy in general.  Distinguished Professor, Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University

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Intellectual Autobiography

Q: How did your interest in philosophy arise? ES: I had little conception of philosophy until near the end of my college years. I had been taking mostly science courses, which I found interesting but ultimately unsatisfying because so often I wanted to question things that of course had to be taken for granted. I had no idea that there was a discipline that prizes radical questioning. I later realized that my natural inclinations had not until then received a favorable outlet.

Q: What made you become a philosopher? ES: In those college years I was often intrigued by philosophical questions that my fellow students dismissed. At that point I had not come across “philosophy,” so named. Only right before my senior year did I find Bertrand Russell, which led to a year full of philosophy (almost exclusively) at the University of Miami, with Ramon Lemos as main professor, then two years of graduate work at the ascendant University of Pittsburgh, with Nicholas Rescher as main professor, followed by a year of full time teaching at the University of Western Ontario and a two-year postdoc at Brown, with Roderick Chisholm as mentor. (Short graduate careers were not unusual in those days of enormous growth in higher education.) I became and remained a philosopher because, through their writings, teaching, and discussion, brilliant people nourished and shared the philosophical curiosity that came so naturally to me.

Q: You have published on almost every sub-discipline of philosophy that I can think of (including, of course, epistemology and metaphysics, but also logic, philosophy of mind, theory of action, metaphilosophy, philosophy of language, and ethics). Was exercising your broad interests something unproblematic for you, or did you ever feel any pressure, of any kind, towards specialization? ES: I have sometimes thought that it might have been better to specialize

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earlier and more intensively. That might have led to books where I published articles. I suppose it was self-indulgent to just follow my interests of the moment, or of the year. On the other hand, one benefit of philosophy is to give us a view, if only a glimpse, of how things hang together, as Sellars once put it. Even masters of close analysis, like Chisholm and Moore, take up an impressively broad spread of issues.

Q: What do you think is the proper role of epistemology in relation to other areas of philosophy and other academic disciplines? ES: Epistemology in my view has its own autonomy and integrity, and does not depend on interdisciplinary relations. All the same, it must not resist or avoid such relations. On the contrary, epistemology is enriched through cross-fertilizing relations to other subfields of our discipline and to nearby areas in other disciplines altogether. In recent years and decades, epistemology has benefited from its relations to philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and philosophy of language. In earlier decades it had already interacted fruitfully with metaphysics, as in the controversies concerning the ontology of perception in the first half of the twentieth century. Metaethics and moral epistemology are also relevant here, as is the epistemology of the a priori sciences. Finally, the epistemology of philosophy itself is drawing intense attention in recent years.

Q: What do you think the future of epistemology will (or should) hold? ES: I have no idea. In fact, on fundamentals I anticipate no dramatic shift. The main, fundamental questions that most interest me are those that interested Plato in his Theaetetus and Descartes in his Meditations, and some of interest to Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics, to mention only some highlights in the history of our discipline. The span of options presented by the issues taken up in those great works are among those we still debate today. I expect that they are ones we’ll still debate tomorrow, or anyhow soon after tomorrow, as the transient issues of the day recede in due course, however fascinating they may be in their full momentary specificity.

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Q: Why were you initially drawn to epistemology (and what keeps you interested)? ES: Several bits of luck first drew me to epistemology. Although at work on my dissertation while holding my first job in philosophy, I had not yet committed to any long-term research program, nor even to a subfield. I had come to philosophy late, in the summer between my junior and senior years as an undergraduate at the University of Miami, when I first encountered interesting philosophical texts, especially the writings of Bertrand Russell. These I found by accident, while browsing in a bookstore. My senior year then consisted of twelve philosophy courses, after which I went for graduate work to the University of Pittsburgh, the only place where I applied. As a college senior I had been too naïve, too busy with my twelve courses, and with no philosophy record to support my application. I got into Pitt because when I applied it was still a lowly program. (By contrast, my six fellow graduating seniors at the wonderful Miami department all won multi-year fellowships at excellent graduate programs.) Already as I traveled on my bus trip from Miami to Pittsburgh at the end of that summer, however, the Pitt department was beginning its meteoric rise from its then lowly status to the lofty heights that it soon reached, and has since then remarkably retained. During my one undergraduate philosophy year I had no course in epistemology, nor did I have any in my two years of graduate work at Pitt. Only in my first year of teaching, at the University of Western Ontario, did I come across a question in epistemology that gripped me immediately, and that would never afterwards release its grip. The question was that of the nature of knowledge, which I had encountered already by reading the Theaetetus in a Plato course. It had not then aroused my interest, however, not as it would in the form given to it by Ed Gettier in his celebrated note. I came across Gettier’s paper while leafing through the pages of Analysis at the Western Ontario library. The first few sentences went by swiftly, as I stood next to the periodicals shelf, but I was soon struggling with the counterexamples, testing in my head successive revisions of the JTB analysis. The problem was not to be solved by

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those shelves, however, and I was soon settled into a comfortable library seat for some extended thought. Eventually I had a solution to propose and it was, I believe, the second published attempt to solve the Gettier problem, appearing in the 1964 Analysis volume. Having sent my paper off, I awaited on tenterhooks the Editor’s eventually favorable response, but another bit of excellent news preceded that: I was granted a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University. Upon arrival at Brown, with the Pitt diploma in my bags, I immediately came under the spell of someone with a philosophical style and persona the likes of which I had never come across: Roderick Chisholm, then at the height of his creativity. I soon joined several excellent graduate students, and some young faculty, including Jaegwon Kim, in auditing Chisholm’s seminar every semester. I still had taken no course in epistemology, but of course had been thinking about epistemology in my solitary struggle with the Gettier problem. Chisholm’s seminars were my first formal introduction to epistemology. He did not by then teach the subject often, as his teaching had switched to metaphysics. But he was still at work in the field, and to my delight would regularly invite me to discuss his ideas with him. At that point we still did not have individual computers, so our conversations were either through regular mail, or in person, or most often by telephone. That did not prove much of an obstacle: we discussed philosophy frequently, epistemology in particular, sometimes daily, as he worked on the first edition of his great epistemology text, Theory of Knowledge, published in 1966. That is how I was initially drawn to the field. What keeps me interested is that the questions are so hard to answer with any permanent satisfaction. So it is my stubborn desire for satisfying answers that keeps me trying. Combined with that stubbornness is an optimism that my eventually preferred approach— “virtue epistemology,” and “virtue perspectivism” more specifically—is headed in the right direction.

Q: What do you see as some of your main contributions to epistemology?

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ES: I propose that we understand human knowledge in terms of virtue epistemology. I say that knowledge is a kind of performance, to be evaluated in the distinctive terms of performance normativity. Performances generally have an aim, and attain success if and only if they reach their aim. The aim can be reached by luck, however, in which case that performance falls short of one that attains its aim not just through luck but through competence. Such performance I call “apt.” An apt performance is one whose success is sufficiently attributable to the relevant competence exercised by the performer. Beliefs and judgments I view as performances of a certain sort, cognitive performances. So our three sorts of positive assessment can be applied to this special case. Thus, a belief can attain its aim, by being true. A belief can also manifest the believer’s epistemic competence. In this case it is not only true, or accurate, but also competent, or adroit. A belief can be both accurate and adroit, however, while still falling short in a third important respect: it can fail to be apt, that is to say, accurate because adroit. These are main ideas of the sort of virtue epistemology that I advocate. A main set of issues that has dominated epistemological reflection through the centuries is the Pyrrhonian problematic. These issues figure prominently among the ancients as the problem of the diallelus. They recur as the problem of the Cartesian Circle. And most recently they are highlighted by Chisholm in his repeated attacks on the “problem of the criterion.” It seems to me that the best approach to this hoary problematic involves a distinction between two levels of knowledge, the animal and the reflective. In my Reflective Knowledge (OUP, 2), I develop this approach, and argue for its superiority over main proposals advanced in the history of our discipline, including several in recent decades.

