scholarly journals Acting in Order to Know, Knowing in Order to Act: Sosa on Epistemic and Practical Deliberation

Disputatio ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (43) ◽  
pp. 233-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesús Navarro
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Practical Deliberation ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Actionable Knowledge ◽  
Level Of Knowledge ◽  
Full Stop ◽  
Relevant Class

Abstract The questions ‘Do I know p?’ and ‘shall I take p as a reason to act?’ seem to belong to different domains — or so claims Ernest Sosa in his Judgment and Agency (2015), the latest version of his virtue epistemology. According to Sosa, we may formulate the first question in a purely epistemological way — a matter of knowledge “full stop” —, while the second one is necessarily intruded by pragmatic factors — a matter of “actionable knowledge”. Both should be answered, in his view, considering the reliability of my belief, but the former could be faced in total abstraction from my personal practical concerns. In this paper I dispute Sosa’s view, and claim that no purely epistemic level of knowledge “full stop” is conceivable, at least within a reliabilist framework. A case is put forward in order to show that some given belief may not be considered as reliable by itself, as a token, but always as a member of a type, belonging to some class of reference of other beliefs. And the relevant class of reference may only be chosen considering personal practical interests.

scholarly journals ARE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES TRUTH-RELEVANT?

Episteme ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-392
Author(s):  
Blake Roeber
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Intellectual Virtue ◽  
Narrow Sense ◽  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
Intellectual Virtues ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Value Of Knowledge ◽  
Wide Range

ABSTRACTAccording to attributor virtue epistemology (the view defended by Ernest Sosa, John Greco, and others), S knows that p only if her true belief that p is attributable to some intellectual virtue, competence, or ability that she possesses. Attributor virtue epistemology captures a wide range of our intuitions about the nature and value of knowledge, and it has many able defenders. Unfortunately, it has an unrecognized consequence that many epistemologists will think is sufficient for rejecting it: namely, it makes knowledge depend on factors that aren't truth-relevant, even in the broadest sense of this term, and it also makes knowledge depend in counterintuitive ways on factors that are truth-relevant in the more common narrow sense of this term. As I show in this paper, the primary objection to interest-relative views in the pragmatic encroachment debate can be raised even more effectively against attributor virtue epistemology.

Shifting Perspectives

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Hill ◽  
Pratim Datta ◽  
William Acar
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Data Streams ◽  
Knowledge Flows ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Management Process ◽  
Actionable Knowledge ◽  
Sources Of Uncertainty ◽  
Level Of Knowledge ◽  
Big Data Streams

This paper proposes that, in the context of generating actionable knowledge, uncertainties pertaining to big data streams should be recognized, categorized and accounted for at the appropriate level of knowledge management process models. Arguing that sensemaking from big data sources is a complex series of processes extending beyond just the application of sophisticated analytics, this paper proposes a big data reengineering (BDR) framework to guide requisite categorization, contextualization and remediation processes. The authors discuss the characteristics that uncertainty presents to organizations using big data streams as potential knowledge sources – surfacing relationships between the underlying knowledge flows and uncertainty and presenting typologies that categorize the effects of several common sources of uncertainty. These typologies also serve to provide guidance to transformation agent(s) regarding appropriate actions ultimately aimed at the generation of actionable knowledge.

Why Should a Knower Care?

Hypatia ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vrinda Dalmiya
Keyword(s):  
General Framework ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Alvin Goldman ◽  
Dyadic Relation

This paper argues that the concept of care is significant not only for ethics, but for epistemology as well. After elucidating caring as a five-step dyadic relation, I go on to show its epistemic significance within the general framework of virtue epistemology as developed by Ernest Sosa, Alvin Goldman, and Linda Zagzebski. The notions of “care-knowing” and “care-based epistemology” emerge from construing caring (respectively) as a reliabilist and responsibilist virtue.

scholarly journals Against a Nomic Virtue Epistemology

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 283
Author(s):  
Modesto Gómez-Alonso
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Metaphysical Explanation ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
La Red ◽  
Rule Out

