PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES

Philosophical Perspectives, 24, Epistemology, 2010

HOW COMPETENCE MATTERS IN EPISTEMOLOGY

Ernest Sosa
Rutgers University

1. Competences are dispositions of an agent to perform well. Accordingly,

they are structured in the way of dispositions generally. The flammability of a
match, for example, involves the following three (partially specified) components:

Its constitution: the powdery head (the basis)

Its condition: being dry
Its situation: being in oxygen

We see here, first, a constitutional element, the “seat” of the disposition; second,
a condition intrinsic to the host entity; third, a situation within certain limits.
Competences follow suit, as in the example of archery competence, with its
three components (each, again, partially specified):

Constitution: the seat of the archer’s skill

Condition: being awake and sober
Situation: enough light, normal winds

Respective levels of competence include: first, the constitutional competence,

the skill; second, the inner competence, which combines not only a relevant
constitution but also an appropriate condition; third, the complete competence,
with all three aspects, including the agent’s situation. (One can retain one’s skill
when knocked out, tied down, or in the dark. “Skills” contrast in this respect
with “abilities,” which stretch or shrink with linguistic context, so as to cover not
only the constitutional, but also the inner, and even the complete competence.
Abilities, unlike skills, can be constituted by a favorable condition or situation;
when so constituted they come and go with the relevant condition or situation,
assuming all’s well otherwise.)
466 / Ernest Sosa

Dispositions, and competences in particular, are associated with trigger-

manifestation conditionals. The flammability of a match, for example, cor-
responds to: if it were struck it would likely light. Your archery competence
corresponds to: if you were to shoot at a target you would likely hit it. A conditional
corresponds to a complete competence if and only if it must be true of any agent
who satisfies the constitution-condition-triad that makes up that competence.
Any one trigger-manifestation conditional corresponds to several constitution-
condition-situation triads. But only very few of these triads might be of interest
to communities social or linguistic.
We tend to be interested in how things would behave in restricted situations.
Behavior in those situations holds special interest for us. Consider thus athletic or
artistic skills or competences, and dispositions such as fragility, flammability, and
solubility. How do we test for possession of these? We judge based on behavior
relevantly triggered. A trigger-manifestation conditional tests for a constitutional
competence, however, only if the subject is in good enough condition and properly
situated. Failure to perform well may be irrelevant to such competence if one is
drunk or in the dark.

2. In a performance with an aim, the agent aims to attain his objective, which
induces a further aim: to attain the objective aptly, through his competence. The
agent aims to perform aptly, and doing so adroitly is necessary but not sufficient
for doing so aptly. For example, we can distinguish between the adroitness of
an archery shot, whereby the archer performs with some level of competence,
and its aptness, whereby the shot’s accuracy manifests its adroitness. The archer
performs competently provided the arrow’s orientation and speed are right as it
leaves the bow. But this is compatible with the shot’s being spoiled by wind that
diverts the arrow from its course to the target.
If a later gust puts the arrow back on course, then the shot’s accuracy is due
to that second gust. As a result, its accuracy now fails to manifest the archer’s
skill, his competence or adroitness, so the shot fails to be apt.

3. Some dispositions are recognized and assigned names based on how useful
it is for the community to do so. Among these are dispositions it is helpful to
locate in navigating one’s environment. It is helpful to know what behavior to
expect when it can bear practically on our lives. Other dispositions gain their
importance in domains constructed for our amusement (as with games, sports,
and arts), or to facilitate our mutual interaction or the group’s welfare (as with
etiquette and politics). Each such domain involves competences to perform in
favored ways, in line with corresponding conventions. Competences fall into
place as special cases of dispositions, ones that a community will recognize and
perhaps name because of the special interest attaching to their possession.
Audition judges, athletic scouts, and appointing committees all need to
discern relevant competences in respective candidates or applicants. But their
procedures are just semi-formalized versions of the sort of assessment made
 How Competence Matters / 467

constantly as we judge character, and more broadly reliability. Such judgments

tend to keep track of who would perform well in situations wherein good
performance is of interest. In assessing people’s character, talents, and abilities,
we are interested in how they would perform in relevant situations.1