Q: Central to your position in epistemology is a distinction between animal knowledge and reflective knowledge. Animal knowledge is externalist in nature, whereas reflective knowledge is internalist: thus, to have animal knowledge that there is a snowball in front of you, your belief just has to be related in the appropriate way to the fact that there is a snowball

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in front of you, whereas to have reflective knowledge of the same fact, you need to have a comprehensive and accurate perspective on how your belief was acquired. You have remarked that the ability to build a coherent epistemic perspective can be had by subjects who are otherwise crazy, even in epistemic terms. Thus, there are brilliant paranoids, who, starting with the belief that the moon is made of cheese, could build an epistemic perspective on it which is as coherent as the best epistemic perspective that normal adult humans can build on the belief that there are snowballs. To have reflective knowledge, then, one needs to combine something that we share with animals with something that we share with brilliant paranoids-in other words, what distinguishes a reflective knower from some animals is what likens him to the brilliant paranoid, and what distinguishes him from the brilliant paranoid is what likens him to some animals. Given that reflective knowledge depends essentially on animal knowledge, while the converse is not true, some could think that, while combining internalism and internalism, your position is more externalist than internalist. Do you agree? ES: Yes, I distinguish two sorts of knowledge, the animal and the reflective: ‘knowledge’ sometimes means the first, sometimes the second. This is not necessarily to say that the word itself is ambiguous in English. Perhaps the distinction is made through contextual or pragmatic devices that draw on the context of discussion. In any case, animal knowledge that p does not require that the knower have an epistemic perspective on his belief that p, a perspective from which he endorses the source of that belief, i.e., from which he can see that source as reliably truth conducive. Reflective knowledge that p does by contrast require such a perspective. Compatibly with that distinction, one can require for knowledge—for both the animal and the reflective varieties—that one’s belief derive from an intellectual virtue, from a reliable faculty, even if that is more closely adequate as a full account of animal than of reflective knowledge. Reflective knowledge requires a specific further condition, namely perspectival endorsement of the reliability of one’s sources. In any case, knowledge seems a matter of

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degree in a variety of respects. Here are four good candidates: (a) how sure one is about the matter known, (b) how safe or unsafe is one’s belief, how easily one might have been wrong, (c) how rationally justified one is in so believing: e.g., how strong one’s evidence is, and (d) how reliably truth-conducive is the way in which one acquired or sustains one’s belief. When we say that, of two people who know something, one knows it better than the other, we may invoke one or more of these dimensions, especially the latter three. A belief is of higher epistemic quality, for example, if it is safer or more rationally justified, since based on better evidence, or more reliably acquired or sustained. When our beliefs constitute knowledge, the safer, better justified, and more reliably acquired of them constitute better knowledge. One knows some things better than other things. Several epistemic values stand out: (a) Truth: we would rather our beliefs were true than not true, other things being equal. (b) Safety: we would prefer that not too easily would our beliefs be false. (c) Coherence: we would prefer that our minds not house a clutter of mere facts sitting there loose from one another. (d) Understanding/explanation: often we would like not only to know a given thing, but also to understand it, to have an explanation. (e) Finally, we are often interested not only in having the truth but in attaining it and having command of it, which involves not just being visited with the truth by sheer happenstance or through some external agency, but arriving at it or sustaining it through our own intelligent doings, by relying on our own reliable abilities, skills, and faculties. Of course, there are many other ways to evaluate our beliefs. We would like beliefs that are useful, for example. But this is not a cognitive category, unlike the earlier five.

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To sum up: Virtue Reliabilism seems to me true both for animal and for reflective knowledge. Prominent among values that constitute the higher, reflective level is that of understanding. But this does not preclude a correlative level of knowledge allied to such understanding. It is in part because one understands how one knows that one’s knowing reaches the higher level. A belief constitutive of such reflective knowledge is a higher epistemic accomplishment if it coheres properly with the believer’s understanding of why it is true (and, for that matter, safe), of how the way in which it is sustained is reliably truth-conducive. That a belief cohere thus within the believer’s perspective is, moreover, not irrelevant to that belief ’s being deeply attributable to the believer’s epistemic agency. Guiding one’s thinking with sensitivity to the truth would seem to involve some perspective on how one is forming and sustaining one’s beliefs. Of course one knows plenty through one’s animal nature, sans reflective agency; which is how we know some of the things we know best. Even when one could take charge, finally, as a deliberative rational agent, it may be best to proceed on automatic pilot. But we do often take pride in grasping the truth through its deliberate pursuit, which hence is also valued as a positive accomplishment.

Q: In your reply to skepticism you appeal essentially to animal knowledge. This externalist component of your reply to skepticism has seemed “circular” or “question-begging” to some authors. Could you sketch your answer to that charge? ES: Reasoning is related epistemically to knowledge in two ways, corresponding to the two sorts of knowledge, the reflective and the unreflective. The latter, animal knowledge, is concerned with the acquisition and sustainment of apt, reliable belief, whereas the former requires the belief to be placed also in a perspective within which it may be seen as apt. Noncircular and independent ruling out of certain alternatives is required especially for animal knowledge. Reasoning that provides animal knowledge is required to hold up with truth, aptness, and justification at every lemma on which it relies essentially for the

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sake of connecting its conclusion back eventually with the relevant portions of external reality. This is bound to happen through some sort of perception, much aided by memory. At this level circularity is plausibly prohibited, since circles of reasoning will do little to connect any conclusion of such reasoning with the facts beyond the circle. Reasoning that provides animal knowledge must connect its conclusion with the relevant externalia. If one is to attain animal knowledge, such reasoning must unfold with independence from its conclusion. However, this does not require one to rule out with independence any alternatives incompatibile with one’s reasoning when the objective is reflective rather than animal knowledge. Having grasped how it is around us through the connections involving perception/memory/reasoning required for animal knowledge, our further reasoning on that basis may induce greater integration and explanatory coherence in our body of beliefs. This desideratum will also enhance the epistemic virtue of our beliefs. There is nothing vicious in this circular procedure, any more than such a procedure would be vicious in the following example. Suppose one believes that it is sprinkling (p1), that car wipers are running (p2), that circles are forming in the puddles (p3), that there is a pitter-patter on the window panes (p4), that the streets are getting wet (p5), that drops are falling on one’s bare arms (p6), etc., then from any five of these one can reason (aided by auxilliary premises) to the sixth as conclusion. There is then circularity in one’s concurrent use of all these arguments, as in each case one bases acceptance of the conclusion on belief in the premises. What is vicious about this? There seems nothing wrong with accepting all six subarguments in that case concurrently, believing the conclusion of each partly on the basis of the other five beliefs used as premises. It would of course be vicious to hold those six subarguments concurrently while detached from any connection with the relevant externalia. But the fact that one holds the six of them concurrently does not imply that one holds them thus detached. When in that rain example one believes the ultimate conclusion that conjoins the six propositions P1 - P6, there is a brief argument for

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each conjunct based on what one sees or hears or feels. But the circularity-avoiding combination of these arguments does not exhaust the rational support available for that six-term conjunction. For the six can also attain explanatory integration, aided perhaps by auxilliary premises, even if the arguments displaying such integration cannot avoid circularity, inasmuch as one will be arguing from some members of that conjunction to some other member as conclusion, and then eventually to the six-term conjunction as ultimate conclusion.

