Judgment and Agency

Miriam Schleifer Mccormick, Mind Given Sosa's broad aim, his book covers a lot of ground. The discussions of particular issues will appeal to those interested in those particular topics, and the chapters, on the whole, are self-contained, some being reprints of earlier articles. But, throughout, one finds interconnected and re-emerging themes that are of central importance to all those interested in the nature of belief and knowledge, the nature and extent of epistemic agency, and philosophical methodology. Having Sosa's carefully and forcefully argued views on these topics is most welcome.

Jason Baehr, Philosophical Studies Judgment and Agency reads like a product of sustained, penetrating philosophical reflection by one of the great minds in the field, which, to my mind, is precisely what it is.

Hilary Kornblith, Philosophical Studies Ernest Sosa's new book, Judgment and Agency, is a terrific piece of philosophizing. It develops Sosa's virtue epistemology well beyond his earlier work, and it sets it in a broader framework.

Matthew McGrath, The Philosophical Review This is a book one will want to return to many times. It is not breezy, easily digested philosophy. But it more than repays careful study. It is a major achievement for epistemology, a comprehensive and profound account of knowledge, informed by the history of the subject as well as by recent trends.

Ram Neta, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Online This book is both monumentally important and largely successful.

Duncan Pritchard, The Journal of Philosophy ...[A]n incredibly important work of contemporary epistemology.... not merely an incremental extension of Sosa's previous work.... a high-water mark as regards scholarship in this area. Anyone serious about epistemology ought to read this book.

Ernest Sosa is Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.

Introduction ; PART I: VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY EXTENDED AND UNIFIED ; 1. The Unity of Action, Perception, and Knowledge ; 2. Virtue Epistemology: Character versus Competence ; PART II: A BETTER VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY ; 3. Judgment and Agency ; 4. A Better Virtue Epistemology Further Developed ; 5. Objections and Replies, with a Methodological Afterthought ; PART III: KNOWLEDGE AND AGENCY ; 6. Knowledge and Action ; 7. Intentional Action and Judgment ; 8. Social Roots of Human Knowledge ; 9. Epistemic Agency ; PART IV: HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS ; 10. Pyrrhonian Skepticism and Human Agency ; 11. Descartes' Pyrrhonian Virtue Epistemology