Metascepticism and the Traditional Epistemological Project: SOSA and Stroud on Standards of Success

The exchange between Ernest Sosa and Barry Stroud on the possibility of a theory of knowledge is usually treated as a quarrel about epistemic circularity. I argue that it is better understood as a clash over standards of success for epistemology. On Sosa’s virtue perspectivism, reliability and apt belief fix the aim of epistemology. On Stroud’s view, philosophical success requires first-person accessibility and non-circular understanding. The dispute about circularity is therefore derivative. Drawing on Pérez Chico and Sanfélix’s notion of metascepticism, I propose an operational test that distinguishes genuine reform from metascepticism in the strict sense. The result is a way of classifying positions that clarifies what success in epistemology can coherently amount to.