The epistemology of Ernest Sosa: an introduction
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The epistemology of Ernest Sosa: an introduction Christoph Kelp1 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
There can be no question that Ernest Sosa is one of the most influential voices in contemporary epistemology. He has made pathbreaking contributions to a wide range of topics in the field and beyond, including on its most central issues such as the nature of knowledge, the structure of knowledge, the value of knowledge and the extent of knowledge. It is fair to say that his most widely discussed contributions, at least in recent times, are on virtue epistemology and safety conditions on knowledge. Whilst both topics are intimately related in Sosa’s own work, they have generated discussions that have lives of their own. Since the bulk of the contributions to this special issue also focus on these two topics, I will take a few moments to sketch a few key ideas in what follows.
1 Safety The core claim of a safety condition on knowledge is that knowledge requires belief that is safe from error. Very roughly, what this means is that one’s belief must not only be true, but it must also be the case that one might not easily have believed falsely. Or, given a standard possible worlds semantics for ‘might’, to say that one believes is safely is to say that one not only believes the truth at the actual world, but one also avoids error at nearby possible worlds. In this way, safety is a modal condition on knowledge. Accounts of knowledge that countenance a safety condition on knowledge are among the most popular in contemporary epistemology. This is no accident. After all, safety-based accounts of knowledge promise to offer solutions to some of epistemology’s most difficult problems, including the Gettier problem and the problem of scepticism. Very roughly, the Gettier problem is the problem of identifying the missing link between justified true belief and knowledge. That there is a missing link was first argued by Edmund Gettier in his influential 1963 paper. Gettier offers a couple
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Christoph Kelp [email protected] COGITO Epistemology Research Centre, University of Glasgow, 67-69 Oakfield Ave, Glasgow G12 8LP, UK
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of cases that showed that one can have a justified true belief that isn’t knowledge. To get a better grip on this, let’s take a look at two famous examples: Stopped clock You take a competent reading from a clock that you know to be reliable and have no reason to think is currently not working. Based on this reading you form a belief that it is noon. What’s more, your belief is true: it is indeed noon. Crucially, however, the clock is broken and the reason your belief is true is that it happened to stop working exactly twelve hours ago. Fake barns You are driving through the countryside and see what appears to be a barn in the field. Based on this, you form a belief that there is a barn before you. What’s more, your belief is true: there is a barn before you. Crucially, however, the barn is the only real barn in an area otherwise peppered with fakes that are so cleverly constructed as to b
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