Reflective Knowledge draws together ground-breaking work in epistemology by Ernest Sosa. He argues for a reflective virtue epistemology based on virtuous circularity, shows how this idea may be found explicitly or just below the surface in such illustrious predecessors as Descartes and Moore, and defends the view against its rivals.

This chapter describes Spinoza's obscure “ideas of ideas” doctrine and his claim that “as soon as one knows something, one knows that one knows it, and simultaneously knows that one knows that one knows, and so on, to infinity”. Spinoza holds that the human mind is a representation of the body: the “objectum of the idea constituting the human mind” is the human body. Suppose ideas are essentially self‐reflexive, and that this reflexive awareness, the “idea of the idea,” makes the (...) objectively‐real representational content present to mind. The chapter also suggests that Spinoza holds that adequate ideas come, by nature, with reflective knowledge. Reasoning through the Ethics is one way to come to the adequate ideas that silence doubts about the veridicality of one's adequate ideas of bodies. The “human mind has an adequate cognition of God's eternal and infinite essence”. (shrink)

It might be thought that reflective knowledge is of interest only to puzzle-solving intellectuals in their armchairs, that the knowledge of general interest is the “animal” sort, so that reflective knowledge deserves by comparison little more than a footnote. But this overlooks the fact that the difference between animal and reflective knowledge is not a sharp difference in kind. Rather is it a difference of degree. Apart from the intrinsic interest of reflective (...) knowledge, there is a substantial historical reason for distinguishing it: namely, that only thus can we fully understand the power and traditional importance of philosophical skepticism. For the Pyrrhonists it is not enough that one’s sources be in fact reliable, even if one has no notion that this is so. Thus, they would not dignify with the title of knowledge any information acquired through sources that happen to be reliable beyond one’s ken. I do not join in thinking only such reflective “knowledge” worthy of the title. But I do find it, other things equal, an accomplishment on a higher plane than mere unreflective, “animal” knowledge. Enlightened belief requires a perspective on the reliability of one’s cognitive faculties. “Real” knowledge, found at this higher level, requires that one’s belief be reliably produced, but also that one see one’s belief as reliably produced. (shrink)

The second part of the book presents an alternative beyond the historical positions of Part I, one that defends a virtue epistemology combined with epistemic ...

In response to the well‐known circularity problems posed by Descartes and Moore, recommends externalist virtue epistemology, according to which a true belief amounts to knowledge if its truth is not an accident, i.e. if it was produced by apt faculties. Starting with the recognition of instances of perceptual knowledge produced by apt faculties, we can infer that our perceptual faculties must be reliable. Such reasoning invites the objection that in parallel fashion, the owner of a crystal ball can (...) rely on his crystal ball itself to argue for its reliability. Replies that although things might be parallel as far as justification and internal coherence are concerned, a crucial difference arises when we consider the reliability of the sources in question: whereas our perceptual faculties are reliable and thus produce knowledge, the crystal ball is unreliable and thus fails to give its user knowledge. Acknowledges, however, that the exercise of apt faculties produces merely _animal_ knowledge, and thus advocates what he calls “virtue perspectivism”: the view that _reflective_ knowledge – a higher achievement than the acquisition of mere animal knowledge – arises only when we succeed in understanding _how_ we know. (shrink)

This article is a reply to Baron Reed and Heather Battaly, two critics in a book symposium on my Reflective Knowledge. The reply to Reed concerns the main content and structure of Descartes's epistemology. The reply to Battaly concerns how best to deal with epistemic circularity.

In this paper, we defend the claim that reflective knowledge is necessary for extended knowledge. We begin by examining a recent account of extended knowledge provided by Palermos and Pritchard (2013). We note a weakness with that account and a challenge facing theorists of extended knowledge. The challenge that we identify is to articulate the extended cognition condition necessary for extended knowledge in such a way as to avoid counterexample from the revamped Careless Math (...) Student and Truetemp cases. We consider but reject Pritchard’s (2012b) epistemological disjunctivism as providing a model for doing so. Instead, we set out an account of reflection informed by Confucianism and dual-process theory. We make the case that reflective knowledge offers a way of overcoming the challenge identified. We show why such knowledge is necessary for extended knowledge, while building on Sosa’s (2012) account of meta-competence. (shrink)

In On Reflection, Hilary Kornblith criticizes Sosa’s distinction between animal and reflective knowledge. His two chief criticisms are that reflective knowledge is not superior to animal knowledge and that Sosa’s distinction does not identify two kinds of knowledge. I argue that Sosa can successfully avoid both of these charges.

