Ever since Plato it has been thought that one knows only if one's belief hits the mark of truth and does so with adequate justification. The issues debated by Laurence BonJour and Ernest Sosa concern mostly the nature and conditions of such epistemic justification, and its place in our understanding of human knowledge.

• Presents central issues pertaining to internalism vs. externalism and foundationalism vs. virtue epistemology in the form of a philosophical debate.
• Introduces students to fundamental questions within epistemology while engaging in contemporary debates.
• Written by two of today’s foremost epistemologists.
• Includes an extensive bibliography.

Laurence BonJour is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Washington, where he teaches epistemology, history of modern philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of law, and political philosophy. He is the author of three books: The Structure of Empirical Knowledge (1985), In Defense of Pure Reason (1998), and Epistemology: Classic Problems and Contemporary Responses (2002).

Ernest Sosa is Professor of Philosophy at Brown University and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Rutgers University every spring term. He has written widely on epistemology and is author of Knowledge in Perspective (1991). Sosa and His Critics, edited by John Greco, is forthcoming in the Blackwell series, Philosophers and Their Critics.