4. Let us focus now on competence to judge well, though much of our

discussion applies mutatis mutandis to competence to choose well.
Consider perceptual competence, such as good eyesight, or more specifically
color vision. Here again the same structure is found: a constitution component,
including rods and cones; a condition component, including being awake and
sober; and a situation component, including adequate light. Corresponding levels
of competence are also discernible: the constitutional, the inner, and the complete
competence.
One might perform well even while poorly situated. A judgment that a seen
surface is red can manifest excellent color vision, for example, even if the light
is bad by being red. Through no fault of your own, you might fail to know that
the light is bad. Of course if the light is bad by being red, then your accuracy
in taking the surface to be red could not manifest your good color vision. Note
well: your judgment could then manifest your good color vision, but its accuracy
could not. Believing the surface to be red is Gettiered when the light is red, as is
the archer’s shot when it hits the target because of the second gust of wind. The
Gettier phenomenon thus generalizes beyond the case of belief. A performance
of whatever sort is Gettiered if it is both accurate and adroit without being apt.

5. Dream skepticism scorns ordinary perceptual judgments because these

might too easily be made, not in wakeful reality, but only in a dream, with
the subject unable to tell the difference. This objection is easily countered by
our competence-based account. The normal perceiver exercises his perceptual
competence, let us say. He exercises a competence that is complete. His visual
systems are fully functional; he is awake and alert; he sees the object in plain
view. These are all involved in an ordinary judgment that one sees a hand, or a
fire. The fact that the subject might so easily have been dreaming does not take
away any of that. If the subject had been asleep and dreaming he would have
been in poor epistemic shape. But he is in good shape when awake, in command
of his full epistemic competence, with all three of its components.

6. That is the case of Norm, a normal perceiver who sees a hand or a fire
in normal conditions. Compare Kyle, who views a kaleidoscope surface while a
jokester controls its color as well as the quality of the light. Two combinations
are there equally likely: a bad white-surface-cum-red-light combination, and a
good red-surface-cum-white-light combination.
Suppose the jokester installs the good combination. Does Kyle then know
the surface to be red when he so judges in good light through his normal color
vision?
468 / Ernest Sosa

Before you answer that, compare Simone, a pilot in training who could easily
be, not in a real cockpit, but in a simulation, with no tell-tale signs. In my thought
experiment, trainees are strapped down asleep in their cockpits, and only then
awakened. Let us suppose Simone to be in a real cockpit, flying a real plane, and
shooting targets accurately. Surely her shots can then be not only accurate, but
also competent, and even apt.
So much for Simone’s physical shots and for how their aptness is affected
by her danger of incompetence. What of her intellectual shots, her judgments
and beliefs? Suppose again she happens to be well situated, in a real cockpit,
flying her plane. Take her belief that she shoots a certain target. And suppose
this belief to be accurate and competent. Can it also be apt? That is to say, can
it be a belief whose accuracy manifests Simone’s epistemic competence? Can it
be apt despite her competence having been in so much danger, since she might
so easily have been poorly situated, in the simulation cockpit?
It is hard to deny that Simone’s belief can be apt, given how clearly apt her
shot can be when it hits its target. Despite its fragility, her shooting competence
can be manifest in the accuracy of her shot, which would thereby be apt. What
then should we say of her belief, the intellectual shot? Why can it not be apt, like
the physical shot? Even if this analogy makes it plausible that the belief is apt,
however, perhaps it is apt without being knowledge. After all, it is correct only
through a kind of accidental luck seemingly inimical to true knowledge.
Compare finally the familiar case of Barney, who sees a real barn in fake
barn country. Barney exercises his barn-sorting competence, given his position
from the road as he sees an apparently ordinary barn. Yet, in spite of this, Barney,
like Simone, seems not to know in believing as he does.
Perhaps Kyle more plausibly knows his seen surface to be red, even if the
color jokester might easily have given him the bad combination instead, by
making the light red. So long as the light is white, Kyle sees the surface to be
red. He is plausibly like Norm. Both are well situated while awake, and both sort
accurately, whether the sorted item is a fire, a hand, or a red surface. Yet Kyle
seems also similar to Barney, and it is not easy to be sure whether like Norm he
does know, or whether like Barney he does not.
Nevertheless, all four cases are importantly similar, and plausibly analogous.
Norm, Kyle, Simone, and Barney all retain their relevant inner competence. Each
has the respective constitutional competence and is in good shape to exercise that
competence. However, each also lacks or is in danger of lacking the situation
required for the complete competence. Norm might easily have been asleep and
dreaming. Kyle might easily have been viewing his surface in red light. Simone
might easily have been in the simulation cockpit. Barney might easily have been
viewing a mere barn façade.
Three options open on these four cases: Do we say that the subject aptly
believes and knows accordingly? Or do we say he aptly believes but does not
know? Or do we deny that he so much as aptly believes?
 How Competence Matters / 469

