Justificación y perspectiva epistémica

Abstract

The paper intends to ascertain which is the role played by the agent’s epistemic perspective in an analysis of justification and knowledge. I will develop my proposal in dialogue with Ernest Sosa’s virtue perspectivism. According to Sosa, pure reliabilism is not an appropriate account of justification because it overlooks the agent’s epistemic perspective. I agree. But, in contrast to him, I do not think that the epistemic perspective should require the participation of the agent’s reflexive reason. I distinguish two different components within the agent’s epistemic perspective, i.e., epistemic assessments and epistemic explanations. From my point of view, an epistemic perspective which includes only the former suffices to overcome the limitations of reliabilism. Besides, I will argue against Sosa that the coherence gained by including epistemic explanations in the system of beliefs does not necessarily yield an increase in the amount of truth.