I consider the problem of reflective knowledge faced by views that treat sensitivity as a sufficient condition for knowledge, or as a major ingredient of the concept, as in the analysis I advance in Scepticism and Reliable Belief. I present the problem as concerning the correct analysis of SATs — beliefs to the effect that one of my current beliefs is true. I suggest that a plausible analysis of SATs should treat them as neither true nor false (...) when they ascribe truth to a non-existent belief. I argue that the problem is inescapable if we construe SATs as ascribing the property of truth to a belief. Deflationism manages to avoid the problem of reflective knowledge, but it does so by violating alethic priority — the principle that our account of representation must be built on our account of truth. I argue that we can avoid the problem of reflective knowledge while preserving alethic priority with a pragmatist account of truth — according to which truth is explicated in terms of the rules that govern the practice of assessing judgments and related items as true or false. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 17 Michael Huemer, Ernest Sosa, and Jonathan Vogel have offered a critique of the sensitivity condition on knowledge. According to them, the condition implies that you cannot know of any particular proposition that you do not falsely believe it. Their arguments rest on the claim that you cannot sensitively believe of any particular proposition that you do not falsely believe it. However, as we shall see, these philosophers are mistaken. You can do so. That said, (...) these philosophers were close to the mark. There are some related propositions that you cannot believe sensitively. These propositions are interesting in another respect: they can be used to construct a new skeptical argument that is superior in some respects to a more traditional skeptical argument. This new skeptical argument also reveals insights about the relationship between internalism, externalism, and skepticism. (shrink)

According to Moore, his argument meets three conditions for being a proof: first, the premiss is different from the conclusion; second, he knows the premiss to be the case; and, third, the conclusion follows deductively.2 Further conditions may be required, but he evidently thinks his proof would satisfy these as well. As Moore is well aware, many philosophers will feel he has not given “...any satisfactory proof of the point in question."3 Some, he believes, will want the premiss itself proved. (...) But he has.. (shrink)

A review of Ernest Sosa’s book Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge. While I think Sosa is quite right that knowledge lies on a spectrum, and that its higher but not its lower reaches require of knowers, when challenged, a strong degree of explanatory coherence (ability to understand and discursively defend the basis of their beliefs), I also point out problems with certain aspects of his account.

In this discussion of Sosa's second volume on reflective knowledge, I focus on the question of whether Sosa's account of knowledge is flawed for failing to capture a connection between possessing knowledge and gaining assurance of truth. In particular, I worry that if there is no more to reflective knowledge than apt belief about apt belief, where the understanding of aptness is the same at both the first and the second level, Sosa hasn't given (...) us a way of gaining philosophically satisfying knowledge. (shrink)

I argue that current discussions of the epistemological significance of reflection have entangled concerns about reflection with agential concerns. I begin by showing that a central strand of internalist criticism finds externalism unsatisfactory because it fails to provide a particular kind of self-knowledge, knowledge about the epistemic status of one’s own beliefs. Identifying this internalist motivation as the desire for a kind of self-knowledge opens up new possibilities and suggests new conceptual resources. I employ one of these (...) resources—Richard Moran’s distinction between the theoretical stance and the deliberative stance—to locate two types of reflection: mere reflective awareness of one’s attitudes and agent-awareness of one’s attitudes. I then examine Ernest Sosa’s account of the importance of reflection, showing how Moran’s distinction brings out the centrality of agential concerns in Sosa’s argument for reflective knowledge. I also consider briefly its relevance to fully apt knowledge. While I focus on Sosa’s epistemology, the point extends to internalism more generally. (shrink)