7. Suppose we deny that Barney so much as aptly believes, alleging that he

loses his full competence on entering fake barn country. It is thus no longer true
that if he were to believe he sees a barn he would likely enough be right. Now
he might too easily be viewing one of the fakes. For this reason we might deny
that Barney’s belief is apt. Because he is in fake barn country he is no longer
competent to tell when it’s a real barn he sees.2
Note how awkward it would be to hold beliefs to that standard, however,
without doing so for performances generally. Yet we impose no such requirement
on archers, pilot trainees, or athletes. A basketball player, for example, might be
in an indoor venue where his shots are calmly apt, even though high winds would
impair them in all nearby venues where he might easily have been shooting.
It is not physical proximity that matters, moreover, but at most modal
proximity. In the barns case physical proximity matters because it entails modal
proximity. But it is easy enough to break that connection, in which case our
intuitions follow modal rather than physical proximity. Suppose the subject were
viewing the relevant structures on a screen, for example, while the cameras feeding
the screen were all far away and widely spaced. What then bears on whether he
knows that he sees a real barn? Surely what matters is what structures he might
easily have seen instead, where their physical proximity, to himself or to each
other, would now be irrelevant.
Nevertheless, in general the fragility of an agent’s competence bears mini-
mally or not at all on the aptness of his performance. A performance is apt so
long as its success manifests a complete competence, even one that remains only
by luck. Moreover, the fact that you might easily have failed to perform aptly,
because of inappropriate conditions, does not bear on the aptness of your actual
performance, so long as you perform with complete competence. What matters
is whether the appropriate conditions remain, even if they might easily have been
missing.
What are these complete appropriate conditions? More particularly, what are
the appropriate situational conditions for the exercise of a competence? Whether
the competence is physical or intellectual, what sorts of conditions are required
if the performer is to be properly credited with the complete competence that
can yield apt performance?
Our question is posed in general terms. Is it possible to answer it in such
terms? In trying to do so, we should recall how widely competences and disposi-
tions vary, in the interest they hold for us. We test for interesting dispositions and
competences through relevant trigger/manifestation conditionals, but the test is
imposed only relative to restricted limits of condition and situation. That you fail
a conditionals test when in poor shape or poorly situated bears not at all on your
possession of a corresponding constitutional competence. Athletic competence,
for example, is assessed relative to situations bounded by implicit limits. Compare
Norm, Kyle, Simone, and Barney, and whether they believe aptly. Here again it
will matter what boundaries limit appropriateness of condition and situation.
470 / Ernest Sosa

A trigger-manifestation conditional will help determine possession of a

relevant competence only if the agent is appropriately situated. Perceptual
sorting competence is of interest only within certain boundaries of condition
and situation. It is not to be tested by reference to the conduct of someone
asleep, nor of someone in a simulation. Nor is color sorting competence to be
tested by reference to someone in bad light. Nor is barn sorting competence to
be tested by reference to someone who would more easily encounter a fake barn
than a real one.
What in general makes a situation thus appropriate? Again, can anything
general be said here, covering competence generally? Can a single statement cover
all competence, including perceptual sorting, as with the sorting of barns, or of
red surfaces, and also physical performance, as with shooting at a target or flying
an airplane?
Competent sorting of sortals requires that the relevant sortal appearances
not be detached from the sortal reality. Suppose someone fails the sorting test, or
would very easily do so, when appearances are thus detached from normal reality.
This may have no bearing on whether he has the relevant sorting competence.
Failure here may have no more plausible bearing than would failure of an athletic
test in a hurricane or while the agent is dead drunk or tied down. That one
might easily have failed the test in nearby windy venues has no bearing on one’s
competence while inside.3

