Grading of Knowledge In Ernest Sosa’s Virtue-Centred Epistemology

There are three conditions of the classical knowledge: Justification, truth, and belief. Gettier published an article called Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? in 1963. It is a small but stimulating article pioneered the emergence of the understanding of contemporary epistemology. According to Gettier, the traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief is insufficient. He intuitively believed that some beliefs cannot be knowledge, because it is purely lucky that they are true. Briefly, his assertion has been known as “Gettier Cases” nowadays. Since the classical examples presented by Gettier refuted the classical definition of knowledge as justified true belief. After Gettier, some epistemologists have begun discussing what is necessary and sufficient for an acknowledged justification. Ernest Sosa (1940-), who is one of them and advocates an understanding of knowledge based on the normative nature of performances (talents), has been accepted as the Pioneer of the Virtue Epistemology in this day and time. Sosa has endeavored to solve this contemporary problem that has come to the agenda after Gettier, namely the inadequacy or insufficiency of justifying the definition of knowledge by the concept of Intelectual Virtue. The most notable feature of Sosa’s virtue epistemology is the elucidation of epistemic issues based on the success of the human performance. Sosa divides knowledge into two stages to understand what knowledge is and to rule out lucky guesses. Sosa, who states that knowledge is a degree problem and knowledge is obtained in two grades or stages, asserts these kinds of knowledge as animal knowledge and reflective knowledge. According to Sosa, knowledge is sometimes substantiated on an animal and reflective grade. This means that animal knowledge relies on the intellectual virtues of subject, and reflective knowledge depends on his/her epistemic perspective. The issue of our presentation is mainly about addressing the importance of the classification of knowledge in Sosa’s Virtue-centred epistemology