KiC Lectures #3: The Bounds of Knowledge

Join us for a public lecture on the bounds of knowledge by acclaimed philosopher Ernest Sosa (Rutgers University, USA)

We start with a comparison between Galileo and Descartes. Galileo held (and proclaimed) his very risky views in astronomy, and suffered the consequences. Because of that, Descartes kept his astronomy to himself, and perhaps even preferred to focus on mathematics and philosophy. By contrast, he faced Pyrrhonian rational concerns openly and deeply, while Galileo did not so much as address them, at least not thoroughly and publicly. So, how did those facts bear on the normative standing of their respective world views?

Descartes is generally accused of vicious circularity. So, are we doomed to intellectual failure where serious inquiry only serves to make us aware of our fallen state?

This lecture offers a hopeful course. When Elizabeth Anscombe faces dissatisfaction in normative ethics, she proposes a moratorium on normative inquiry until we can attain a better philosophical psychology. This lecture aims to enhance our epistemic psychology in the hope of a better normative epistemology that will make room for both Descartes and Galileo.

Ernest Sosa is the Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and a leading figure in contemporary epistemology. Sosa earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1964. He taught at Brown University for over four decades before joining the Rutgers faculty in 2007.

Sosa is widely recognized for his foundational contributions to virtue epistemology, a field he pioneered in the 1980s. His work explores the nature of knowledge, justification, and skepticism, often focusing on "virtue perspectivism"—the idea that knowledge should be understood as an "apt" belief resulting from the exercise of intellectual virtue. His extensive publications include Knowledge in Perspective (1991), A Virtue Epistemology (2007), Reflective Knowledge (2009), Knowing Full Well (2011), Judgment and agency (2015) and Epistemic Explanations (2021).

A past president of the American Philosophical Association and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Sosa has delivered prestigious lectures worldwide, including the John Locke Lectures at Oxford and the Carus Lectures.

He is also the recipient of many awards and prizes. Throughout his career, Sosa has held the position of editor, president and vice president for a vast array of journals and philosophical institutions and published over 300 works in philosophy.

KiC Public Lectures is organized by the Knowledge in Crisis project, which is supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) under the Clusters of Excellence programme (10.55776/COE3). We're a collaboration between the University of Graz, the University of Salzburg, and the University of Vienna, led by Central European University.