8. It seems most plausible to treat all four cases alike in the relevant respect,
by taking them all to be cases of apt performance, where success manifests
competence. The condition and situation of each agent does seem appropriate for
the relevant trigger-manifestation conditionals to help determine possession of the
respective competence. What is manifest in the agent’s success is therefore not
only his constitutional competence, but also his being in appropriate shape while
appropriately situated.
Intellectual performance, like athletic and other physical performance, is apt
when its success manifests the agent’s competence. The competence that must be
manifest for the performance to be apt is, moreover, the complete competence,
which includes the agent’s being in appropriate shape while appropriately
situated. The relevant shape and situation are set, finally, by our interest in
the quality of the performance outcomes when the relevant performers are in
such shape while thus situated. We here have a kind of quantifier restriction,
as when we correctly say there is “nothing” in a box full of air molecules. A
performance is apt if and only if its success manifests a complete competence,
one that includes not only its innermost seat, but also the agent’s relevant shape
and situation within restricted boundaries. (It is this parametric restriction that
seems analogous to that which rules out air molecules in determining the contents
of a box.)
 How Competence Matters / 471

9. Still open, however, is this question: Does aptness of belief amount to any
kind of knowledge? The beliefs of Norm, Kyle, Simone, and Barney might all
be apt while only Norm attains knowledge. Indeed most of us find it intuitively
very plausible that Barney does not know that he sees a barn. And the same
seems analogously true of Simone’s belief that she shoots a real target, and even
of Kyle’s belief that he sees a red surface. How do we account for such lack of
knowledge, if we take each of these beliefs to be apt?
Does true knowledge require a kind of safety on top of aptness? Kyle,
Simone, and Barney in that case fall short simply because their beliefs are so
unsafe.4
The first problem with this approach is how to make it plausible that the
kind of safety denied to our three unfortunates is not denied also to Norm.
Does Norm’s ordinary perceptual belief sufficiently avoid the sort of danger
that dooms the other three beliefs? Unlike being envatted or bedeviled, after
all, dreaming and insanity are relatively familiar phenomena; these pose greater
danger for ordinary perceptual beliefs. Is this danger low enough that Norm’s
belief is spared even while the other three beliefs are not? That is not beyond
reasonable doubt.
We are considering whether a belief must be safe as well as apt if it is
to constitute knowledge. A second kind of trouble for this safety requirement
derives from problematic examples. Take a subject who drinks from a cup out
of several available on a table. All the other cups, let us say, contain a drug that
much degrades “subitizing” ability. This is the ability to discern the cardinality of
a perceived collection, without having to count. So our subject might easily have
greatly lowered his subitizing competence. He might thus easily have believed
incorrectly, since his competence might easily have been degraded. There were
many equally available cups, after all; only by luck did he drink from the one
without the drug. Does the fact that he might have suffered that fate deny him
subitizing knowledge if in fact he does not suffer it? I can only report that to me
that seems implausible.
These two problems for the requirement of safety encourage our search for
a further alternative.

10. I distinguish between animal knowledge and reflective knowledge.

Animal knowledge is just apt belief. Reflective knowledge is apt belief aptly
grasped. The normativity constitutive of animal knowledge is performance
normativity with a AAA structure: accuracy, adroitness, and aptness. A problem
arises for that theory of knowledge because withholding of belief and suspension
of judgment are assessable epistemically. Withholding and suspension seem
clearly subject to the same epistemic normativity as belief and judgment. Yet
withholding and suspending are forms of forbearing from performance, which
lies beyond the reach of the performance normativity of aiming at the truth.
Nevertheless, it is not hard to bring forbearing within the fold of performance
normativity. Just return to our archery example, but replace the competitor with
472 / Ernest Sosa

a hunter. The competitor does not have much choice. Once his turn comes up
and he is up to the line, he is expected to shoot and has no discretion. By
contrast, it is integral to Diana’s competence that she pick her shots well. Target
and shot selection are an important part of what makes a good huntress. And
now the archer needs competence of another order. She needs the second order
competence to assess her first order competence and its required condition and
situation. She must gauge her level of skill as well as her condition and situation,
so as to assess risk properly.
Diana’s shot is apt if and only if its accuracy manifests its adroitness. It
is meta-competent if and only if it corresponds to a competent second-order
judgment that the shot would be apt. These do not necessarily go together. Either
one can be present without the other. Suppose Diana sees a distant rabbit scurry
in twilight fog, on an occasion when she has drunk much wine. She might think
there’s little chance she would succeed, but incorrectly so, as she underestimates
her prowess. She shoots anyway and hits the target aptly. But her shot fails to be
meta-competent. Its accuracy does not correspond to a competent second-order
judgment.
It can also turn out the other way. She might see a still deer in the middle of
a sunny field well within her range, and competently judge that her shot would
run low enough risk to be worth taking. Yet it might be one of those times when
she misses even so. Here the shot is meta-competent without being apt.

