Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-zzh7m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T15:48:27.476Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Aiming at Aptness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2019

Joshua Schechter
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper discusses Ernest Sosa's account of knowledge and epistemic normativity. The paper has two main parts. The first part identifies places where Sosa's account requires supplementation if it is going to capture important epistemic phenomena. In particular, additional theoretical resources are needed to explain (i) the way in which epistemic aims are genuinely good aims, and (ii) the way in which some forms of reasoning can be epistemically better than others even when they are equally conducive to attaining the truth. The second part focuses on Sosa's claim that there is a kind of belief – judgmental belief – that doesn't merely aim at truth but also aims at aptness, and that this kind of belief is central to our mental lives. The paper raises several concerns about this part of Sosa's account, including the concern that aiming at aptness is overly self-directed, and so is more closely tied to vice than epistemic virtue.

Keywords

aptnessepistemic agencyepistemic normativityErnest Sosajudgmental beliefknowledgeknowledge full wellperformance normativityvirtue epistemology
Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 16 , Special Issue 4: 2018 Episteme Conference in Honor of Ernest Sosa , December 2019 , pp. 438 - 452
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berry, S. (2013). ‘Default Reasonableness and the Mathoids.’ Synthese 190, 3695–713.Google Scholar
Boghossian, P. (2003). ‘Blind Reasoning.’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 77, 225–48.Google Scholar
Dogramaci, S. (2013). ‘Intuitions for Inferences.’ Philosophical Studies 165, 371–99.Google Scholar
Dogramaci, S. (2015). ‘Communist Conventions for Deductive Reasoning.’ Noûs 49, 776–99.Google Scholar
Enoch, D. and Schechter, J. (2008). ‘How Are Basic Belief-Forming Methods Justified?’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 76, 547–79.Google Scholar
Friedman, J. (2019). ‘Inquiry and Belief.’ Noûs 53, 296–315.Google Scholar
Grimm, S. (2009). ‘Epistemic Normativity.’ In Haddock, A., Millar, A. and Pritchard, D. (eds), Epistemic Value, pp. 243–64. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Harman, G. (1986). Change in View. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hirji, S. (2019). ‘Not Always Worth the Effort: Difficulty and the Value of Achievement.’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 100, 525–48.Google Scholar
Kelly, T. (2003). ‘Epistemic Rationality as Instrumental Rationality: A Critique.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66, 612–40.Google Scholar
Li, H. (2018). ‘A Theory of Epistemic Supererogation.’ Erkenntnis 83, 349–67.Google Scholar
Miracchi, L. (2015). ‘Knowledge Is All You Need.’ Philosophical Issues 25, Normativity, 352–78.Google Scholar
Schechter, J. (2017). ‘No Need for Excuses: Against Knowledge-First Epistemology and the Knowledge Norm of Assertion.’ In Carter, J.A., Gordon, E. and Jarvis, B. (eds), Knowledge-First: Approaches in Epistemology and Mind, pp. 132–59. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schechter, J. (2019). ‘Small Steps and Great Leaps in Thought: The Epistemology of Basic Deductive Rules.’ In Jackson, M. Balcerak and Jackson, B. Balcerak (eds), Reasoning: New Essays on Theoretical and Practical Thinking, pp. 152–77. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schechter, J. (Forthcoming). ‘Internalism and Entitlement to Rules and Methods.’ In Graham, P. and Pedersen, N. (eds), Epistemic Entitlement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sosa, E. (2007). A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sosa, E. (2009). Reflective Knowledge: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sosa, E. (2011). Knowing Full Well. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sosa, E. (2015). Judgment and Agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sosa, E. (2018). ‘Knowledge and Wisdom.’ In Hetherington, S. (ed.), The Gettier Problem, pp. 144–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sosa, E. (Forthcoming). Epistemic Explanations: A Theory of Telic Normativity and What It Explains.Google Scholar
Sylvan, K. (2017). ‘Can Performance Epistemology Explain Higher Epistemic Value?’ Synthese. doi: 10.1007/s11229-017-1577-7.Google Scholar