Flourishing is properly the main human end, and flourishing is activity of soul that succeeds in accord with virtue.
-Ernest Sosa
When the primary goal of justification is truth, external conditions become the main object of interest, and can, from an epistemic standpoint, either boost or lessen the credibility of a belief. By contrast, when the aim of justification is reasonability, the subject of interest is primarily the internal conditions of the agent (Crumley 160). Because of divergent views about where epistemic responsibility ought to lie, most epistemological theory favours one of these approaches over the other, which means that standards for knowing are not necessarily as fixed as one might expect. However, some epistemologists, like Ernest Sosa, have been creative in their attempt to reconcile these two stances, believing that conditions for knowledge must reflect both the voluntariness and involuntariness of the human experience. In this post I will argue that by bringing a teleological standard of knowing to epistemic thought, Sosa is successful in harmonizing internalism and externalism in a way that supports human flourishing.
Since Aristotle’s theory of causality seeks to explain a thing in full, it can be helpful in
legitimating (or delegitimating) epistemic standards, allowing us to gain a more complete
understanding of “knowing” itself before deciding what sort of requirements and conditions are necessary and sufficient with respect to knowledge or justified belief. In Physics, Aristotle states that we can only know a thing fully if we discover its four causes which I will list in the order he presents them in some 2000 years ago:
(1) Material Cause: that out of which a thing comes to be and which persists
(2) Formal Cause: the form or the archetype, i.e. the statement of the essence
(3) Efficient Cause: the primary source of the change or coming to rest
(4) Final Cause: in the sense of end or ‘that for the sake of which’ a thing is done. (240)
Now, suppose we apply this theory to epistemic thought and infer that if we do not have knowledge of a thing until we have grasped its four causes, then it necessarily follows that we do not have knowledge about knowledge until we have grasped knowledge’s four causes as well. So, what is knowledge made of? How does knowledge come to be? Firstly, there is an undeniably metaphysical quality about knowledge that seems to come from cognitive processes within the sentient being (who, themselves, is a mixture of both physical and metaphysical elements). Secondly, there is an equally undeniable physical quality about knowledge because knowledge’s existence depends on an external world to know of (which is also a mixture of both physical and metaphysical components). As a result, the sentient being and the external world are, by nature, bound together in knowledge’s material cause. Next, we must investigate the formal cause (or essence) of knowledge. Is knowledge something we can touch, smell, taste, hear, or see? Since we cannot “sense” knowledge in the most basic sense of the word, we might conclude that its form is primarily conceptual, and is thus, forever linked to sentient beings and their formal cause, which is rooted in their biological makeup, and when arranged in a particular way, form one, beautiful soul. Thirdly, we must determine knowledge’s efficient causation and ask ourselves, what moves knowledge? What changes it? Again, we see that the answers to these questions are a combination of both internal and external factors. Knowledge is moved and changed by its maker, the sentient being, and his metaphysical thought processes (who are, together, in a constant state of change) and his external world (that is also, in a constant state of flux). Finally, we cannot truly have knowledge of knowledge until we discover its final cause and ask ourselves, what is knowledge’s purpose? Is it to find truths? Is it love? Is it survival? Is it
to aid in the flourishing of sentient beings? Is it to protect our natural rights? Is its end goal all these things and more? Since there is no clear answer to this question, we may resolve that knowledge’s final cause is inextricability linked to the sentient being and their/her/his final cause. For example, if the final cause of the sentient being is reason and rational speech, then a certain degree of human flourishing is required to fulfill this purpose. Thus, knowledge’s purpose is (at least in part) to aid in the flourishing needed to reach a level of rationality that can guide us in our quest for truths (that is, if we accept Sosa’s teleological view that obtaining true beliefs is the end goal of our faculty of reason, which I think is a wise choice). Although this practical application of Aristotle’s theory of causality does not result in any measurable answers, our qualitative inquiry suggests that knowledge is an awareness of both facts and form, physical and metaphysical, internal and external. However, this means, that for epistemological theory to be just (in accordance with natural law), it must account for this blend of characteristics in knowledge itself.
Some epistemologists, like Sosa, have achieved this by wedding together internalism and externalism in a more teleological theory of knowing. However, as is often the case with
marriage, the union does not subsist without some degree of tension. Since Sosa’s theory is
primarily concerned with the “aptness” of beliefs, and because "aptness” depends on the context or the environment as opposed to the agent’s internal perspective, we may consider his theory, to some extent, externalist. On the other hand, his view is internalist because he maintains that justification depends on the coherence of the belief in question as well as the agent’s ability to recognize how it fits into their existing belief system (Crumley 177). Hence, the credibility of a belief is obtained through internal processes such as deductive and inductive reasoning, and introspection which makes justification “intrinsically internalist”, according to Sosa (177). In An Introduction to Epistemology, author, Jack Crumley explains how Sosa distinguishes “aptness" from “justification” and says that:
Justification comes about because we recognize that a certain belief is the right belief to have, that it comes from the right kind of source. Having the right source constitutes the aptness of belief. And the “right source” means that in our actual environment, exercising a certain sort of ability or trait gets us—more often than not—true beliefs. Aptness signals the connection between the world and our beliefs. (178)
This quote suggests that our beliefs are inherently internal and external. The perspectival nature of beliefs (insofar as they signify a connection between beliefs and the environment), gives them their “aptness” which is an external feature, whereas the reflective nature of the justification process is unmistakably internalist (Crumley 177). Sosa makes a further distinction between what he calls “animal knowledge” and “reflective knowledge” and believes that “animal knowledge is our immediate, unreflective, and direct response the environment” (Crumley 178) and argues that this type of knowledge results in “apt” beliefs because oftentimes the beliefs produced by our immediate responses are what “we are supposed to believe” (Crumley 178). Reflective knowledge, by contrast, is more voluntary in nature because there is a higher level of virtue, attention, and awareness involved in detecting the origin of the belief and the network of beliefs it is linked to (178). Seemingly, internalism and externalism belong together, and Sosa’s theory provides the epistemic foundation for the two positions to harmonize.
