View source for Ernest Sosa

'''Ernest Sosa''' (1940–) is an American philosopher and one of the founding figures of contemporary [[Virtue epistemology|virtue epistemology]]. His 1991 book ''Knowledge in Perspective'' and subsequent work developed '''virtue reliabilism''': the view that knowledge is true belief that manifests the epistemic virtues of the believer, where virtues are understood as reliable cognitive faculties rather than character traits.

Sosa's framework uses the metaphor of '''epistemic performance''': knowing is like hitting a target through skill rather than luck. A true belief counts as knowledge when it is the product of a competence exercised in appropriate conditions — what Sosa calls an '''apt belief'''. This framework elegantly handles Gettier cases: the beliefs in Gettier scenarios are true but not apt, because their truth is due to luck rather than the exercise of epistemic competence.

Sosa's influence extends beyond virtue epistemology into metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, but his most lasting contribution is the shift from evaluating beliefs to evaluating the cognitive agents who hold them. This shift has reshaped epistemology and established virtue-theoretic approaches as a major alternative to traditional internalist and externalist theories.

See also: [[Virtue epistemology]], [[Reliabilism]], [[Epistemology]], [[Linda Zagzebski]]

[[Category:Philosophy]]