Abstract

This paper critically assesses Sosa’s normative framework for performances as well as its application to epistemology. We first develop a problem for one of Sosa’s central theses in the general theory of performance normativity according to which performances attain fully desirable status if and only if they are fully apt. More specifically, we argue that given Sosa’s account of full aptness according to which a performance is fully apt only if safe from failure, this thesis can’t be true. We then embark on a rescue mission on behalf of Sosa and work towards a weakened account of full aptness. The key idea is to countenance a distinction between negligible and non-negligible types of risk and to develop an account of full aptness according to which even performances that are endangered by risk can be fully apt, so long as the risk is of a negligible type. While this alternative account of full aptness solves the problem we developed for Sosa earlier on, there is also bad news for Sosa. When applied to epistemology, the envisaged treatment of barn façade cases as cases in which the agent falls short of fully apt belief will no longer work. We show that, as a result, Sosa faces a new version of a familiar dilemma for virtue epistemology. Either he construes full aptness as strong enough to get barn façade cases right in which case his view will run right into the problem we develop. Or else he construes full aptness as weak enough to avoid this problem but then he will not be able to deal with barn façade cases in the way envisaged.

Highlights

  • In his recent book Judgement and Agency Ernest Sosa develops a general account of the normativity of performances with an aim according to which the fully desirable status of any such performance is what he calls full aptness

  • As a result, Sosa faces a new version of a familiar dilemma for virtue epistemology

  • It’s compatible with all this (i) that there may be other values attached to monitoring, (ii) that these other values serve to flesh out the difference between these two types of risk and (iii) that the alternative accounts are better than the one we developed above

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Summary

Introduction

In his recent book Judgement and Agency Ernest Sosa develops a general account of the normativity of performances with an aim according to which the fully desirable status of any such performance is what he calls full aptness. He goes on to apply this account to the domain of epistemology and identifies human knowledge with a particular normative standing of belief, to wit, fully apt belief. This paper takes a closer look at Sosa’s account of performance normativity and its application to epistemology.

Performance normativity
Belief as an epistemic performance
Barn façade cases
Sosa in trouble
Rescue mission
Barn façades again
A familiar dilemma
Conclusion
Full Text
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