Three contemporary epistemologists

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1. Ernest Sosa, virtue epistemology.

It is now generally accepted that, in ethical philosophy, the dichotomy between teleological and deontological ethics is too simple. There is a new (old) kid at the table, "virtue ethics." The idea behind that label is that if one has certain character traits (virtues) then what one does will be right. The traits can be isolated and discussed independent of ideas of rightness, so that justice isn't a virtue because it leads to just decisions: rather, we know certain decisions to be just because just people make them!

With Sosa and others, "virtue ethics" has expanded into "virtue epistemology." The idea is the same: evaluation passes from the acts to the doers in the former case, it passes from knowledge to the knowers in the latter.

2. John McDowell, a disjunctive theory of perceptual experience

McDowell (portrayed above) is a realist about the external world. He sees a certain "tempting"line of argument about hallucinations as a threat to that realism, and he responds to that threat by what is known as his disjunction theory of perceptual experience. Further research I leave, dear reader, to you.

3. Tyler Burge, externalism with respect to external content.

Burge's work responds to a classic epistemological issue: what does it mean to have a belief? Internalists believe that the significance of a belief can be understood from that belief's internal qualities or, at most, from the mental state of which the belief is a part.

But externalists hold that the fact of a belief cannot be understood without cognizance of the physical and social reality surrounding the particular organism considered as the believer.

Just wanted to put this out there.

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