Quote

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.

Ernest Sosa

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Ernest Sosa
Age: 84
Born: 1940
Born: June 17
Philosopher
University Teacher
Cardenas
Judgment
Accurately
However
Judgments
Goes
Consciously
Teleological
Belief
Surroundings
Perceptual
Rather
Represent
Intentional
Right
Systems
Aiming
Even
Beliefs
Intentionally
Attempt
Functional

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There's not much to be done about the impossibility. One must instead get rid of the desire.
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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.
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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 knowledge of grammar in oneself.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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When the risk of failure is too high, the right choice is to forbear.
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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.
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Lowered reliability obviously yields a lesser competence. But lowered breadth does so as well.
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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.
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Ultimately, my more significant agreement is with a virtue tradition that features Aristotle and Descartes.
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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.
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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.
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We must distinguish judging from guessing.
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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.
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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?
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Flourishing is properly the main human end, and flourishing is activity of soul that succeeds in accord with virtue.
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Judgment is affirmation with the intention to thereby affirm competently enough, and indeed aptly. That distinguishes judgments from mere guesses.
Ernest Sosa