Q: You have traced your position in epistemology back to Descartes-although not to the textbook reading of Descartes-and you have also published on Thomas Reid and Berkeley. What is your conception of the relation between philosophy and its history? ES: Both Chisholm and Sellars combined their focus on contemporary issues with a serious interest in the insight that could be gained into these issues through study of their history. Sellars also thought that when we join in study of a philosophical canon we gain something as a community, namely, a common framework within which to join together in discussion, a common vocabulary and set of issues. Of course, it is not just a matter of agreeing arbitrarily on some readings so as to form a community, in the way of a book reading club. There is rather an ongoing mutual adjustment. First might come some initial interest in certain sets of issues, and further definition of these issues, and of the concepts they presuppose. Such interest, if pursued, may then lead to additional, related concepts, which in turn may enable appreciation of further related issues, and the cycle thus continues. This all may then lead in turn to study of other historical contributors to the conversation with helpful things to say about issues already gripping, who may in turn introduce yet further issues and concepts. And so on and so forth. On almost any major question of philosophy there are alternative pictures that can be developed in different ways, with different emphases, and to differing levels of specificity and detail. Despite the differences that one would expect across cultural and historical divides,

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there is a truly impressive commonality of basic issues and alternative ways to deal with them. In developing as a philosopher one deepens one’s insight into the alternatives and their costs and benefits, and one broadens one’s understanding of how a position on one issue may bear on other issues. Because large philosophical views are combinations of more restricted pictures, and because such panoramas are rarely refuted beyond redemption, it is always possible to learn from our most brilliant predecessors, if only about how things might look along a road not taken. And this might occasionally even lead us to retrace our steps and explore seriously an avenue previously overlooked.

Q: You’ve taken on epistemic skeptics who wonder whether we can know that this isn’t all a dream and so forth. You did so by putting forward your own theory in epistemology—a virtue epistemology that you see as being in line with theories of knowledge put forward by Aristotle, Aquinas, Reid and Descartes. Can you fill out for us what virtue epistemology is and in particular the distinction between animal and reflective knowledge? And is it a modern version of Reid’s common sense approach—or Moore’s? ES: I like the common sense approach of Reid and Moore, methodologically and metaphysically. But the history of astronomy soon made it irresistible that common sense can be shown by science to be flatly wrong. Any defense of common sense must allow that it is revisable. Ultimately, my more significant agreement is with a virtue tradition that features Aristotle and Descartes. Knowledge in my view is a form of action. It involves endeavors to get it right, and more broadly it concerns aimings, which can be functional rather than intentional. Through our perceptual systems, we represent our surroundings, aiming to do so accurately, where the aiming is functional or teleological, rather than intentional. And the same goes for our functional beliefs. Through our judgments, however, we do intentionally, even consciously, attempt to get it right. What follows will focus on these epistemic intentional attempts, but the account to be sketched generalizes to the broader category of aimings,

Ernest Sosa’s Intellectual Autobiography 117 which need not be intentional. Attempts bring with them a distinctive normativity of attempts as attempts. For example, success is better than failure; an attempt is a better attempt, it is better as an attempt, if competent than if incompetent; and it is better to succeed through competence—aptly—than through sheer luck. (Here I stipulate, for the sake of a handy label, that an attempt is “apt” if, and only if, its success manifests the agent’s pertinent competence.) Here we have a telic normativity in contrast with the deontic normativity of norms, obligations, permissions, and so on. Attempts are found in domains of human performance, such as sports, games, artistic domains, professional domains like medicine and the law, and so on. These feature distinctive aims, and corresponding competences. Archery, with its distinctive arrows and targets, divides into subdomains. Thus, competitive archery differs importantly from archery hunting. In competitive archery, risk assessment has minimal bearing on quality of performance, since the archer has so little choice over shot selection. By contrast, in a hunt, shots vary in quality according to how well selected they may be. Domains come thus in three sorts, distinguished by how their distinctive attempts are regulated by standards of appropriate risk. A domain can be entirely unregulated with respect to appropriate risk, so that participant agents need pay no heed to any such standards. Take doodling, or “aimless” ambling in a safe riverside meadow, or drifting in a canoe on a placid lake. Here standards of risk are minimal or nonexistent. Normal adults can doodle, amble, and drift with no need to assess risk, since there is normally no risk at all. Jazz improvisation seems less subject to standards of risk than surgery, and less than much formal athletic performance, as in a tennis match. A domain can be risk-unregulated in a different way, when participants are not allowed attempt selection, or are tightly restricted, as in competition archery. When it is an archer’s turn he must put himself in position and shoot, with minimal, highly restricted attempt selection. At that point he must take aim and shoot. He has minimal or zero discretion with regard to the normal factors of Situation (distance,

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light), or Shape (no option to wait til less tired, more alert, etc.), or Skill (can’t postpone so as to hone skill). And these are the SSS factors that determine degree of complete competence. The third category is of domains risk-regulated to a significant extent, some highly so. Professional domains are examples here, reaching a peak in invasive surgery. Other examples are sports such as tennis and basketball. The archery hunt is a borderline case. How is Diana’s shot selection regulated? This depends on whether the hunt is nearing its end, how many arrows are left in her quiver, and the like. A shot that she takes with the one arrow left to her may allow less risk than one taken when the quiver is full, especially if the success of the afternoon’s hunt depends on her success with that one remaining arrow. Hunt-internal factors determine appropriate risk in a way that would tend to elicit broad agreement among knowledgeable observers. Risk may be obviously too high when she is too far from her target, with just one arrow left, and when it is likely enough that better targets will soon be available within better range in the woods teeming with game. A shot by Diana might be deft while poorly selected, an inferior shot in that respect—if the prey is far, visibility poor, and the wind blowing hard, so that likelihood of success is extremely low. Still her dexterity as an archer might deliver the success of her shot, a highly skilled shot (in respect of manual skill) despite being so poorly selected, so ill-judged (in respect of risk assessment). Diana’s shot may thus attain first-order aptness through dexterity, without attaining “reflective” aptness full well. The latter requires aptness not only in hitting the target through manual competence, but also in attaining the aptness of one’s shot, not only through dexterity but also through risk assessment. Archery-external pragmatic values are here irrelevant, even when they do bear on the overall assessment of a hunter’s archery shot. Thus, the success of an archery shot may bring food to the hunter’s starving family, or may constitute a horrible murder. But these outcomes are irrelevant to the assessment of that shot as a hunter-archery shot, as an attempt to hit prey without running excessive risk of failure.

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Accordingly, I leave open what value external to hunting-archery may reside in the fully apt success of such an archery shot. I put aside even whatever value—whether final or inherent or intrinsic—axiology might attribute to such archery shots and to fully apt ones in particular. That is independent of the normativity of hunting archery attempts as such attempts. The latter normativity is determined by the aims constitutive of hunting archery attempts as such, both of such attempts that aim merely at success, and also those that aim at apt success. If a shot aimed at aptness succeeds aptly, it is then fully apt, since it is not only apt but also aptly apt. But the full aptness of such an attempt is entirely compatible with its being a horrible murder, if the “hunter” is an assassin and the prey his victim. That hunter’s shot may still be outstandingly, fully apt, if it manifests the agent’s competence in both archery dexterity and shot selection. It remains only to make explicit the analogy of archery to human cognition, which seems obvious once pointed out. We need only think of a judgment that p as aimed at truth, as an attempt to get it right on the question whether p, by affirming that p (and by doing so aptly). Dispositional judgmental belief is then a state disposing you to judge affirmatively upon considering the question whether p. But this too is agential, and even an action, one extended temporally like the action of those motionless human statues at tourist sites. It is a sustained policy that resides in the will. (That is how Descartes could propose that we give up all our judgmental beliefs in one fell swoop, by an act of will. This is like giving up in one go all of the policies that make one a safe driver, such as stopping at yellow lights and signaling one’s turns.)

Q: What makes it distinctive from rival theories of knowledge? Are you still trying to answer Plato’s questions about knowledge—what knowledge is and what’s its value and is it that second question that adds interest to your work? ES: Yes, my footnote to Plato has been focused on those questions. In my

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view there is a level of human knowledge that involves just getting it right aptly. This “animal” epistemic level is an inferior level in just the way of Diana’s long shot in the dark while drunk. That shot is inferior in a certain respect if too poorly selected as a hunter’s archery shot, even if not quite as poorly selected as would be a shot aimed at the moon. Even if Diana’s too risky shot turns out to be apt by attaining success through sublime (unsuspected) archery dexterity, it is still inferior in the particular respect of being so risky and hence so poorly selected. So now, what exactly is required for such superior “reflective” knowledge, and for “knowledge full well”? First we must distinguish judging from guessing. Judgment is affirmation with the intention to thereby affirm competently enough, and indeed aptly. That distinguishes judgments from mere guesses. The quiz show contestant does endeavor to affirm correctly (and thus win the prize), while taking his affirmation to be a sheer guess, far from apt epistemic performance. A lucky contestant’s affirmation is thus “alethic.” It is aimed at truth alright, at getting it right. But it is still just a guess, not a judgment. In order to qualify as a judgment, an affirmation must aim at getting it right aptly, through competence, and not just through a lucky guess. Given its more substantial aim, a judgment is apt only if its constitutive alethic affirmation is not only apt but aptly apt. The subject must attain aptly not only the truth of his affirmation but also its aptness. And that in turn requires not only the proper operation of one’s perception, memory, inference, etc., but also that one deploy such competences through competent epistemic risk assessment. The analogy to Diana’s two levels of assessable performance is exact. However, spheres like the game show are devoid of risk standards. An agent who endeavors in such a sphere can still aim to minimize risk, and also to keep risk below a certain level. But that would be a subjective choice, one made relative to whatever that agent happens to care about at that point, which will determine the relevant risks and rewards. Missing from such a case are any domain-inherent standards that determine whether risk is or is not above a threshold of

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acceptability. By contrast, take a tennis player barely ahead in a match, who starts hitting strokes at the top of his power and as flat as possible, so that the risk of balls going out is unacceptably high. Not unacceptably high relative to his objective of scandalizing the fans. Rather, unacceptably high relative to the objective of winning the match. A hunter archer can also be out to shock by taking crazy shots. What makes his shots “crazy” is set by excessive risk, judged by hunting-archery standards, which would tend to draw agreement from knowledgeable observers. I am thinking that hunting-archery is similar to tennis this way, if much less formally. For one thing, there isn’t a formal definition of success (as there is in tennis with winning the match). Archery hunts seem to fall into a family, depending variously on the prey hunted for, the size and organization of the hunting party, the purpose of their hunt. Most similar to formalized athletics is hunting for sport. The fully apt hunting archery shot is then determined by how well the archer assesses risk relative to hunting archery, or to their specific sort of archery hunt (whether for ducks, on foot, or for foxes, astride a galloping horse, etc.), and to the ends proper to such sport.

Q: So what do you mean by epistemic normativity? ES: I mean an epistemic normativity of judgments as attempts. Consider the part of epistemology containing Plato’s questions as to the nature and value of knowledge: the theory of knowledge. This is associated with the problems of skepticism, of whether and how we can ever attain knowledge. This part of epistemology is then concerned with the normativity of judgments as attempts. Of course, the domain of these attempts is not the domain of archery shots on physical targets. It is a domain of intellectual shots, of judgmental attempts to get it right on a given question, and to do so aptly.

Q: Isn’t it a problem for this idea that suspending a belief admits the same epistemic normativity as having the belief itself? How do you address

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this? ES: This very pertinent question does raise a problem. But the problem has a solution, one that requires clarity on the fuller aim involved in many domains of human performance. Go back to the important difference between Diana and the Olympic archer. For the huntress, selecting an appropriate target is of crucial importance, and the quality of a shot can vary in that specific respect: in how well selected it is. But her forbearing from shooting in a given instance, especially when tempted, may itself be evaluated in line with our normativity of attempts. The relevant normativity is hence not just one of attempts as attempts. It is rather one of attempts or forbearings. Sometimes the right choice, in an archery hunt, is to forbear. But consider again factors external to the hunt: impressing someone, say, or getting some exercise, or relieving someone’s depression. None of these has any bearing on the assessment of that forbearance as a hunting-archery performance. Forbearances too are hunting-archery performances, and clearly assessable as such. When the risk of failure is too high, the right choice is to forbear. And here again it is important to distinguish the respect in which the choice is right. Again, the relevant normativity is here distinctive not just of attempts but of attempts and forbearings. One’s fuller objective is to make the attempt if and only if it would be apt. One must hence avoid inaptness and hence incompetence. But one does not avoid incompetence if one makes an attempt whose likelihood of success is too low. This seems little more than analytic: when the performance is in a domain that imposes standards of risk, attempts may or may not meet such standards. And the relevant competence of agents then includes reliably enough meeting those standards. (None of this applies, of course, to instances of free-spirited, blasé choice, in an “unregulated” sphere, devoid of any such standards.) Suspending judgment is thus a special case of forbearing from attempting. Accordingly, the normativity of such attempt-forbearing has a special case in the normativity of judgment-forbearing, that of suspension of judgment.

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At agential junctures in a domain with distinctive aims and standards of risk, one performs. Given an end in that domain, two options open up: aiming for that end, or forbearing. The proper broader aim of the performance is then to make an attempt if and only it would be apt (and otherwise forbear). The will here again has a role in epistemology. We saw earlier how judgmental beliefs are sustained policies to answer a whether question affirmatively, in pursuit of truth and aptness of affirmation. Now we find a different epistemic policy, that of aiming to make alethic attempts if and only if they would be apt. There are then two ways of violating this policy. One might make an attempt when it is false that one would succeed reliably enough with such an attempt, so that the attempt is incompetent and hence not one that would be apt. Alternatively: One might fail to make an attempt when one’s attempt would succeed reliably enough. Either way one lowers the relevant quality of one’s first order competence in that domain. Either the breadth or the reliability of the competence is then reduced. Lowered reliability obviously yields a lesser competence. But lowered breadth does so as well. No doubt one’s competence would be superbly reliable if one tried only on the rare occasions when the conditions easily assured success. One’s policy might be to shoot only when the target was a foot away. But this would be an unimpressive competence. There’s a history to this approach. At an epistemic juncture, the Cartesian objective, one highlighted by my virtue epistemology, is that of making an alethic attempt if and only if it would be apt. This is to be distinguished from the Jamesian objective of attaining truth and avoiding falsehood. This is crucial to understanding Descartes’s epistemology as laid out in his Meditations and Principles. Thus, consider his account of the “error” to be avoided. The distinction made in the following passages (translations by John Cottingham) is just that between apt and inapt judgment, but of course Descartes’s project in the Meditations is to attain such aptness of judgment, and to avoid error: that is, to avoid inaptness. So, his objective was not just the Jamesian

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objective. It was his own distinctively Cartesian objective (like one found also in Aristotle, as we shall see below).

If “… I simply refrain from making a judgment in cases where I do not perceive the truth with sufficient clarity and distinctness, then it is clear that I am behaving correctly and avoiding error [Latin error, French erreur]. But if in such cases I either affirm or deny, then I am not using my free will correctly. If I go for the alternative which is false, then obviously I shall be in error; if I take the other side, then it is by … chance [French hasard] that I arrive at the truth, and I shall still be at fault.… In this incorrect use of free will may be found the privation which constitutes the essence of error.” (Meditations, IV.12.)

It is also certain that when we assent to some piece of reasoning when our perception of it is lacking, then either we go wrong, or, if we do stumble on the truth, it is by accident, so that we cannot be sure that we are not in error. (Principle 44 of the Principles of Philosophy.)

In this respect, Descartes’s epistemology is a special case of Aristotle’s virtue ethics (translations and glosses by Robert Bolton, unpublished).

It is possible to produce something that is grammatical either by chance or under the supervision of another. To be proficient in grammar, then, one must both produce what is grammatical and produce it grammatically, that is, in accord with [kata=as an expression of] knowledge of grammar in oneself [not in some supervisor]. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics II4, 1105a22-6)

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This is in effect our concept of aptness. How crucial such a concept is to Aristotle’s ethics may be seen in the following passage:

… human good proves to be an activity of soul [a successful one, presumably, given the importance of lucky externalities for Aristotelian flourishing] in accord with [kata=as an expression of] virtue and, if there are more virtues than one, in accord with [kata=as an expression of] the best and most complete. (Nicomachean Ethics I 7, 1098a16-17)

Since human good is what humans ought to pursue, the pursuit of interest to Aristotle is then such activity of soul, that which constitutes human good, namely activity that attains desiderata, where the attainment is in accord with virtue. Aristotle is not in these passages so clearly and explicitly focused on the attainment of human good. Famously, however, he does postulate that flourishing is properly the main human end, and flourishing is activity of soul that succeeds in accord with virtue (spread over one’s lifetime).

