Descartes's epistemology is a special case of Aristotle's virtue ethics.

Attempts are found in domains of human performance, such as sports, games, artistic domains, professional domains like medicine and the law, and so on. These feature distinctive aims, and corresponding competences. Archery, with its distinctive arrows and targets, divides into subdomains. Thus, competitive archery differs importantly from archery hunting.

We can pursue the Cartesian project without restricting ourselves to theology and a priori faculties. A better, broader perspective is properly sought if we pursue the project with reliance on science broadly and on our full span of epistemic competences, including the empirical as well as the a priori.

Success is better than failure; an attempt is a better attempt, it is better as an attempt, if competent than if incompetent; and it is better to succeed through competence - aptly - than through sheer luck.

Lowered reliability obviously yields a lesser competence. But lowered breadth does so as well.

You attain aptness by judging while in good shape and in a good situation (good light, good distance, etc.), through the exercise of good barn-sorting epistemic competence.

A successful account enables us to understand human knowledge in general.