Knowledge in Perspective
Selected Essays in Epistemology

Ernest Sosa collects essays, written over the last 25 years, on the scope and nature of human knowledge.

Ernest Sosa (Author)

9780521396431, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 29 March 1991

316 pages
22.7 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.433 kg

"Ernest Sosa has been one of the most prominent American epistemologists in the last few decades, and it is good to have his most important epistemological essays available in a single volume, arranged, mostly, in chronological order. There are many treasures here, including strictures on an 'argumenative' account of justification and knowledge, acute criticisms of coherence theory, an important distinction between what he calls 'formal foundationalism' and 'substantive foundationalism', some salutary pooh-poohing of fashionable versions of 'naturalized epistemology', a useful discussion of the epistemology of testimony, a plea for the importance of 'abduction', and much more." William P. Alston, Mind |x x

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

Sources and acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. What is Knowledge, And How is it Possible? 1. The analysis of 'knowledge that p'
2. How do you know?
3. On our knowledge of matters of fact
4. Presuppositions of empirical knowledge
Part II. Theories of Justification: 5. Epistemology today: a perspective in retrospect
6. Nature unmirrored, epistemology naturalized
7. Theories of justification: old doctrines newly defended
8. Reliabilism and intellectual virtue
Part III. Intellectual Virtue and Epistemic Perspective: A View Presented: 9. The foundations of foundationalism
10. The raft and the pyramid: coherence versus foundations in the theory of knowledge
11. The coherence of virtue and the virtue of coherence
12. Testimony and coherence
Part IV. Intellectual Virtue in Perspective: The View Developed: 13. Knowledge and intellectual virtue
14. Methodology and apt belief
15. Equilibrium in coherence?
16. Intellectual virtue in perspective
Index.

Subject Areas: Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge [HPK]