Q: Do you categorise this as a type of epistemological naturalism and if so what are you ruling out on the one hand and ruling in on the other by doing that? ES: Allow me to lead up to my answer by first delving into what sort of risk assessment is relevant to aptness, and to epistemic aptness in particular. What determines whether risk of failure in a given attempt is or is not too high? As suggested earlier, not every possible consequence that matters to those affected will bear on the relevant “risk.” The risk pertinent to a particular attempt (and to its evaluation as an attempt of its sort) is the risk that the agent will fail to attain the end constitutive of that attempt. This risk of failure is coordinate with how likely or unlikely it may be that the agent will then succeed. The epistemic domain is a special case in which the relevant aim is getting it right on a given question, but only competently and indeed

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aptly. If the agent aims to make the attempt if and only if it would be apt, then a distinctive element of risk assessment becomes relevant: How probably would the agent succeed in attempting that fuller end? In this interview I am mainly concerned with unqualified knowledge, by contrast with the varieties of expert knowledge: scientific knowledge of various sorts, legal knowledge, medically expert knowledge, and so on. When we speak of ordinary unqualified knowledge, my thought is that we are implicitly relativizing to the standards imposed by our evolution-derived humanity. These are standards that determine when we consider it appropriate to store beliefs just as a human being, rather than in one’s capacity as an expert of one or another sort. Such stored beliefs are to be available for later use in one’s own thought or in testimony to others. We need some standard that will determine how likely a belief is to be true given just that it is stored in one of us, including strangers that one can ask for directions, and with whom one might collaborate. Important here is the ability to count on some at least minimal default level of reliability even once the evidential basis for the stored belief is long gone from memory. This assurance is important for our own later proper reliance on our stored beliefs, and for the reliance of others on our testimony. The species-derived standard gives us a shared minimum. (This is akin to the proper ranges for volume of voice and distance between humans in face to face communication. Even if these are subject to cultural variation, they all lie within certain default humanity-wide standards. These “etiquette” standards are not formulable linguistically except trivially, and epistemic standards seem likewise implicit and inarticulable.)

Q: In your Locke Lectures you address two skeptical issues—dream skepticism and the question of the criterion. Taking the first one first, what are the challenges of dream skepticism? ES: When you dream, your perceptual (and other) competence is affected. You are then unable to get it right competently with the beliefs in your dream. Consider now perceptual judgments made in your armchair

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some evening, while viewing a fire in your fireplace. It is thought that for all you know you might then be just dreaming that you see flickering flames, hear logs crackle, and feel warmth coming from a fire. In your dream, moreover, you might judge that you do perceive such a fire. And it is nearly always assumed that this judgment in your dream would be a real judgment. If that is so, and if, in your condition, you are incompetent to tell whether you are perceiving or only dreaming that you perceive, then here is your predicament: Even if you are in fact perceiving the fire perfectly well, and judge accordingly, your judgment cannot be knowledge. Too easily might you have been dreaming, as you will be only minutes later. And so, the skeptic concludes triumphantly, you cannot then know that you face a fire, since you might so easily have been wrong in so judging.

Q: How do you push back? ES: Virtue theory seems as vulnerable as the next epistemology to such skeptical attack. But it has more than one line of defense. For one thing, it can resist the dream skeptic’s inference from ‘In his dream, S judges that p’ to ‘In reality, S judges that p, albeit while dreaming’. That is a response developed in some detail in those Locke Lectures (A Virtue Epistemology), and it seems available to other epistemologies, not just to virtue epistemology. Another response is more distinctive of the virtue approach. It likens the dream scenario to the notorious fake barns scenario (where your location is rife with mere façades). Arguably, if you view a real barn in bright sunlight and close by, while fully alert and otherwise in good shape, then you do know whether or not you see a barn. You have “animal” knowledge, says my virtue theory, through the first-order aptness of your judgment. You attain aptness by judging while in good shape and in a good situation (good light, good distance, etc.), through the exercise of good barn-sorting epistemic competence. (Note, by the way, how naturally the term ‘good’ fits in the preceding sentence, and how obviously it relates to reliability.) You do still lack another kind of knowledge, however, namely

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“reflective knowledge full well.” This you lack because your risk assessment is not competent when you consider yourself well enough situated to avoid the risk of failure in the claim that you see a real barn. Your actual situation is adequate because in it appearance does match reality, and you have no sufficient reason to question the default assumption that it does so. But this match is too accidental (when the locale is rife with illusion) so that it is not competently taken to be present (not with the complete SSS-competence that requires of the agent not only skill but also adequate shape and situation). Lacking such competence, one cannot know full well that one sees a real barn. That same response is similarly effective against the dream skeptic. Even when you might very easily be dreaming, you can still know of a facing fire through your multimodal perception of it. When you are thus epistemically well situated and in good shape, your accurate judgment manifests relevant perceptual competence, and is hence apt, which makes it a case of (animal) knowledge. All the same, consider your good shape and situation (awake, alert, eyes open to an unobstructed view). Given how easily you might then be dreaming, such good shape and situation are too fragile to permit a competent enough assumption (a taking-for-granted) that they are reliably present. And this precludes knowledge full well that you face the blazing fire. Virtue epistemology thus offers two distinct responses to the dream skeptic. Note, however, the important difference between them: the second protects only our animal knowledge, whereas the first protects not only our animal knowledge but also our knowledge full well.

Q: And how should we understand the question of the criterion? What’s at stake? ES: How can we know that we do enjoy so much as animal knowledge that p? In order to feel secure that we do, we must defeat the radical skeptic who puts it all in doubt. So an adequate response to the skeptical challenge is at stake. Our bi-level animal/reflective approach allows the use of basic

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foundational faculties in attaining a second-order assuring perspective. We can thus gain awareness of those competences through whose exercise we attain our first-order knowledge. This is the project that Descartes pursues in his Meditations by building his theological bulwark against the aggressive skeptic, through his faculties of intuition and deduction. This leaves readers agape, as they wonder how so great a thinker could suppose that blatant question-begging would prompt anything but ridicule.

Q: And how does your approach solve the problem? ES: The vicious circularity objection has been a mainstay of skeptical thought from ancient times through recent journal issues. But what is the alternative to the virtue epistemological approach, as pursued for good example by Descartes? Should we demand an account of our knowledge in general that lays out justifying reasons for every bit of our knowledge, without circularity or infinite regress? No, it quickly becomes obvious that this is not only unfulfillable, but that it is obviously, necessarily unfulfillable, with metaphysical necessity. A further incoherence relates the knowledge that the aim is obviously impossible to the desire for its realization. These two attitudes do not cohere properly. One cannot coherently desire that p while knowing that it is obviously metaphysically impossible that p. But we needn’t insist on the terminology of “coherence.” The targeted combination is in any case bad. It is bad to want something that not even God could attain, especially when the impossibility becomes obvious. There is now a strong reason to try to escape that bad situation. But there’s not much to be done about the impossibility. One must instead get rid of the desire. Once that is all clear enough, consider now the circularity that a successful account inevitably involves. A successful account enables us to understand human knowledge in general. Now, in coming to know our general account, we need to employ some subset of our basic competences. Since general, however, that account must give us an understanding of those very competences and their reliability. So, the

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competences by means of which we come to know our account must be among the competences invoked in explaining how one would know any such account, and so they must be among the competences that our account claims to be reliable. There is no vice in this sort of circularity. Compare the circularity involved in coming to understand how our faculty of vision gives us reliable access to our surroundings. In arriving at the relevant theory about the specifics of our faculty of vision we will presumably use our eyes to gather relevant data. Based on such data we come to know about the optic nerve, the structure of our eyes, the rods and cones, etc., so as to explain how it is that vision gives us reliable access to the shapes and colors of objects around us. In reliably arriving at that theory we thus exercise the very faculty whose reliability is explained by the theory. There is no vice in this sort of circularity. Briefly put: Suppose we wonder whether we should trust the deliverances of our basic epistemic competences. If those are indeed our basic competences, then in order properly to satisfy our curiosity we will inevitably rely on one or more of them. So, either we squelch our curiosity or we will have to fall into the circularity or regress to which the skeptic objects. Since the actual infinite regress is of reach for finite humans, we must fall into the circularity, the Cartesian sort of circularity, wherein we use our fundamental faculties (intuition and deduction, as they might be) in order to attain a picture of ourselves and the world around us (ourselves in the lap of a benevolent omnipotence) that enables us to endorse our use of those very faculties. There is no hope for a properly supportive perspective on our basic faculties that is not acquired by means of such inquiry. Finally, if broadest science takes the place of unaided theology, and our empirical faculties supplement the a priori faculties of intuition and deduction, that gives us a better chance for a defensible perspective that can still play the sort of role sought by Descartes.

