Expounding the Absence of Ernest Sosa’s Situation Component in Gettier Cases

Abstract

The virtue epistemological account of knowledge which Ernest Sosa espouses - in his works from the year 1980 to 2015 - is one of the propitious accounts in contemporary epistemology. According to this account, which postulates both belief and action as performances, knowledge is a case where the success of the belief manifests the competence of the agent. Skill, Shape, and Situation are the components for the success to manifest competence. This paper explicates how these notions can be delineated in the Gettier cases. It argues that skill and shape are present in the Gettier cases. However, this paper points out that the component of situation is absent in most of the Gettier cases. Nonetheless, this paper notes that there are Gettier cases where all these components are present such that Skill, Shape and Situation are not rendered as sufficient for success to manifest competence and thereby for knowledge.