Abstract This paper examines the kind of epistemic circularity which, according to Ernest Sosa, is unavoidably entailed whenever one has what he calls ?reflective? knowledge (that is, knowledge that p such that the knower reflectively endorses the reliability of the epistemic sources by which she came to her belief that p). I begin by describing the relevant kind of circularity and its role in Sosa's epistemology, en route presenting and resisting Sosa's arguments that this kind of circularity (...) is not vicious. Then I consider the somewhat complex relationship between Sosa's views on epistemic circularity and his response to the Problem of Easy Knowledge, arguing that (on one interpretation of Sosa, at least) a complete solution to that problem cannot be extracted from Sosa's work unless the aforementioned epistemic circularity can be proved non-vicious. (shrink)

Ernest Sosa has suggested that we distinguish between animal knowledge, on the one hand, and reflective knowledge, on the other. Animal knowledge is direct, immediate, and foundationally structured, while reflective knowledge involves a knower's higher‐order awareness of her own mental states, and is structured by relations of coherence. -/- Although Sosa's distinction is extremely appealing, it also faces serious problems. In particular, the sorts of processes that would be required for reflective knowledge, (...) as Sosa understands it, are not processes that are instantiated in human cognition. -/- I argue that the problems facing Sosa's notion of reflective knowledge stem from treating human cognitive processes individualistically. They stem from what I will term Sosa's perspective of methodologically individualistic noetic explanation—or MINE. -/- I suggest that these problems disappear if we expand the scope of what counts as cognitive processes to include socially distributed cognitive processes, if we adopt a framework of other‐derived united reflective self‐evaluation—or OURS. -/- In other words, I'll suggest that a solution to the problems facing the distinction between animal and reflective knowledge may be found in a shift of perspective from MINE to OURS. (shrink)

Part of a book symposium on Ernest Sosa's Knowing Full Well. An important feature of Sosa's epistemology is his distinction between animal knowledge and reflective knowledge. What exactly is reflective knowledge, and how is it superior to animal knowledge? Here I try to get clearer on what Sosa might mean by reflective knowledge and what epistemic role it is supposed to play.

The problem of epistemic circularity maintains that we cannot know that our central belief-forming practices (faculties) are reliable without vicious circularity. Ernest Sosa's Reflective Knowledge (2009) offers a solution to this problem. Sosa argues that epistemic circularity is virtuous rather than vicious: it is not damaging. Contra Sosa, I contend that epistemic circularity is damaging. Section 1 provides an overview of Sosa's solution. Section 2 focuses on Sosa's reply to the Crystal ballgazer Objection. Section 2 also contends that (...) epistemic circularity does not prevent us from tóng justified in (e. g.) perceptual beliefs, or from being justified in believing that (e. g.) sense perception is reliable. But, Sect. 3 argues that it does prevent us from being able to satisfactorily show that our central belief-forming practices (faculties) are reliable. That is, epistemic circularity prevents us from distinguishing between reliable and unreliable practices, from guiding ourselves to use reliable practices and avoid unreliable ones, and from defending reliable practices against skepticism. Hence, epistemic circularity is still damaging. The concluding section suggests that this has repercussions for Sosa's analysis of the value of reflective knowledge. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Reflective versus Animal Knowledge Virtue Perspectivism.

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In his volume reflective knowledge, Ernest Sosa offers an account of knowledge, an argument against internalist foundationalism, and a solution to the problem of easy knowledge. This paper offers challenges to Sosa on each of those three things.

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Ernest Sosa's A Virtue Epistemology, Vol. I is arguably the single-most important monograph to be published in analytic epistemology in the last ten years. Sosa, the first in the field to employ the notion of intellectual virtue – in his ground-breaking ‘The Raft and the Pyramid’– is the leading proponent of reliabilist versions of virtue epistemology. In A Virtue Epistemology, he deftly defends an externalist account of animal knowledge as apt belief, argues for a distinction between animal and (...) class='Hi'>reflective knowledge, contends that rational intuition is an intellectual virtue ; and offers responses to dream scepticism, the problem of the criterion and the value problem. Nearly all of these arguments are new, albeit consistent with Sosa's earlier work; that is, consistent with two notable exceptions. First, c ontra Sosa's ‘Replies’ in Ernest Sosa and His Critics, A Virtue Epistemology explicitly contends that safety is not required for animal knowledge. Second, unlike Sosa's Knowledge in Perspective, which arguably construes the intellectual virtues as merely instrumentally valuable, A Virtue Epistemology explicitly contends that the intellectual virtues are instrumentally and constitutively valuable. Best read in conjunction with the above monographs and Epistemic Justification, A Virtue Epistemology is mandatory reading for epistemologists and graduate students in the field. It will rightly set the standard for debates in analytic epistemology for years to come.I will summarize and raise objections to two key conclusions that are unique to A Virtue Epistemology: the ‘kaleidoscope-perceiver’ has animal knowledge but lacks reflective knowledge; unlike the k-perceiver, the ordinary perceiver has reflective knowledge. My objections …. (shrink)