Q: Along the way you talk about the role of intuitions and what role they have in philosophy. Herman Cappelen has recently argued that intuitions play no role, Josh Knobe’s experimental philosophy crew

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warns that they can lead us astray, and some Kantians say the problem all stems from bad translations of his First Critique—what do you say? ES: In my view, to deny that intuition has a place in the epistemology of philosophy is like denying that observation has a place in the epistemology of the empirical sciences. Do experimenters make much use of the word ‘observation’ or of the concept of observation? I doubt it. There is anyhow little need for them to do so. Of course, they need to make observations of various specific sorts. They must make observation reports too, as they record various instrument readings. But there is no need for the scientist to go into whether an observation was made, nor into the who, what, when, or where. The data on which scientific theorizing is based are rather the propositional contents of the instrument readings recorded, or the facts detected thereby. Analogously, philosophers need not much use the word ‘intuition’ or the concept of intuition, except when they happen to be working on the epistemology of the a priori. Philosophers do need to have intuitions of various specific sorts: ethical, metaphysical, etc., depending on their targeted subject matter. And they must make intuition reports, as they record the contents of their intuitions. But they need not go into whether an intuition has been enjoyed. The data on which philosophical theorizing is based are rather the intuited contents themselves, concerning the various thought experiments. At least that is so outside the epistemology of the a priori. When there are conflicts of observation, when experiments cannot be replicated, scientists may then retreat to a study of the various specific observations so as to explain the conflict, in the course of which they would make use of the concept of observation, or of some specification of that concept. Similarly, when there are ostensible conflicts of intuition (or of intuition with observation), philosophers may then retreat to an explicit study of the various specific intuitions so as to explain the conflict, in the course of which they would make use of the concept of intuition, or of some specification of this concept. We can thus see why the concept of intuition is more often used

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in philosophical theorizing than is the concept of observation in scientific theorizing (proportionately). One reason is that there is (proportionately) more ostensible conflict of philosophical intuitions than there is ostensible conflict of scientific observations. So much for the use of a concept of intuition in philosophical theorizing. But how is the phenomenon itself best understood? Here we need a distinction. Intuitive seeming is in my view an attraction to assent based on nothing more than understanding of the content that upon consideration attracts one’s assent. But such understanding-based attraction can differ dramatically in epistemic quality. Some such attractions represent nothing more than superstition or bias absorbed from the culture, sans ratiocination. What makes an attitude just understanding-based is that there is no rational basis, no rationale that provides a sufficient motivational basis on which one holds that belief, not even indirectly via memory (so that one holds it indirectly for the reasons based on which it was initially acquired). This is what happens with much of our common sense background knowledge, including general components of folk physics, psychology, and morality. These are “absorbed” from the culture, sans “ratiocination,” as Wittgenstein puts it in On Certainty. So, they are “intuitive” that way. All this means is that they have no sufficient rational basis. They are not acquired through reasoning that eventuates in the formation of a specific belief. Rather, “light dawns gradually on the whole” of Moorean common sense. These are not things taught in elementary school. Rather are we predisposed to acquire such beliefs by our brains, as a gift of evolution, so that with a proper stream of experience we eventually emerge through infancy and childhood with such a body of beliefs, some eventually made explicit at least partially, with increasing linguistic ability (which is also how we soon attain vast knowledge of our mother tongue). Still, even once these absorbed beliefs are made explicit, it’s not as though we form them by rational reliance on specific perceptual or other evidence, properly so-called. This is not to say that experience has no causal influence on their formation. It is only to say rather that the process whereby these basic principles are acquired is not one of rational

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argumentation whereby we rationally base a conclusion on certain premises adduced in its support. The problem this raises is that much superstition and bias is also acquired thus without specific ratiocination. Such nonsense is also too often acquired through cultural absorption. So it can’t be the mere fact of being thus acquired that provides proper epistemic status. True, that might provide some minimal “rational” status, as a basic commitment that survives deep reflection. But this is not enough to give it proper epistemic status, not fully enough, since someone deeply enough committed to such superstition or bias might sustain their nonsense even under conditions of deep reflection. Hence the absorption does give rise to intuitions, defined as seemings based on nothing more than understanding as far as rational basing is concerned. Such intuitions differ crucially from intuitions that are, let’s say, rational. These latter are distinguished by the fact that they are sufficiently reliable. So, the more specific way they are acquired and sustained is sufficiently reliable to constitute epistemic competence, and not just superstition or bias. That is in support of an analogy between observation and intuition. Far from being exhausted, however, the topic is still much debated in books, articles, and symposia, and I myself remain actively engaged.

Q: Tim Williamson’s approach to knowledge disconnected belief from knowledge in a way—I wondered if this poses challenges to your own approach? ES: It is certainly a different approach, even if we are in sympathy methodologically. Whether it is incompatible depends on its full content, and more specifically on what it means to say that knowledge is “first.” Is it first conceptually, so that we understand other epistemological concepts in terms of our concept of knowledge? That I do find agreeable. Here’s just one example of how that might work. Take concepts such as justification or competence, and more specifically their epistemic variants. Suppose it is not possible to understand such

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epistemic concepts without appeal to knowledge. Perhaps “epistemic justification or competence” must be understood conceptually as just “the sort of justification or competence that a belief needs to manifest in order to qualify as knowledge.” If we have a better understanding of knowledge than we do of such justification or competence, then we can explain the latter through the former. Epistemic competence might be thus posterior to knowledge conceptually, however, while still prior metaphysically. And this latter is what my view implies: that animal knowledge is metaphysically constituted by apt belief, by belief whose correctness manifests the believer’s epistemic competence, a relevant disposition to get it right on the matter at hand when one tries to do so.

Q: How does your theory understand testimony? We all rely on testimony for most of our beliefs and knowledge but where does responsibility lie for the normative requirements of testimonial justification on your understanding—the individual or features of the social relations between speakers and hearers? ES: In my view (animal) knowledge is apt belief, where not only the belief (its existence and content) but also its correctness is creditable to the subject’s competence. The problem of testimony for this view is that the correctness of much testimonially based belief is no more than minimally creditable to the believer. Take a beginning archer whose hand is guided by an expert. Is the success of his shot then creditable to the beginner? In order to answer this question we must know more. So far we cannot tell whether the success of the shot is creditable at all, even partially, to the archer. It is of course plausible that the existence of the shot is thus creditable. The archer at least lends his hands and it is presumably up to him when exactly he lets go. So the existence of that very shot is then due to him at least in part. However, that leaves it wide open whether the shot’s success is also creditable to him, even partially. That will depend on the likes of this: Does he or does he not at all affect the arrow’s orientation at the moment of release? Does he or does he not at all affect how far

