Professor Sosa's area of interest and specialization include epistemology (skepticism, virtue epistemology, moral epistemology, externalism/internalism, foundationalism/coherentism, contextualism, imagination, intuitions, the a priori, truth) and metaphysics (realism/antirealism, truth, personal identity).

Currently I am preparing my 2005 Locke Lectures for publication. These develop in six chapters my approach to epistemology in terms of intellectual virtues and a distinction between animal knowledge and reflective knowledge.

My research is conducted through solitary thought, and through discussion with our graduate students in dissertation workshops and seminars, and through presentations at conferences and colloquia nationally and internationally. Accordingly, I have not applied for external research funds in decades.

A short summary of past funding awards, however, include grants or fellowships from the Canada Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Science Foundation, the Exxon Educational Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Editor, since 1983, of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , a philosophy quarterly published since 1940.
Editor of Noûs , since 1999
General editor Cambridge Studies in Philosophy (Cambridge University Press), 1992-2003

Elected Vice-President of the Federation Internationale des Societes de Philosophie (FISP), 1988-93. Elected in 1993 by FISP to co-chair the program committee for the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, held in Boston in 1998.

Recipient of grants or fellowships from the Canada Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Science Foundation, the Exxon Educational Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Elected in 1992 to permanent membership in the Institut International de Philosophie (IIP). Elected as follows by the IIP: in 1993, to serve a three-year term on its Executive Committee; in 1997, to serve a three-year term on its Nominating Committee.

Served the American Philosophical Association (APA) as follows: for nine years as Secretary-Treasurer of its Eastern Division, and later for five years as Chair of the APA International Cooperation Committee, one of the Association's five standing committees. Subsequently elected by the Eastern Division of the APA to serve a three-year term as its Divisional Representative; and in 2003 elected to serve a three year term, first as Vice-President, then as President, and then as Past-President. Elected Chair of the APA Board of Officers for 2005-8. All seven offices carry ex officio membership on the APA Board.

Subject of entries in the Oxford Companion to Philosophy , ed. Ted Honderich (Oxford University Press, 1995), in the Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers , ed. S. Brown, D. Collinson, and R. Wilkinson (Routledge, 1995), in the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005), in Epistemology A-Z (Palgrave, 2005), and in the Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers , 1860-1960 (Thoemmes Press, 2005). "Ernest Sosa and His Critics", edited by John Greco, appears in the series Philosophers and Their Critics (Blackwell Publishers).

Elected in 2001 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Elected in 2002 to give the John Locke Lectures at Oxford University.

Elected in 1992 to permanent membership in the Institut International de Philosophie. Elected as follows by the IIP: in 1993, to serve a three-year term on its Executive Committee; in 1997, to serve a three-year term on its Nominating Committee.

Served the American Philosophical Association (APA) as follows: for nine years as Secretary-Treasurer of its Eastern Division, and later for five years as Chair of the APA International Cooperation Committee, one of the Association's five standing committees. Subsequently elected by the Eastern Division of the APA to serve a three-year term as its Divisional Representative; and in 2003 elected to serve a three year term, first as Vice-President, then as President, and then as Past-President. Elected Chair of the APA Board of Officers for 2005-8. All seven offices carry ex officio membership on the APA Board.