Judgment and Agency

by Ernest Sosa

Overview

Ernest Sosa extends his distinctive approach to epistemology, intertwining issues concerning the role of the will in judgment and belief with issues of epistemic evaluation. Questions about skepticism and the nature of knowledge are at the forefront. The answers defended are new in their explicit and sustained focus on judgment and epistemic agency. While noting that human knowledge trades on distinctive psychological capacities, Sosa also emphasizes the role of the social in human knowledge. Basic animal knowledge is supplemented by a level of reflective knowledge focused on judgment, and a level of 'knowing full well' that is distinctive of the animal that is rational.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191030437
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	04/02/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	789 KB

About the Author

Ernest Sosa is Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part I: Virtue Epistemology Extended and Unified
1. The Unity of Action, Perception, and Knowledge
2. Virtue Epistemology: Character versus Competence
Part II: A Better Virtue Epistemology
3. Judgment and Agency
4. A Better Virtue Epistemology Further Developed
5. Objections and Replies, with a Methodological Afterthought
Part III: Knowledge and Agency
6. Knowledge and Action
7. Intentional Action and Judgment
8. Social Roots of Human Knowledge
9. Epistemic Agency
Part IV: Historical Antecedents
10. Pyrrhonian Skepticism and Human Agency
11. Descartes' Pyrrhonian Virtue Epistemology

Editorial Reviews

"Given Sosa's broad aim, his book covers a lot of ground. The discussions of particular issues will appeal to those interested in those particular topics, and the chapters, on the whole, are self-contained, some being reprints of earlier articles. But, throughout, one finds interconnected and re-emerging themes that are of central importance to all those interested in the nature of belief and knowledge, the nature and extent of epistemic agency, and philosophical methodology. Having Sosa's carefully and forcefully argued views on these topics is most welcome." — Miriam Schleifer Mccormick, Mind

"This book is both monumentally important and largely successful." —Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

"Judgment and Agency reads like a product of sustained, penetrating philosophical reflection by one of the great minds in the field, which, to my mind, is precisely what it is." —Philosophical Studies

"Ernest Sosa's new book, Judgment and Agency, is a terrific piece of philosophizing. It develops Sosa's virtue epistemology well beyond his earlier work, and it sets it in a broader framework." —Philosophical Studies

"This is a book one will want to return to many times. It is not breezy, easily digested philosophy. But it more than repays careful study. It is a major achievement for epistemology, a comprehensive and profound account of knowledge, informed by the history of the subject as well as by recent trends." —The Philosophical Review

"...[A]n incredibly important work of contemporary epistemology...not merely an incremental extension of Sosa's previous work...a high-water mark as regards scholarship in this area. Anyone serious about epistemology ought to read this book." —The Journal of Philosophy

From the Publisher