AbstractIn Judgment and Agency, Ernest Sosa argues for a particular methodology –what he calls ‘metaphysical analysis’– whose aim is to provide a speci c sort of explanation of knowledge –a metaphysical explanation–. As I read it, this revolutionary step points to the bulk of the ontological dispositional web that necessarily sustains a virtue epistemology, contributes to a proper understanding of accidentality in epistemology, and breaks the hold of Humean contingency. I will argue that Sosa’s account of the constitution of knowledge is not only able to rule out apparent counterexamples to a robust virtue epistemology, as well as to combine rational integration and knowledge explanation, but that also breaks the Pyrrhonian (and internalist) impasse. I will also argue that a principled distinction between cases of knowledge and cases of mimicking is unavailable to anti-luck virtue epistemologists, so that they face a dilemma between their theory collapsing into a robust virtue epistemology or its collapsing into a form of nomic virtue epistemology. What binds anti-luck virtue epistemologies and nomic theories together is a common problem in binding, one that is absent from a theory, such as Sosa’s theory, that locates knowledge in the domain of higher-order competences and rational guidance. Keywords: Anti-luck virtue epistemology; dispositional directedness; Humean contingency; mimics; nomic necessities. Resumen:En Judgment and Agency, Ernest Sosa defiende una metodología específica –a la que denomina ‘análisis metafísico’– cuya función es la de proporcionar una explicación particular del conocimiento –una explicación metafísica–. Se trata de un procedi- miento signi cativo, que apunta a la red disposicional que necesariamente sostiene a la epistemología de virtudes, contribuye a la comprensión adecuada de la acciden- talidad en epistemología, y rompe el dominio de la contingencia humeana. En este artículo argumento que la explicación que Sosa proporciona de la constitución del conocimiento, además de evitar aparentes contraejemplos para una epistemología de virtudes robusta y de combinar la explicación del conocimiento y la integración racional, es una herramienta fundamental para contrarrestar las intuiciones pirrónicas (e internistas). También argumento que la ‘epistemología de virtudes anti-suerte’ es incapaz de establecer una diferencia razonada entre casos de conocimiento y casos de acierto accidental debidos a la intervención de bloqueadores epistémicos (mimics), de forma que dicha teoría solo puede optar entre una epistemología de virtudes robusta y una epistemología de virtudes nómica. Es el problema de la combinación adecuada de los factores que contribuyen al conocimiento aquello que vincula epistemología de virtudes nómica y epistemología de virtudes anti-suerte. Dicho problema no existe en teorías como la de Sosa, teorías para las que el conocimiento es explicable en función de competencias de segundo orden y guía racional apropiada.Palabras Clave: Bloqueadores epistémicos; contingencia humeana; direccionalidad disposicional; epistemología de virtudes anti-suerte; necesidades nómicas.      

Virtues and Vices of Virtue Epistemology

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Greco
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Generality Problem ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Recent Interest ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Cognitive Virtue ◽  
Central Claim

In recent years, virtue epistemology has won the attention of a wide range of philosophers. A developed form of the position has been expounded forcefully by Ernest Sosa and represents the most plausible version of reliabilism to date. Through the person of Alvin Plantinga, virtue epistemology has taken philosophy of religion by storm, evoking objections and defenses in a wide variety of journals and volumes. Historically, virtue epistemology has its roots in the work of Thomas Reid, and the explosion of Reid scholarship in the last few years is perhaps both a cause and an effect of recent interest in the position.In this paper I want to examine the virtues and vices of virtue epistemology. My conclusion will be that the position is correct, when qualified appropriately. The central claim of virtue epistemology is that, Gettier problems aside, knowledge is true belief which results from a cognitive virtue. In section one I will clarify this claim with some brief remarks about the nature of virtues in general, and cognitive virtues in particular. In section two I will consider two objections to the theory of knowledge which results. In section three of the paper I will argue that virtue epistemology can be qualified so as to avoid the objections raised in section two. Finally, I will argue that the amendments which solve the objections of section two also allow us to solve a version of the dreaded generality problem.

Shifting Perspectives

Web Services ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 554-574
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Hill ◽  
Pratim Datta ◽  
William Acar
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Data Streams ◽  
Knowledge Flows ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Management Process ◽  
Actionable Knowledge ◽  
Sources Of Uncertainty ◽  
Level Of Knowledge ◽  
Big Data Streams

This paper proposes that, in the context of generating actionable knowledge, uncertainties pertaining to big data streams should be recognized, categorized and accounted for at the appropriate level of knowledge management process models. Arguing that sensemaking from big data sources is a complex series of processes extending beyond just the application of sophisticated analytics, this paper proposes a big data reengineering (BDR) framework to guide requisite categorization, contextualization and remediation processes. The authors discuss the characteristics that uncertainty presents to organizations using big data streams as potential knowledge sources – surfacing relationships between the underlying knowledge flows and uncertainty and presenting typologies that categorize the effects of several common sources of uncertainty. These typologies also serve to provide guidance to transformation agent(s) regarding appropriate actions ultimately aimed at the generation of actionable knowledge.

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