11. Something similar is true of beliefs. A belief can similarly be apt

without being meta-competent, and meta-competent without being apt. Thus
consider the ability to solve arithmetical problems. Here again one’s second-
order competence can vary independently of one’s first-order competence so as
to parallel our results for Diana. An arithmetical belief can be apt without being
meta-competent, and meta-competent without being apt.
A belief amounts to animal knowledge provided it is apt, but it amounts to
reflective knowledge only if it is also meta-competent. This offers a solution for
our epistemic problems. All four of our subjects, I say, enjoy animal knowledge,
but only Norm rises to the level of reflective knowledge. Let us first see why this
is so.

12. My argument is as follows.

To begin with, reflective knowledge requires apt belief aptly grasped to be
apt. It requires, therefore, not only apt belief, but also, on the second order, apt
grasp (i.e., apt belief or presupposition) that one’s first order belief is apt. So,
reflective knowledge requires apt grasp that one’s first-order belief is apt, where
the accuracy of this second-order attitude manifests the believer’s second-order
competence. This yields our first premise.

a. Reflective knowledge requires meta-competent grasp (since it requires

meta-apt grasp).
 How Competence Matters / 473

b. Meta-competent grasp that p requires competent grasp that one’s belief

that p is or would be apt.
c. Competent grasp that one’s belief that p is or would be apt requires
competent grasp that one’s belief that p is or would be competent.
d. Norm — the ordinary perceiver who knows perceptually of the hand or
fire before him — does have the competence to grasp that his first-order
belief is or would be competent.
e. However, our other subjects — Kyle, Simone, and Barney — all fall
short. None has the second order competence to grasp that their relevant
first-order beliefs are or would be competent.
f. It follows that only Norm’s beliefs can amount to reflective knowledge;
the beliefs of the others inevitably fall short.

13. Obviously this argument depends on the nature of the relevant second-order
competence required for competent grasp that one’s first order perceptual beliefs
are or would be competent. Why is it that our three unfortunates lack the second-
order competence, unlike the more fortunate Norm?
Suppose we assess our perceptual competence, in view of our condition
and situation, for believing on a certain subject matter. How does one normally
make that assessment? Even when one just presupposes that one’s shape and
situation are up to the job, what determines whether or not this presupposition
is adequately competent? Arguably, the relevant second-order competence is a
default competence that assumes first-order competence unless there are tell-tale
signs to the contrary. Such signs might derive from contrary, ostensibly reliable
testimony, or from some other source of incoherence. A Müller-Lyer subject
begins to suspect his first-order competence, for example, when measurement
clashes with visual appearance.
Our second-order competence has thus a constitutional component that
responds with suspicion when prompted by tell-tale signs, and with trust in light
of their absence. The fuller inner competence will of course require that one
be in good shape. One must not be drunk or drugged or asleep or otherwise
disabled. In addition, and here is the crucial point, the complete second-order
competence will require also that one be properly situated. Just as the first-order
complete color-vision competence requires good light, so the complete second-
order competence requires that the subject be properly situated. In order to be
competent on the second-order, one must be so situated that sooner or later
there would be tell-tale signs if the relevant first-order competence were absent.
However, this is precisely what our three unfortunate subjects are missing, and
what systematically goes missing in the scenarios designed by skeptics. These
are standardly designed, explicitly or implicitly, so that the subject surreptitiously
lacks first-order competence.
What is crucial is whether the second-order competence is absent. And this
can happen even when the first-order competence is present. Even when the first-
order competence is present, if the subject is ill-placed to determine its presence,
474 / Ernest Sosa