This book presents the six Locke Lectures given in Oxford in May and June of 2005. They appear now very nearly as delivered; they argue for two levels of knowledge — the animal and the reflective — each viewed as a distinctive human accomplishment. Sceptics would deny us any such accomplishment, and the account of knowledge here is framed by confrontations with the two sceptics. A lecture on dream scepticism begins the volume, and one on the problem (...) of the criterion ends it. The core positive account of knowledge is presented in the second lecture and developed further in the fifth. These two lectures detail how the account solves the problem of external world scepticism, and the sixth how it solves the problem of the criterion. In the middle lectures, the account is used to illuminate two central issues of epistemology: intuitions and their place in philosophy, in the third; and the nature of epistemic normativity, in the fourth. The lectures aim to present a kind of virtue epistemology in line with a tradition found in Aristotle, Aquinas, Reid, and especially Descartes (though none of these advocates it in all its parts), and to shine its light on varieties of skepticism, on the nature and status of intuitions, and on epistemic normativity. (shrink)

Abstract: Ernest Sosa has done important work on epistemic circularity, epistemic virtue, and reflective knowledge. He holds that epistemic circularity need not be vicious and need not prevent us from knowing that our ways of forming beliefs are reliable. In this article, I briefly explore Sosa's defense of this view and raise some questions about what is required for reflective knowledge.

A conception of the relation between reasons for belief, justified belief, and knowledge is outlined on which a belief is justified, in the sense of being well‐founded, only if there is an adequate reason to believe it, reasons to believe something are constituted by truths, and a reason to believe something justifies one in believing it only if it is constituted by a truth or truths that one knows. It is argued that, contrary to initial appearances, perceptual justification does (...) not pose a problem for this view. The discussion touches upon the relation between believing for reasons and reflective knowledge. (shrink)

In “Reliabilism Leveled” Jonathan Vogel (2000) provides a strong case against epistemic theories that stress the importance of tracking/sensitivity conditions. A tracking/sensitivity condition is to be understood as some version of the following counterfactual: (T) ~p oÆ ~Bp (T) says that s would not believe p, if p were false. Among other things, tracking is supposed to express the external relation that explains why some justified true beliefs are not knowledge. Champions of the condition include Robert Nozick (1981) and, (...) more recently, Keith DeRose (1995). To my knowledge, the earliest formulation of the counterfactual condition is found in Fred Dretske’s conclusive reasons condition (1971), which says, s would not have had the reason that she does for believing p, if p were false. Vogel contends that any such counterfactual condition on knowledge will render the theory of knowledge too strong. He believes that there is at least some possible reflective knowledge that cannot satisfy the counterfactual--viz., the possible knowledge that one does not believe falsely that p. The alleged impossibility of such reflective knowledge is taken by Vogel to be a decisive objection to the tracking theories advocated by Dretske, Nozick, DeRose1 and others. The criticism finds its roots in Vogel’s earlier work (1987), and recurs in papers by Ernest Sosa (2002, 1996). Sosa suggests that the externalist idea behind tracking is on target, but that Nozick’s counterfactual is a misbegotten regimentation of the idea. In its place Sosa offers his own counterfactual “safety” condition, which he feels properly captures the externalist idea. Sosa’s counterfactual is not the topic of this paper. I mention it only to point out that the criticism that constitutes the subject of my investigation is meant to do a lot of work. In Sosa’s 1 case the criticism is meant to motivate his own counterfactual analysis, and in Vogel’s case the criticism promises to be a silver bullet against a theory that has recently found renewed life in the work of Keith DeRose.. (shrink)

This paper offers a new account of reflective knowledge’s value, building on recent work on the epistemic norms of speech acts. Reflective knowledge is valuable because it licenses us to make guarantees and promises.

