Ernest Sosa Encountering Chinese Philosophy: A Cross-Cultural Approach to Virtue Epistemology (Fudan Studies in Encountering Chinese Philosophy)

"A major figure in the Anglo-American analytic tradition, Ernest Sosa is a pioneer of contemporary virtue epistemology. Engaging with his important work for the first time, a team of renowned scholars of Chinese philosophy bring Western analytic epistemology into dialogue with themes and issues in the history of the Chinese tradition in order to reveal multiple points of connection. Drawing on thinkers and texts from Confucianism, Daoism and Chinese Buddhism, chapters explore issues central to virtue epistemology, such as the reliabilist and responsibilist divide, the distinction between virtues constitutive of knowledge and virtues auxiliary to knowledge, epistemic competence and the role of testimony. Including Sosa's constructive and systematic responses to each scholar's interpretation of his work, this volume demonstrates the value of cross-cultural dialogue, advancing the field of virtue epistemology and paving the way for further engagement between philosophical traditions"-- Provided by publisher Cover Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Contents Notes on Contributors 1 Ernest Sosa Encounters Chinese Philosophy An Introduction 1 Introduction 2 Sosa’s virtue epistemology at a glance 3 Sosa’s first encounter with Chinese philosophy 4 The divide between responsibilism and reliabilismin virtue epistemology 5 Other issues of Sosa’s virtue epistemology 6 Conclusion 2 Xunzi, Zhuangzi, and Virtue Epistemology 1 Introduction 2 Perspective 3 Xunzi 4 Zhuangzi 5 Comparisons with Sosa 6 Conclusion 3 Epistemic Competence and Agency in Sosa and Xúnzı 1 Introduction 2 Sosa on epistemic competence and agency 3 Xúnzı 4 Reflections for further inquiry 4 In Favor of a Comprehensive Virtue Epistemology? 1 Introduction 2 Sosa’s emphasis on intellectual virtues 3 Xunzi’s emphasis on character virtues 4 Intellectual virtues (faculties) versus character virtues (character traits)? 5 In favor of a comprehensive virtue epistemology? Focusing on the question of how to communicate and justify knowledge 6 In favor of both: specific and comprehensive virtue theories of knowledge? Appendix 5 Detachment A Trait-Reliabilist Virtue in Linji’s Chan Buddhism 1 Introduction 2 Debate about two kinds of epistemic virtues 3 Detachment as a reliabilist virtue in Buddhist epistemology 4 Detachment as a cultivated character trait in the Linjilu 5 Conclusion: detachment as a trait-reliabilist virtue 6 Apt Performance as Unity of Knowledgeand Action A Comparative Study on Ernest Sosa’s Virtue Epistemology and Wang Yangming’s Meta-ethics 1 Introduction 2 The AAA structure and Wang’s meta-ethics 3 The unity of knowledge and action 4 On intellectual virtues 5 Closing remarks 7 The Hearer’s Conditions for Accepting Testimony 1 Sosa’s account of testimony 2 Xunzi’s remarks on testimony 3 Accepting testimony 4 Believing p without accepting testimony to p 5 Two senses of uptake 6 Perception and instrument 8 Sosa’s Reflective Knowledge and Xunzi’s Knowledge of the Dao 1 Sosa on animal and reflective knowledge 2 Xunzi’s unification of nature and heaven via the dao 3 Xunzi’s nomic-transcendentalism, knowledge of change and knowledge of the dao 4 The result of a comparison: a new generalized definition of reflective knowledge 9 Epistemic Virtues, the Gettier Problem, and the Rectification of Names 1 Introduction 2 Sosa’s theory reformulated on a high level 3 Gettier’s cases revisited in the light of “the rectification of names” 4 “The rectification of names” in the light of six principles of composing Chinese characters 5 Conclusion 10 Sosa’s Reliabilist Reading of Davidson and Zhuangzi’s Way Out of the Ontological Predicament 1 Introduction 2 Sosa’s reliabilist reading of Davidson and the ontological predicament 3 Sosa’s middle way between foundationalism and coherentism 4 Is the skepticism of “brains in a vat” self-refuting? 5 How to ask the skepticism of “brains in a vat” to get lost? 6 Zhuangzi’s proposal 7 Concluding remarks 11 Resurrecting Daoist Virtuosity Epistemology 1 Introduction 2 The nature of knowledge 3 The contrasts 4 Conclusion: a truce 12 A Third Platonic Problem for Sosa? Or How Wang Yangming Can Know Better than Full Well? 1 Introduction 2 A third Platonic problem for Sosa 3 Normative knowledge 4 Wang Yangming: how to know better than Full Well 5 Conclusion 13 Responses 1 Introduction 2 Part I Index