In Judgment and Agency, Ernest Sosa argues for a triple-S structure of complete competences that includes, besides the innermost seat competence of the agent, her overall intrinsic condition and the right situational factors for the manifestation of cognitive success to occur. Complete competences are context-sensitive. The question is raised whether epistemic competences are extrinsic or intrinsic dispositional properties, as well as whether knowledge is the manifestation of powers of the actual world or whether it is a matter of what happens (...) in modally close worlds. An ontological background for the context-sensitivity of epistemic competences that is compatible with their intrinsic character is set in the context of a general account of dispositions. An actualist conception of knowledge is also provided. On this view, the modal force of knowledge, far from being captured by non-localized possibilities, is rooted in the directedness of powers. This article, thus, aims at making explicit the ontological underpinnings of knowledge in a way that it is consistent with Sosa’s fully dispositional virtue epistemology. To this end, the constitution of complete competences is placed in a proper perspective. (shrink)

Es comúnmente reconocida la relación íntima que la casa que Wittgenstein construyó para su hermana guarda con el proyecto del Tractatus —un proyecto que haciendo visible el mundo tal como la ciencia lo representa, despierta en el lector la necesidad apremiante de una reorientación ética de su vida. Sin embargo, Wittgenstein llegó a percibir ambas obras como fracasos. Los objetivos de este artículo son I) dilucidar la razón (o razones) de dicho fracaso; II) argumentar que el segundo Wittgenstein no abandonó (...) su proyecto ético, sino que modificó las estrategias para llevarlo a cabo —algo que también afectó a su concepción de la filosofía; y III) mostrar cómo Wittgenstein pudo resolver un problema básico para el conservadurismo tardío anclándolo en el orden inherente a la actividad humana ordinaria. (shrink)

It will be argued that personal agency, far from lacking epistemic value, contributes to knowledge in a substantial way. To this end, it will be claimed that what Sosa calls an epistemic perspective is necessary to solve the binding problem in epistemology at the three junctures at which it can occur: as the Pyrrhonian question of whether one can rationally endorse one’s epistemic rationality; as the problem of the epistemic status of guessing; and as the enquiry into the contribution of (...) the agential perspective for evading coincidental luck. Our aim has been that of elucidating and expanding Sosa’s virtue perspectivism. (shrink)