Some philosophers have claimed that there is knowledge from falsehood (KFF, in short), i.e., inferential knowledge that involves a relevant false premise. The main thesis of this paper is that there are no standard cases of KFF. By ‘standard cases’ we mean cases in which the subject employs a measurement procedure in order to determine the value of some quantity, such as the time or the number of people present in a room. If knowledge is attained at (...) all, it is attained by inference not from a false premise but, instead, from two pieces of reflective knowledge. A brief look at putative non-standard cases of KFF reveals that they can be explained away in a different way, albeit a way that shares a common pattern with standard cases. (shrink)

Replies to Ram Neta, James Van Cleve, and Crispin Wright for a book symposium on Reflective Knowledge (OUP, 2009).

In this essay, I review Rudolf Makkreel’s, Orientation and Judgment in Hermeneutics, which, I claim, represents an original contribution to continental philosophy. I take up his consideration that hermeneutics should incorporate philosophical reflection that not only recognizes the significance of the historical contexts of interpretation, but also situates interpretation within the contexts of the twenty-first century. I regard Makkreel’s work to be primarily aimed at emphasizing the mutually inclusive roles of reflection and reflective judgment involved in interpretation.

A Virtue Epistemology presents a new approach to some of the oldest and most gripping problems of philosophy, those of knowledge and scepticism. Ernest Sosa argues for two levels of knowledge, the animal and the reflective, each viewed as a distinctive human accomplishment. By adopting a kind of virtue epistemology in line with the tradition found in Aristotle, Aquinas, Reid, and especially Descartes, he presents an account of knowledge which can be used to shed light on (...) different varieties of scepticism, the nature and status of intuitions, and epistemic normativity. (shrink)

Action is not always guided by conscious deliberation; in many circumstances, we act intuitively rather than reflectively. Tamar Gendler (2014) contends that because intuitively guided action can lead us away from our reflective commitments, it limits the power of knowledge to guide action. While I agree that intuition can diverge from reflection, I argue that this divergence does not constitute a restriction on the power of knowledge. After explaining my view of the contrast between intuitive and (...) class='Hi'>reflective thinking, this paper argues against the conclusions Gendler draws from empirical work on implicit bias. (shrink)

Virtue Epistemology has come a long way since Ernest Sosa first mooted its possibility in ‘The Raft and the Pyramid’, a paper about the pitfalls of coherentism and foundationalism. What makes Virtue Epistemology distinctive, as opposed to other forms of reliabilist externalism, is that the epistemic agent becomes the locus for justification rather than the belief. In the midst of a small but growing literature in this focus on the agent, two clear trends are emerging that reflect a difference in (...) interest by the authors rather than any real underlying antagonism between camps. Where faculty reliabilists like Sosa and Greco are concerned about sceptical challenges, virtue responsibilists like Zazebski or Roberts and Wood prefer to write about intellectual flourishing. (shrink)

NOTE: This is an early preprint version. The definitive, citable "Version of Record" of this paper has been archived on Zenodo and can be found under the DOI 10.5281/zenodo.16269768. Please use the Zenodo version exclusively for all citations. -/- This paper presents Reflective Epistemology, a metatheoretical model that offers a fundamental reorientation for knowledge acquisition. Based on an analysis of fundamental mental structures and their semantic dimensions, a formal framework for integrating subjective and objective aspects of cognition is (...) developed. The model identifies fundamental epistemological categories—such as entity relations and modal qualities—as elements of a ``Proto-Grammar of the Mind.'' Through the introduction of multidimensional epistemic assessment criteria (consistency, truth of premises, belief, degree of recognition), a typology of epistemic biases is derived. The core thesis states that robust knowledge results from the conscious reflection and integration of subjective factors, whereby ``True Objectivity'' is redefined as an intersubjectively validated, coherent, and bias-reflected subjective understanding. The paper concludes with implications for scientific methodology, education, and personal epistemic practice. (shrink)

