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Quote by Ernest Sosa

“When the risk of failure is too high, the right choice is to forbear.”

Quote by Ernest Sosa

Author

Ernest Sosa is a renowned philosopher, born on June 17, 1940. His research focuses on metaphysics, epistemology, and moral philosophy. more

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“One does not avoid incompetence if one makes an attempt whose likelihood of success is too low. This seems little more than analytic: when the performance is in a domain that imposes standards of risk, attempts may or may not meet such standards. And the relevant competence of agents then includes reliably enough meeting those standards.”

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“Lowered reliability obviously yields a lesser competence. But lowered breadth does so as well.”

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“If I simply refrain from making a judgment in cases where I do not perceive the truth with sufficient clarity and distinctness, then it is clear that I am behaving correctly and avoiding error.”

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“Life is a school of probability.”

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“If I go for the alternative which is false, then obviously I shall be in error; if I take the other side, then it is by... chance that I arrive at the truth, and I shall still be at fault.... In this incorrect use of free will may be found the privation which constitutes the essence of error.”

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“It is also certain that when we assent to some piece of reasoning when our perception of it is lacking, then either we go wrong, or, if we do stumble on the truth, it is by accident, so that we cannot be sure that we are not in error.”

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“Descartes's epistemology is a special case of Aristotle's virtue ethics.”

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“It is possible to produce something that is grammatical either by chance or under the supervision of another. To be proficient in grammar, then, one must both produce what is grammatical and produce it grammatically, that is, in accord with knowledge of grammar in oneself.”

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“Since human good is what humans ought to pursue, the pursuit of interest to Aristotle is then such activity of soul, that which constitutes human good, namely activity that attains desiderata, where the attainment is in accord with virtue.”

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“Flourishing is properly the main human end, and flourishing is activity of soul that succeeds in accord with virtue.”

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