Sosa’s theory is fundamentally concerned with intellectual virtue, which is a concept that
ancient philosopher, Aristotle, also discusses in The Nicomachean Ethics. In this book, Aristotle divides “intellect” into two parts: the contemplative and the calculative, and says that “the work of both [these] intellectual parts…is truth. Therefore, the states that are most strictly those in respect of which each of these parts will reach truth are the virtues of the two parts” (104). Like Aristotle, Sosa believes that humans have a reasoning capacity which aims at truth and that this quality is, oftentimes, a sufficient condition for knowing. He holds that knowledge is justified if it demonstrates intellectual virtue, that is, if the beliefs originate from certain intellectual character traits, which, as Crumley explains, are those “abilities that enable humans to perform their intellectual functions well” (175). For Sosa, this would include what many would consider to be the more “practical” faculties such as reason, memory, introspection, and perception, but in their purest form. In his essay on “Knowledge and Virtue”, Sosa clarifies what exactly it is that makes a faculty “pure”, and says, that in the case of introspection, “through greater attentiveness and circumspection one can normally improve the quality of one’s introspection and thus enhance its accuracy” (433). This means that, for Sosa, our cognitive processes are a fairly accurate reflection of our mental state, and although, he admits that even the purest introspection can be thwarted by things like pain, brainwashing, hypnosis etc., under “normal” circumstances, he argues that intellectual character traits are indeed a reliable source of justification (433). Sosa’s epistemic standards are teleological because they presuppose that human cognition has an “end” or goal, which he believes, “is obtaining true beliefs” (Crumley 176).
In the “The Internalism/Externalism Controversy”, Professor Richard Fumerton explains
the problem with simply “choosing sides” in the internalism/externalism debate, and the different ways of defining the distinction between the two positions. The purpose of his argument is to convince philosophers to adopt his “extreme version” of foundationalism that demands noninferential justification of beliefs so that facts can maintain their exclusive status as the singular goal of epistemic inquiry (Fumerton 164) which leads us to the question: In what way(s), if any, does Sosa’s virtue perspectivism threaten the notion of foundational beliefs? Do facts necessarily express truths? In another essay, “A Critique of Coherentism”, Fumerton argues that since coherence theory can lead to “two incompatible yet internally consistent, coherent systems of beliefs”, proponents of this theory must “either abandon the law of noncontradiction [or relativize] the concept of truth” (Fumerton 216). This criticism is relevant to my thesis because Sosa’s epistemology embraces the principles of coherence which allows for degrees of knowing insofar as “a more comprehensive grasp of the truth” is possible to achieve through the utilization of our intellectually virtuous traits (Crumley 177). Fumerton also argues that the process of accessing beliefs within coherence theory results in a metaphysical regress because
the “web” of coherence is potentially infinite; however, Sosa does not conceive this as a problem since “aptness” takes precedence over justification within his theory (Crumley 177).
Sosa’s virtue perspectivism is more balanced than other reconciliatory theories because it is grounded in natural law and its objective moral standards expressed in nature and through nature. In overlapping virtue ethics and the forming of beliefs, the agent’s character becomes a key aspect in a mainly internalist perspective yet also recognizes the legitimacy of
environmentally informed beliefs which need not be further justified by the agent if the belief arises from an appropriate “truth-producing faculty”, and is, therefore, externalist as well. Sosa’s theory presents a just approach to knowing because it legitimizes the more instinctual type of knowledge that pre-rational humans and other sentient animals exhibit, in addition to rational humans. By accrediting both the figure and the form of beliefs, Sosa’s theory balances the dual nature of knowledge within a framework that addresses both the voluntary and involuntary nature of our belief forming processes. His teleological notion that the goal of human cognition is truth brings a harmonizing component to the naturally tense relationship between internalism and externalism.
Sincerely,
Heather
Works Consulted
Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by David Ross. Oxford University Press, 2009.
Aristotle. “Physics.” Course pack for LBST 325: Our place in the Cosmos, compiled by
David Livingstone, Spring 2022, Vancouver Island University.
Crumbley, Jack S. An Introduction to Epistemology. 2nd ed. Peterborough, Broadview Press,
2009.
Fumerton, Richard. “A Critique of Coherentism.” The Theory of Knowledge. Classical and
Contemporary Readings, edited by Louis Pojman, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003,
pp. 206-215.
Fumerton, Richard. “The Internalism/Externalism Controversy.” Knowledge & Inquiry:
Readings in Epistemology, edited by K. Brad Wray, Broadview, 2002, pp. 152-167.
Sosa, Ernest. “Knowledge and Intellectual Virtue.” Readings in Epistemology, edited by Jack
Crumley, Mayfield, 1999, pp. 431-444.
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