Epistemic Explanations: A Theory of Telic Normativity, and What It Explains, by Ernest Sosa

Abstract

No one has done more for analytic virtue epistemology than Ernie Sosa; indeed, one is tempted to delete ‘virtue’. This is his latest development of his teleological version of the virtue-theoretic perspective. It is characteristically excellent and will no doubt be a classic contribution to epistemology. I highly recommend it. The central commitment of teleological virtue epistemology is that core epistemic phenomena are explained by appealing to virtues that aim at the epistemic good. Sosa’s contention is that epistemic normativity is just telic (I’ll use ‘teleological’ and ‘telic’ interchangeably) normativity directed at the epistemic good. He has been developing this basic idea over the course of many decades; this book is the latest development. While it focuses on four rather distinct subject matters, the parts that are most central to the development of telic virtue epistemology (at least for this reviewer) are Parts II and III. The former is about how to fit suspension of judgment into a telic virtue epistemology. As we’ll see, suspension of judgment causes serious trouble for the telic part of telic virtue epistemology. In Part II Sosa aims to fix this trouble. Part III is about a host of foundational epistemic issues. Sosa’s aim is to further refine his theory in light of these issues.