Epistemic Explanations

Born in Cuba, Ernest Sosa immigrated to the USA as a teenager. After his BA from the University of Miami, and his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh, he has taught at Brown University and then at Rutgers, each for decades. During that time he has had numerous dissertation students who have attained distinction. He was a President of the American Philosophical Association (Eastern) and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1980 he inaugurated the virtue theoretic approach in epistemology, which he has developed through a half dozen books, many published articles, and replies in many author/critic sessions and books. He has given several distinguished lectures, including the Locke and the Carus Lectures, and has received several prizes. The APA has established a prize lectureship and a fellowship in his honor for excellence in epistemology.

Expectations created by Sosa's previous work will be extremely high, but the book does not disappoint—Sosa's discussion is masterful. The book is full of ingenious arguments and acute insights that will occupy epistemologists for years to come.... Sosa has once again succeeded in changing the terms of contemporary epistemology, while at the same time raising the bar on quality and depth of insight.

• Part I: Insight and Understanding, and Two Sides of Epistemology 1: Insight and Understanding 2: Gnoseology and Intellectual Ethics Part II: The Nature and Varieties of Suspension 3: The Place of Suspension and Problems for Evidentialism 4: Suspension, Confidence, and Inquiry 5: When and How is Suspension Apt? 6: More on Suspension: Its Varieties and How It Relates to Being in a Position to Know Part III: The Telic Nature of Knowledge, and Some Main Varieties 7: Knowledge, Default, and Skepticism 8: Grades of Knowledge 9: Reflection and Security 10: Competence and Justification Part IV: A Historical Antecedent 11: The Relevance of Moore and Wittgenstein