Philosophy Self-Study 2026, 01 (Epistemology, Ernest Sosa)

I don't have a real background in philosophy, but it's often a bridge applicable to other, very related subjects, as it forms bases of thought that inevitably turns into systems of belief. It's been interesting to me, because in many ways, the various schools of philosophy seem equally correct to me at first glance (usually I find that they feel half-right, but not incoherently wrong), but the notion of a philosophical proof seems bold, to say the least. I happen to have dabbled with Neo-Marxist philosophy and Existentialism in the past, but I figured that eventually, I'd do well to diversify. It's not going to change much of my behavior, I assume, but it'll remind me to read some philosophy that addresses some specific topic, until I either feel sufficiently informed (which would put me confidently around the peak of the Dunning-Kruger curve) or until the subject loses my interest for the time being (which might be worse). I decided, more or less arbitrariy, to start with looking into Epistemology, and the book by Ernest Sosa of the same name. I'm not too familiar with Sosa, which includes his work on "virtue epistemology", but if I can trust his process, he will cite enough works to give me the next work of literature between his pages.

Starting with Descarte's Meditations is perhaps obvious, but very friendly for beginners like myself. I must admit, I have remained thoroughly unimpressed by the Descartian notion from how it's applied, simoly because I wasn't entirely convinced by the impartiality of the philosophical proof as a concept or praxis. While an unfair expectation leveled at the work, I didn't think we had much of a chance to recover any of the beliefs, allegedly saved by the famous cogito. Sosa, at least in the first chapter seems to agree, albeit with some more complete reasoning. The notion that a "Cartesian" proof is rarely achieved in philosophy makes an appearance, but Sosa further explores the idea of what it means to reject an idea in the first place, which makes some implications about the axioms that one begins their reasoning from. What's more interesting on a first read is the case he makes to address the cogito itself. He makes the case that it in itself should be subject to the radical skepticism posited at the beginning of the argument. Descartes did address this inconsistency in the remainder of his Meditations, by letting theology "verify" the truth of this that statement, which had, to me, been somewhat disqualifying as a claim, seeing as it required a specific theology to be unshakably correct. This, however seems to somewhat invalidate Descartes' approach wholly, as it leaves the final decisor in what is ultimately a form of perception, that was kinda meant to be discounted categorically for this thought experiment. This, crucially opens up the subjectivity of knowledge about as wide as one could, simply by the choice of whose perception one chooses to use as the base for their reasoning. Sosa, notably doesn't prescribe whether one should look to mathematics, theology or whichever other belief-system one could take to fill this function. I personally favor maths, clearly, but I've met enough people that prefer god to maths, and while one can argue about maths and arrive at a consensus, I'm not sure the same is true for theology.

The second chapter concerns itself with the notion of radical deception. I'm not so sure I would agree with Sosa's briefly argued dismissal of the classical 'demon'/'matrix' variation of the argument for radical deception, but considering he has already posited that in the end, he bases the epistomology of Descartes primarily in perception either way, I concede that there is probably little point in exploring the "but what if yes actually" argument. He takes in the slightly more familiar scenario of actions and perceptions in dreams as a more detailed point. I personally barely remember any dreams, possibly because I usually pass out when I can do absolutely nothing else in the late evenings, but dream arguments I find are often tedious, and rarely grounded in factuality. In Sosa's defense, it's not his fault that to this day we don't actually know what a human brain is doing at any given time, but in service of making the argument less jarring to the reader in 2026, dreams could be replaced at this point with other forms of non-material perception. Intrusive thoughts, creating art, even partaking in video-games to some extent. Sosa belabours the point that someone under such non-real perceptions can't fully take responsibility of their actions in that result from this perception, to argue that there is little point in judging the epistomology under radical skepticism in the first place. This does, in a way make Sosa a materialist, which I suppose moves his philosophy somewhat closer to familiar territory. I started reading the book at the tail end of the month, so this is about as far in as I got, what with all the stuff that I look at otherwise, so this is as much as I'm writing for now, but I'm expecting that there's gonna be more next time.