Abstract:

In this article, I explore the views of Ernest Sosa, a living analytic philosopher who developed a virtue epistemology out of the contemporary virtue ethics. Virtue theory in ethics is personbased rather than act-based; and similarly virtue theory in epistemology is person-based rather than belief/proposition-based. In this way, Sosa who has defended person-based theory of justification with the aid of intellectual virtue, developed a theory that can be an alternative to foundationalism, coherentism and post-Gettier problems. The theory is a refined version of reliabilism and its roots can be traced back to Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes and Reid in classical epistemology and it also basically depends on epistemology of Alvin Goldman in contemporary epistemology. One of the most important features of this epistemology is refrain from dichotomies such as foundationalism/coherentism and internalism/externalism and try to surpass polarization by reconciling them. Finally, virtue epistemology of Sosa defends epistemology as a normative discipline against Quineist radical naturalized epistemology.

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