Quote

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.

Ernest Sosa

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ernest Sosa
Age: 84
Born: 1940
Born: June 17
Philosopher
University Teacher
Cardenas
Hands
Tries
Matter
Relevant
Metaphysically
Right
Believer
Epistemic
Trying
Whose
Constituted
Animal
Manifests
Hand
Correctness
Belief
Competence
Knowledge
Disposition

More quotes by Ernest Sosa

Image
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
Image
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.
Ernest Sosa
Image
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.
Ernest Sosa
Image
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.
Ernest Sosa
Image
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.
Ernest Sosa
Image
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?
Ernest Sosa
Image
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.
Ernest Sosa
Image
Knowledge in my view is a form of action. It involves endeavors to get it right, and more broadly it concerns aimings, which can be functional rather than intentional.
Ernest Sosa
Image
When the risk of failure is too high, the right choice is to forbear.
Ernest Sosa
Image
Lowered reliability obviously yields a lesser competence. But lowered breadth does so as well.
Ernest Sosa
Image
It is bad to want something that not even God could attain, especially when the impossibility becomes obvious.
Ernest Sosa
Image
The correctness of much testimonially based belief is no more than minimally creditable to the believer.
Ernest Sosa
Image
Flourishing is properly the main human end, and flourishing is activity of soul that succeeds in accord with virtue.
Ernest Sosa
Image
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.
Ernest Sosa
Image
We must distinguish judging from guessing.
Ernest Sosa
Image
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.
Ernest Sosa
Image
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.
Ernest Sosa
Image
I am mainly concerned with unqualified knowledge, by contrast with the varieties of expert knowledge: scientific knowledge of various sorts, legal knowledge, medically expert knowledge, and so on.
Ernest Sosa
Image
There's not much to be done about the impossibility. One must instead get rid of the desire.
Ernest Sosa
Image
Success is better than failure an attempt is a better attempt, it is better as an attempt, if competent than if incompetent and it is better to succeed through competence - aptly - than through sheer luck.
Ernest Sosa