he still lacks the second-order competence. And he is ill-placed, even with the
first-order competence present, so long as there would be no signs of its absence.
It does not matter whether the competence is there or not on the first order.
What matters is that the subject is unable to discern its presence or absence.
Because this deprives him of the required competence on the second-order, he is
inappropriately situated.
And now our argument can proceed as suggested. Without the second-order
competence, Barney is denied meta-competent grasp that he sees a barn, Simone
is denied meta-competent grasp that she sees a shot hitting a target, and Kyle is
denied meta-competent grasp that he sees a red surface. Meta-competent grasp
requires complete second-order competent grasp that one is competent on the
first order. And each of our three unfortunates lacks this required second-order
competence. Each of them lacks the situation needed for such competence, since
none would be tipped off if he lacked the first-order competence.
So much for the three unfortunates. Why, however, is Norm more fortunate?
Is Norm so situated that he would have tell-tale signs of his lacking first-
order competence? In his case that lack would derive from his being asleep
and dreaming. Would he have any sign of that? He would indeed, if we believe
Austin and Descartes. According to them, our dreams are incoherent, or have
a dreamlike quality (an Austinian quality that may or may not be something
other than the Cartesian incoherence). It’s just that once asleep we are no
longer in proper shape to take that into account. So, once asleep, we lack
the relevant competence. Even if, in line with Austin and Descartes, we retain
the situational element of that complete second-order competence, we lose
an essential inner component in any case. Once asleep, we are in bad shape
epistemically, with a consequent loss of competence. But here’s the important
point: Norm’s incompetence when asleep is of no relevance to whether he has the
complete second-order competence when awake and alert. So, this is how Norm
is more fortunate than the three unfortunates. This is why he attains a level of
knowledge denied to the other three.
In my view, then, Norm has both animal and reflective knowledge that
he sees a hand, or a fire. By contrast, Kyle, Simone, and Barney fall short of
reflective knowledge. These do plausibly attain a level of knowledge, “animal
knowledge,” or so I submit. What really matters, anyhow, is to make explicit the
relevant conceptual structure. This structure of apt belief will be important in
any case, if only because or its involvement in a notion of reflective knowledge
with its own value. This notion of reflective knowledge seems more defensible
even as a closer approach to a literal sense of ‘knowledge’, one involved in a
widespread view according to which unfortunates such as Barney fall short of
knowledge.
As a bonus, finally, we can also discern an interesting cleavage in Gettier
phenomena. In some Gettier cases the protagonist lacks reflective knowledge but
has animal knowledge. Plausibly our three unfortunates are examples of that.
In other Gettier cases, however, the protagonist lacks even animal knowledge,
 How Competence Matters / 475

as where he depends essentially on a competent false belief in acquiring his

competent true belief that falls short of knowledge.
For a competence-based virtue epistemology, then, animal knowledge re-
quires apt belief, but reflective knowledge requires more. Reflective knowledge
requires apt belief that is meta-competent (and, indeed, meta-apt). The knower
must have a second-order grasp — a belief or presupposition — that his first-
order belief is or would be apt. In a Gettier case, such as that of Barney, that of
Kyle, and that of Simone, the subject may have, and probably does have, animal
knowledge. He does have apt belief. But he definitely lacks meta-competence.
He lacks the second-order competence required for competent grasp that his
first-order belief is or would be apt. Norm, by contrast, can enjoy both animal
and reflective knowledge that he sees a hand, or a fire, since his grasp is apt, and
since he does command, while awake and alert, the second-order competence to
grasp that his first-order belief is apt.

Notes

1. Dispositions admit degrees. A mug might be fragile, a cup more fragile, and a
fine wine glass more fragile yet. Similarly for competences. Athletes and artistic
performers spread out in a hierarchy of pertinent skill. Your place in such a
hierarchy depends on how well you would retain your complete competence as
your condition and situation varied (provided these remained within the limits
of interest), and also on the quality of the manifestations, itself most often a
matter of degree.
2. For defense of this approach, compare John Greco, “Knowledge and Success
from Ability,” Philosophical Studies 142 (2009): 17–26; and also Alan Millar’s
part of The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations (Oxford
University Press, 2010).
3. Indeed, failing the test will not affect one’s having the competence even when
one is outside, so long as the high winds are not blowing, no matter how easily
they might have been blowing.
4. This is Duncan Pritchard’s approach in his part of The Nature and Value of
Knowledge: Three Investigations (Oxford University Press, 2010).