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This work, written from a neo-Pyrrhonian perspective, is an examination of contemporary theories of knowledge and justification. It takes ideas primarily found in Sextus Empiricus's Outlines of Pyrrhonism, restates them in a modern idiom, and then asks whether any contemporary theory of knowledge meets the challenges they raise. The first part, entitled "Gettier and the Problem of Knowledge," attempts to rescue our ordinary concept of knowledge from those philosophers who have assigned burdens to it that it (...) cannot bear. Properly understood, Fogelin shows that the concept of knowledge is unproblematic. The second part of this study, called "Agrippa and the Problem of Justification," examines Agrippa's contribution to Pyrrhonism, a systematic reduction of its procedures which came to be known as the "Five Modes Leading to the Suspension of Belief." These modes present a completely general procedure for refuting any claim a dogmatist might make. Though largely unnoticed, there is, according to Fogelin, an uncanny resemblance between problems posed by Agrippa's "Five Modes" and those that contemporary epistemologists address under the heading of a theory of justification. Fogelin examines the strongest contemporary theories of justification--in both foundationalist and anti-foundationalist forms. The conclusion is that recent philosophical writings on justification have made no significant progress in responding to the Pyrrhonian problems these writings have addressed. (shrink)

This book argues that we misunderstand the importance of the topic of self-knowledge if we conceive of it merely as a puzzle about how we can know a special range of facts. Instead, we should regard it as an inducement to reflect on the nature of the relevant facts themselves, and of the kind of mind of which they hold. In this sense, the interest of the topic of self-knowledge is metaphysical rather than merely epistemological: its primary importance (...) lies in the light it can shed on what our minds are, rather than just on how we come to know certain facts about them. Appreciating this point puts us in a position to see a link between debates about how we know our own minds and the dark but intriguing idea that Jean-Paul Sartre expressed in his remark that, for a human being, "to exist is always to assume its being" in a way that implies "an understanding of human reality by itself." An implication of thus Sartrean standpoint on self-awareness, I argue, is that our primary form of self-awareness must be transparent: its focus must be, not on ourselves, but on aspects of the non-mental world presented in a way that is informed by an implicit self-awareness. Nevertheless-as I go on to argue-we are necessarily capable of transforming this implicit self-awareness, through reflection, into an explicit understanding of ourselves and our own mental states. (shrink)

This article analyses reflective practice by exploring ethical knowledge-in-use and the influence of context on professional nursing practice. Is ethical knowledge used in an appropriate context? The author identifies and discusses the theoretical underpinnings of reflective practice and offers an alternative paradigm to the generation and use of ethical knowledge in practice. The message to teachers and practitioners is decoded to facilitate teaching and learning.

Reflective practice is one of the most popular theories of professional knowledge in the last 20 years and has been widely adopted by nursing, health, and social care professions. The term was coined by Donald Schön in his influential books The Reflective Practitioner , and Educating the Reflective Practitioner , and has garnered the unprecedented attention of theorists and practitioners of professional education and practice. Reflective practice has been integrated into professional preparatory programmes, continuing education (...) programmes, and by the regulatory bodies of a wide range of health and social care professions. Yet, despite its popularity and widespread adoption, a problem frequently raised in the literature concerns the lack of conceptual clarity surrounding the term reflective practice. This paper seeks to respond to this problem by offering an analysis of the epistemology of reflective practice as revealed through a critical examination of philosophical influences within the theory. The aim is to discern philosophical underpinnings of reflective practice in order to advance increasingly coherent interpretations, and to consider the implications for conceptions of professional knowledge in professional life. The paper briefly examines major philosophical underpinnings in reflective practice to explicate central themes that inform the epistemological assumptions of the theory. The study draws on the work of Donald Schön, and on texts from four philosophers: John Dewey, Nelson Goodman, Michael Polanyi, and Gilbert Ryle. Five central epistemological themes in reflective practice are illuminated: (1) a broad critique of technical rationality; (2) professional practice knowledge as artistry; (3) constructivist assumptions in the theory; (4) the significance of tacit knowledge for professional practice knowledge; and (5) overcoming mind body dualism to recognize the knowledge revealed in intelligent action. The paper reveals that the theory of reflective practice is concerned with deep epistemological questions of significance to conceptions of knowledge in health and social care professions. (shrink)