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This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book addresses the age-old problem of infinite regresses in epistemology. How can we ever come to know something if knowing requires having good reasons, and reasons can only be good if they are backed by good reasons in turn? The problem has puzzled philosophers ever since antiquity, giving rise to what is often called Agrippa's Trilemma. The current volume approaches the old problem in a provocative and thoroughly contemporary way. Taking seriously the idea that good reasons are typically probabilistic in character, it develops and defends a new solution that challenges venerable philosophical intuitions and explains why they were mistakenly held. Key to the new solution is the phenomenon of fading foundations, according to which distant reasons are less important than those that are nearby. The phenomenon takes the sting out of Agrippa's Trilemma; moreover, since the theory that describes it is general and abstract, it is readily applicable outside epistemology, notably to debates on infinite regresses in metaphysics. The book is a potential game-changer and a must for any advanced student or researcher in the field.

Philosophy. --- Operations research. --- Decision making. --- Epistemology. --- Mathematical logic. --- Physics. --- Statistics. --- Mathematical Logic and Foundations. --- Statistical Theory and Methods. --- History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics. --- Operation Research/Decision Theory. --- Statistical analysis --- Statistical data --- Statistical methods --- Statistical science --- Mathematics --- Econometrics --- Algebra of logic --- Logic, Universal --- Mathematical logic --- Symbolic and mathematical logic --- Symbolic logic --- Algebra, Abstract --- Metamathematics --- Set theory --- Syllogism --- Epistemology --- Theory of knowledge --- Philosophy --- Psychology --- Deciding --- Decision (Psychology) --- Decision analysis --- Decision processes --- Making decisions --- Management --- Management decisions --- Choice (Psychology) --- Problem solving --- Operational analysis --- Operational research --- Industrial engineering --- Management science --- Research --- System theory --- Mental philosophy --- Humanities --- Natural philosophy --- Philosophy, Natural --- Physical sciences --- Dynamics --- Decision making --- Genetic epistemology. --- Logic, Symbolic and mathematical. --- Mathematical statistics. --- Operations Research/Decision Theory. --- Statistical inference --- Statistics, Mathematical --- Statistics --- Probabilities --- Sampling (Statistics) --- Developmental psychology --- Knowledge, Theory of --- Statistics . --- epistemic justification --- infinite regress --- epistemology --- ethics --- metaphysics --- philosophy

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In this concise book, one of the world's leading epistemologists provides a sophisticated, revisionist introduction to the problem of knowledge in Western philosophy. Modern and contemporary accounts of epistemology tend to focus on limited questions of knowledge and skepticism, such as how we can know the external world, other minds, the past through memory, the future through induction, or the world's depth and structure through inference. This book steps back for a better view of the more general issues posed by the ancient Greek Pyrrhonists. Returning to and illuminating this older, broader epistemological tradition, Ernest Sosa develops an original account of the subject, giving it substance not with Cartesian theology but with science and common sense.Descartes is a part of this ancient tradition, but he goes beyond it by considering not just whether knowledge is possible at all but also how we can properly attain it. In Cartesian epistemology, Sosa finds a virtue-theoretic account, one that he extends beyond the Cartesian context. Once epistemology is viewed in this light, many of its problems can be solved or fall away.The result is an important reevaluation of epistemology that will be essential reading for students and teachers.

Knowledge, Theory of. --- Aristotelian intellectual values. --- Aristotelian moral virtues. --- Aristotle. --- Cartesian Circle. --- Cartesian epistemology. --- Descartes. --- Meno. --- Plato. --- Saul Kripke. --- Theaetetus. --- Western philosophy. --- ability. --- action. --- affirmation. --- animal knowledge. --- antecedent belief. --- apt judgment. --- aptness. --- armchair cognition. --- attempt. --- belief management. --- belief. --- clarity. --- competence. --- conceptual analysis. --- conceptual innovation. --- disposition. --- distinctness. --- dogmatism paradox. --- epistemic character. --- epistemic justification. --- epistemologist. --- epistemology. --- error. --- ethics. --- externalism. --- foundational given. --- freedom. --- fundamental cognition. --- global skeptic. --- happiness. --- intellectual courage. --- intentional action. --- introspection. --- intuitive attraction. --- judgment. --- judgmental belief. --- justice. --- justification. --- knowledge theory. --- knowledge. --- metaphysics. --- moral psychology. --- naturalist externalism. --- negative evidence. --- negligence. --- normativity. --- ontology. --- open-mindedness. --- perception. --- perceptual cognition. --- performance. --- personal identity. --- philosophical progress. --- philosophical sketpticism. --- prospective intention. --- pure reason. --- radical skepticism. --- scepticism. --- scientia. --- seat. --- second-order awareness. --- shape. --- shared concepts. --- situation. --- skeptics. --- social epistemology. --- social psychology. --- subjective states. --- success. --- theory of competence. --- truth. --- virtue epistemology. --- virtue ethics. --- virtue reliabilism. --- virtue theory.