Ernest Sosa’s Intellectual Autobiography 135 back the arrow is drawn at the moment of release? Crucially, he might control whether and when the arrow leaves the bow, affecting thereby the existence of the shot, without at all controlling either the tip/tail coordinates or the tension at the time of release. That being so, he might plausibly determine the existence of the shot without at all determining its accuracy. Similarly for the case of a recipient of testimony. She too might contribute to the existence of her belief, without contributing at all to its success, to its hitting the mark of truth. But her belief will be apt only if she makes a contribution, however small, to her belief ’s correctness and not just to its existence. Compare the credit for a football touchdown, which might be shared by the receiver not only with the quarterback, but also with the linesmen who make crucial protective plays, etc. The success of the touchdown play depends on the receiver, it is true; but in a particular case it might depend far more on the work of others. This I suggest as the right model for understanding how a belief (a particular, token belief) might be apt even when its correctness is more creditable to the testifier, among others, than to the recipient. The success of that belief, its hitting the mark of truth, might after all be creditable in some measure to the recipient, which would suffice for his attainment of partial credit. More would be required than just that the recipient contribute to the existence of that belief. He must also in some way contribute to its correctness. For example, if he had failed to be a careful enough listener and might too easily have misinterpreted the testifier, then he might still have been clearly responsible in part for the existence of his belief, without being sufficiently responsible for its correctness. When I accept someone’s testimony, I am thus only a small part of the full seat of epistemic competence, which might include many others in a long chain. My own contribution might then be slight, just through the perceptual and linguistic competence involved in knowing what someone is saying or writing, etc. That is as concerns a knowledge that derives from the first-order default trust proper to rational, social animals. Defeaters can properly

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block the power of such a source. Absent defeaters, however, we have not only the rational first-hand trust in the testimony of a fellow human, but also the proper default trust that such trust is then in order, for a standing that goes beyond the first order and ascends to reflective endorsement.

Q: I mentioned earlier experimental philosophy, but I wonder how important interdisciplinary work is to epistemology now—I’m thinking of the work going on in neuroscience and psychology and philosophy of mind too. How interdisciplinary is epistemology? ES: Epistemology now flourishes with various complementary approaches. This includes formal epistemology, experimental philosophy, cognitive science and psychology, including relevant brain science, and other philosophical subfields, such as metaphysics, action theory, language, and mind. It is not as though all questions of armchair, traditional epistemology are already settled conclusively, with unanimity or even consensus. We still need to reason our way together to a better view of those issues. But that is compatible with the pursuit of other approaches to questions alongside those we take up traditionally in seminars or armchairs. I expect and hope for continuing collaboration, combining the best results of the best research along the various relevant lines of approach. This stance is in line with the earlier suggestion that we can pursue the Cartesian project without restricting ourselves to theology and a priori faculties. A better, broader perspective is properly sought if we pursue the project with reliance on science broadly and on our full span of epistemic competences, including the empirical as well as the a priori.

Q: In your most recent book Judgment and Agency you aim to provide “a better virtue epistemology”: What is better in your account in the book? ES: My earlier work on virtue epistemology makes much use of a distinction between animal knowledge and reflective knowledge. Animal knowledge, apt belief, is belief whose correctness (truth)

Ernest Sosa’s Intellectual Autobiography 137 manifests the knower’s first-order competence to attain truth through the attempt to do so. Animal knowledge turns reflective through the addition of a meta-perspective in which the believer aptly takes their apt belief to be apt. My more recent work makes two main departures. First, reflective knowledge is now seen to derive its epistemic importance from the role it plays in knowledge full well. This latter requires not only that the knower aptly take it that his first-order belief would be apt. In addition this apt taking must guide the first-order belief to aptness. It must guide the formation or sustainment of that first-order belief. Belief that thus attains the status of knowledge full well must hence be safe belief. Such belief would be true and will not just happen to be true. (This is a good first approximation, even if a fuller development would involve further subtleties.) In a second main departure, I now highlight the importance of judgmental belief and judgmental knowledge. This is a knowledge that resides in the act of judgment, and in the disposition to so act. This sort of knowledge is often expressible linguistically, either in public speech or in sayings to oneself in the privacy of one’s own mind. This sort of knowledge is also crucial to a social species that depends as heavily as we do on coordination and on the sharing of information. And it is a sort of knowledge proper to the reflective intellectual mind. Unsurprisingly, it has figured large in an epistemological tradition running from the Greeks, including the Pyrrhonian skeptics, through Descartes, whose faculty of judgment issued voluntary acts of acceptance, rejection, or suspension. Judgment thus turns out to be a form of conscious intentional action, as the subject attempts to answer correctly (with truth) a question consciously pondered. And judgmental belief is then a disposition to hit the mark of truth with one’s judgments on the pertinent question, when this question is consciously pondered. Note that this disposition is then itself a form of action, taking the form of a sustained policy, as when one is a safe driver because of freely, voluntarily sustained policies, such as that of stopping at yellow lights, and that of signaling one’s turns.

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Q: Apart from epistemology you also worked on questions of meta-philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and many other fields. How does your work in all these fields relate to each other? How important are interconnections between your work in these different fields from a systematical perspective? ES: Issues from all of those fields have long impinged on the issues in epistemology of main interest to me. In my recent Judgment and Agency this is saliently visible. In the first chapter already I work to extend my approach to the theory of knowledge so that it will cast light also on the other main mind-world relations, namely perception and action (and reference is put on the agenda as well). Moreover, I meta-philosophically distinguish between analysis as a metaphysical project on one hand (which is the approach I mainly take in the book) and analysis as a project of semantic or conceptual analysis. I also take some account of the latter in the book, but my main focus is on the objective epistemic phenomena that go beyond words or concepts. Thus, my main interest is in the phenomena of knowledge, perception, belief, and action, and how they interrelate. Compare the theory of persons and the metaphysical project of understanding the nature of persons themselves. That is quite different from the project of understanding the concept of a person or the term ‘person’ in English, and its cognates. Once we are focused on the metaphysics of knowledge, or of persons, then the English terminology of ‘person’ and its cognates recedes, and we may even find that our exploration of the relevant objective phenomena calls for somewhat modified concepts or terms, rather than the exact sets of terms we find in English, or the concepts that they stand for. In this regard metaphysics might be rather like the sciences that modify the ordinary concepts or terminology of ‘vegetable’ versus ‘fruit’ or of ‘fish’ versus ‘mammal’.

Q: In conclusion, let’s return to metaphilosophy for a moment. You have very prominently engaged in the debate about experimental philosophy. How would you evaluate the impact of the work of experimental

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philosophers on philosophy by and large? ES: The impact of experimental philosophy has been healthy on the whole, in my opinion. Experimental philosophers have inquired vigorously and in depth into how and how broadly people coincide in their ostensible intuitions about philosophically important concepts and phenomena. This has revealed surprising results that other philosophers would do well to take into account. However, the interest of x-phi results will be limited for those of us whose main objective is not mainly semantics—or even conceptual analysis—so much as an illuminating metaphysical account of important phenomena concerning knowledge itself, or persons, or justice, or causation, and so on. Nonetheless, it should prove helpful to have a good grasp of how people generally use the pertinent vocabulary, as it would surely enhance communication, both among expert philosophers, and between philosophers and a wider public, such as the students who first approach philosophy in our universities. So, I insist that experimental philosophy is a positive development, not only because of the intrinsic interest of the questions of linguistics and psychology that it explores, but also because of how helpful its results are for our proper communication and collaboration in philosophy (which would of course need to be through shared language).

