Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Sosa in perspective

  • Published:
Philosophical Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Ernest Sosa draws a distinction between animal knowledge and reflective knowledge, and this distinction forms the centerpiece of his new book, A Virtue Epistemology. This paper argues that the distinction cannot do the work which Sosa assigns to it.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Sosa (2007).

  2. This paper was originally published in 1985. It is reprinted in Sosa (1991, p. 240). A similar characterization is found in Sosa (1997).

  3. BonJour (1985, Chap. 3).

  4. I owe the discussion of the last three paragraphs to a conversation with Ed Gettier.

  5. The identification is made again on p. 34:”It helps to distinguish between animal and reflective knowledge, between apt belief simpliciter, and apt belief aptly noted.” It is made again on p. 113: “There is also a higher level of knowledge–reflective knowledge, apt belief aptly noted…” See also pp. 43 and 98.

  6. This was originally introduced by Alvin Goldman—the example was suggested to him by Carl Ginet—in “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge,” originally published in 1976 and reprinted in Goldman (1992, pp. 85–103). Sosa notes the similarity between these examples in note 1 on p. 96.

  7. I am assuming here what Sosa calls “the orthodox conception” of dreaming. In chapter one of A Virtue Epistemology, Sosa offers an alternative to the orthodox conception, arguing that when one dreams that, for example, one is rushing across campus in order to take an exam, one does not actually form the belief that one is rushing across campus in order to take an exam. In Sosa’s discussion following chapter one, however, the orthodox conception is taken for granted.

  8. Such a response will not satisfy epistemologists attracted to internalism, but Sosa’s notion of animal knowledge, quite clearly, does not present an internalist conception of knowledge. The point here is that, even for externalists, who may dismiss the evil demon out of hand, the problem of dreaming is not so easily dismissed.

References

  • BonJour, L. (1985). The structure of empirical knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, A. (1992). Liaisons: Philosophy meets the cognitive and social sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. (1991). Knowledge in perspective: Selected essays in epistemology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. (1997). Reflective knowledge in the best circles. Journal of Philosophy, XCIV, 410–430.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. (2007). A virtue epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Joachim Horvath and Jonathan Vogel for helpful comments on a draft of this paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts, 352 Bartlett Hall, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA

    Hilary Kornblith

Authors
  1. Hilary Kornblith
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hilary Kornblith.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kornblith, H. Sosa in perspective. Philos Stud 144, 127–136 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9377-7

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9377-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation