A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume I

Citation

Sosa, E. (2009). A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume I. Oxford University Press.

Chapter Summary

This is a short monograph, marked "Volume I" on its title page. It has six chapters and an appendix, with the text running to about 140 pages. The publisher's description presents it as a new approach to the problems of knowledge and scepticism: knowledge comes in two levels, animal and reflective, each treated as a distinctive human accomplishment, within a virtue epistemology that the description places in the tradition of Aristotle, Aquinas, Reid and especially Descartes. The framework is then applied to varieties of scepticism, to the nature and status of intuitions, and to epistemic normativity.

Chapter 1: Dreams and Philosophy

The opening chapter (pp. 1–21) connects dreams with philosophy; given the publisher's emphasis on scepticism, it is the book's entry point to the sceptical problem.

Chapter 2: A Virtue Epistemology

The title chapter (pp. 22–43) is where the position named by the book is stated, before it is applied in the chapters that follow.

Chapter 3: Intuitions

A chapter on intuitions (pp. 44–69), the topic the publisher lists as one of the three that the framework is used to illuminate.

Chapter 4: Epistemic Normativity

A chapter on epistemic normativity (pp. 70–91), the second of the applications named in the publisher's description.

Chapter 5: Virtue, Luck, and Credit

A chapter (pp. 92–112) whose title brings together virtue, luck and credit, tying the virtue-theoretic account of knowledge to the question of how success in believing is credited to the believer.

Chapter 6: The Problem of the Criterion

The last chapter (pp. 113–133) addresses the problem of the criterion, a long-standing problem about how knowledge can get started without already presupposing knowledge.

Appendix

A short appendix of about nine pages (pp. 134–142) follows the sixth chapter.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–2

• Animal and reflective knowledge: the two levels of knowledge distinguished in the publisher's description, each a distinctive human accomplishment.
• Virtue epistemology: the approach named in the title, which explains knowledge by appeal to the agent's capacities.
• Scepticism: the family of problems, approached through dreams, that the framework is meant to address.

Chapters 3–6

• Intuitions: the status of intuitions is one of the questions the framework is used to illuminate.
• Epistemic normativity: the evaluative side of belief and knowledge.
• Virtue, luck and credit: the three notions that Chapter 5's title ties together.
• The problem of the criterion: the problem addressed in the closing chapter.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• One framework applied to several problems. The publisher stresses that the same two-level account is used for scepticism, intuitions and normativity, and the chapter sequence follows that order: the sceptical problem first, the account itself second, then its applications.
• Compact. With six chapters in under 150 pages, the book states a systematic position in a space short enough to read in a few sittings, which makes it practical to compare directly with longer treatments.
• Placed in a long tradition. The description ties the view to Aristotle, Aquinas, Reid and Descartes, so a reader can approach it as a development of historical ideas, not only as a response to recent debates.

Limitations

• Marked as the first volume. The title says "Volume I", so the account is presented as part of a larger project, and readers who want the full development of every theme should expect it to continue beyond this book.
• Little room for exposition. At roughly twenty pages per chapter, each topic is treated briefly. The chapters on intuitions, normativity and the criterion each take on a large literature in a short space.
• Not an introduction. The book addresses problems that an introductory course would only raise, in the specialist vocabulary of apt belief and reflective knowledge; it is aimed at readers who already know contemporary epistemology.

Where It Fits in the Course

Sosa belongs at the graduate end of the epistemology list. The earlier stage is covered by the textbook-style books: Noah Lemos's concise introduction sets out the main theories of knowledge and justification one at a time with their strongest objections; Robert Audi's systematic introduction moves from the sources of knowledge and justification to their structure, analysis and scope and treats scepticism last; Jennifer Nagel's short introduction asks what separates knowing from true belief and how sceptical arguments work; and Duncan Pritchard's textbook offers a self-contained first course with study questions.

Read after one of these, Sosa gives a worked-out positive theory in which skill and success are central. The list's other graduate-level book, Timothy Williamson's Knowledge and Its Limits, argues that knowledge cannot be analysed and should be taken as basic; the two are natural to read in sequence for a contrast between a virtue-theoretic account and a knowledge-first account.

How to Use This Book

The book is for graduate students and advanced undergraduates who have completed an intermediate epistemology course, including the analysis of knowledge, the Gettier problem and scepticism. It is better used after the standard debates are familiar than as a first encounter with them.

A practical plan: read Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 together first, since the dream-scepticism setting and the statement of the view belong together. Then read Chapters 3 and 4 in either order, depending on whether intuitions or normativity matters more to the course. Chapter 5 on virtue, luck and credit can be read beside the textbook treatments of how knowledge relates to luck. Finish with Chapter 6 on the criterion, and consult the appendix last. Keep notes on how the two levels of knowledge are applied in each chapter, and compare the resulting position with a knowledge-first alternative.