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Ernest Sosa അజ᜖ࠎ Ķ࿅ΝΗ࣎͵ࡔͽֽ౵ࢦࢋ۞ۢᙊኢࣰጯछ̝ ķĂ˵ߏ༊΃ᇇّۢᙊኢ (Virtue Epistemology) ۞౹ؕˠĄд̫ѐ˘ ΁ 80 ໐Ϡ͟۞পҾ̄͟Ăࠎ˞ᇉৡ΁۞ޘĞ2020 ѐ 6 ͡ 17 ͟ğϒࣃᝌ ӓ̂ጯࣰጯր̏ڌϠ͟Ă͵ࠧЧгࣧώѣೀ࣎পҾ۞ጯఙࡁ੅ົĞΒ߁ д׌ѐ݈׶ Sosa ώˠ࿰ؠрࢋдᄂΔᓝᏱ۞Ķᇉৡ Sosa ˣȈ໐Ϡࣰ͟ ᜈᇆᜩĂٕ۰൑ࢨഇؼᏵĂޢጯົᛉķğĂౌЯࠎ 2019 າ݄ঽ߲ࠪଐ۞ ˵ӓ̂ጯ̝ᇉৡົᛉĂڌঐົᛉĄበ۰ώˠࣧώ࢑య۞ᄂΔפ۰ۡତٕ ˧ঐĄ൒҃Ăࠎ˞࡭ະ Sosa ˘Ϡࠎ઼ᅫࣰጯ൴णٙઇ۞ӅפЯѩజ࢝ ᄃ੒ᚥĂበ۰পгᄃ Sosa ώˠᓑᘭᄃથ੅Ă֭ᔛኛ΁д 80 ໐Ϡ͟఺࣎ ӓࣰጯጯಡį (Soochow Journal of Philosophical Studies) ᇤڌপҾ۞̄͟ĂࠎĮ Ăۺᒔ଀ Sosa ۞ࢵضၷޝᆷ΁෹࿅Η͵ࡔ̝˳۞ጯఙགྷ።ᄃҋ็Ąԧࣇ ӓࣰጯጯಡٙჟ͕በᆷ̝ “Ernest Sosa’sڌࠎԧࣇᄂ៉ࣰጯࠧᄃܝ૞ Intellectual Autobiography”Ą఺Њጯఙҋ็ߏ Sosa ώˠֶፂ࿅Νҋ̎α ̙࣎Т۞ጯఙణኘࡔᐂĂࢦາͽ˘჌෍ᑢҋణҋඍ۞͞ёበᆷ҃јĄ͛ ࣒ԼᄃᆧማĂયඍ۞ޘф̰टᔵкѣࢦኑ࿅Ν̝ణયቇĂҭ˵ѣ˘ؠ඀ ᆷүݭၗ˵Ȉ̶ӚЪ Sosa ၚϡ۞ᆷүሀёĄ۞

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:(ᐂ (Editor’s Appendixܢበ۰

ᄃགྷ።Ĉۍͽ˭ߏ˘ֱѣᙯ Sosa ౵ࢦࢋ۞ጯఙ΍

ۍࢦࢋ΃ّܑ૞३΍ .1 Knowledge in Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 1991) Epistemic Justification (Blackwell Publishers, 2003), with Laurence Bonjour A Virtue Epistemology (Oxford University Press, 2007) Reflective Knowledge (Oxford University Press, 2009) Knowing Full Well (Princeton University Press, 2011) Judgment and Agency (Oxford University Press, 2015) Epistemology (Princeton University Press, 2017)

2. ᖎ። --Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers University, 2008- ; Professor of Philosophy, 2007- 2008. Distinguished Visiting Professor every spring at Rutgers from 1998 to 2007. --B.A., University of Miami, 1961. Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh, 1964. --At Brown University from 1964 to 2007, with brief stints elsewhere. At Brown: postdoctoral fellow, 1964 to 1966; from Assistant Professor to Professor, 1967 to 1974; Professor from 1974 to 2007; Romeo Elton Professor of Natural Theology and Professor of Philosophy from 1981 to 2007. Brown Philosophy Department Chair (1970-76). Also taught at the following universities: Western Ontario (1963-4, and 1966-7), and as a visitor at CUNY Graduate Center, Harvard, Mexico, Miami, Michigan, Salamanca, and Texas. Cowling Professor at Carleton College (Spring, 1995). Visiting Fellow at St. Catherines College, Oxford (Trinity, 1997), at the Australian National University, Canberra (2002), and at All Souls College, Oxford (Trinity, 2005). --Editor, since 1983, of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. Editor, since 1999, of Noûs. Editor, since 2000, of Philosophical Issues. General editor, from 1992 to 2003, of the book series Cambridge Studies in Philosophy (Cambridge University Press). Editor of several collections and works of reference, and member of the editorial boards of several philosophy journals. --Elected Vice-President of the Federation Internationale des Societes de Philosophie

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(FISP), for 1988-93. Elected in 1993 by FISP to co-chair the program committee for the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, held in Boston in 1998. --Recipient of grants or fellowships from the Canada Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Science Foundation, the Exxon Educational Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. --Elected in 1992 to permanent membership in the Institut International de Philosophie. Elected as follows by the IIP: in 1993, to serve a three-year term on its Executive Committee; in 1997, to serve a three-year term on its Nominating Committee. --Service to the American Philosophical Association (APA) as follows: for eight years as Secretary-Treasurer of its Eastern Division, and later for five years as Chair of the APA International Cooperation Committee, one of the Association’s five standing committees. Subsequently elected by the Eastern Division of the APA to serve a three-year term as its Divisional Representative; and in 2003 elected to serve for three years, first as Vice-President, then as President, and then as Past-President. All six offices carry ex officio membership on the APA Board of Officers. Elected Chair of the APA Board of Officers for 2005-8. --Elected in 2001 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Service to the Academy during eight years, as chair of the panel for election of philosophers, Class IV.1, and concurrently on the membership committee for election of humanities scholars, Class IV. --Ernest Sosa and His Critics, edited by John Greco, appears in the series Philosophers and Their Critics (Blackwell Publishers, 2004). --Virtuous Thoughts: The Philosophy of Ernest Sosa, edited by John Turri, appears in the Philosophical Studies Series (Springer, 2013). --Six Gaos Lectures delivered at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, in 1983. (http://www.filosoficas.unam.mx/sitio/catedra-jose-gaos) --Elected in 2002 by the Oxford Philosophy Faculty to give the six John Locke Lectures at Oxford University in 2005. A two-volume work, Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, published by Oxford University Press, contains these lectures as its first volume, A Virtue Epistemology, which appeared in 2007, and Reflective Knowledge as its second volume, published in 2009. (https://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/john-locke-lectures#collapse386431) --Three Soochow Lectures delivered at Soochow University, Taipei, in 2008. Knowing Full Well (Princeton University Press, 2011) derives from these lectures.

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(https://press.princeton.edu/catalogs/series/title/soochow-university-lectures-in-phil osophy.html) --Elected in 2008 to give the three Carus Lectures to the American Philosophical Association; these were delivered at the Chicago meetings held in February of 2010. (http://www.apaonline.org/?carus) --Awarded the Rescher Medal by the University of Pittsburgh “for contributions to systematic philosophy,” in 2010. --Awarded the Quinn Prize by the American Philosophical Association “for service to philosophy and philosophers,” in 2010. --Münster Lecture and associated workshop at the University of Münster in 2014. (http://www.uni-muenster.de/PhilSem/veranstaltungen/mvph/mvph.html) --II ICS Lecture on Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Navarra in 2015. --Ernest Sosa: Conocimiento y acción, ed. by Alejandro G. Vigo (Eunsa, 2015). Derives from the visit to the University of Navarra listed above. --Ernest Sosa: Targeting His Philosophy, ed. by A. Baehr and M. Seidel (Springer, 2016). Derives from the Münster workshop listed above. --Performance Normativity, ed. by M.A. Fernandez (Oxford University Press, 2016). Derives from a conference on virtue epistemology at UNAM, Mexico, celebrating ES’s 70th birthday. --Awarded the Lebowitz Prize by Phi Beta Kappa and the American Philosophical Association “for philosophical achievement and contribution,” in 2016. --Tang-Chun-I Visitor, Chinese University of Hong Kong, March, 2017. --Ernest Sosa prizes established in 2017 by the American Philosophical Association, for excellence in epistemology. --Conference on the work of E. Sosa organized by Episteme in July of 2018, with the proceedings published in a special issue of the journal (2019). --Maimonides Lecture, plenary lecture at the 2018 World Congress of Philosophy, held in Beijing, China. --Special Issue of Synthese on the epistemology of E. Sosa, 2020.