scholarly journals ARE INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES TRUTH-RELEVANT?

Episteme ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 381-392
Author(s):  
Blake Roeber
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Intellectual Virtue ◽  
Narrow Sense ◽  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
Intellectual Virtues ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Value Of Knowledge ◽  
Wide Range

ABSTRACTAccording to attributor virtue epistemology (the view defended by Ernest Sosa, John Greco, and others), S knows that p only if her true belief that p is attributable to some intellectual virtue, competence, or ability that she possesses. Attributor virtue epistemology captures a wide range of our intuitions about the nature and value of knowledge, and it has many able defenders. Unfortunately, it has an unrecognized consequence that many epistemologists will think is sufficient for rejecting it: namely, it makes knowledge depend on factors that aren't truth-relevant, even in the broadest sense of this term, and it also makes knowledge depend in counterintuitive ways on factors that are truth-relevant in the more common narrow sense of this term. As I show in this paper, the primary objection to interest-relative views in the pragmatic encroachment debate can be raised even more effectively against attributor virtue epistemology.

Virtues and Vices of Virtue Epistemology

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Greco
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Generality Problem ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Recent Interest ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Cognitive Virtue ◽  
Central Claim

In recent years, virtue epistemology has won the attention of a wide range of philosophers. A developed form of the position has been expounded forcefully by Ernest Sosa and represents the most plausible version of reliabilism to date. Through the person of Alvin Plantinga, virtue epistemology has taken philosophy of religion by storm, evoking objections and defenses in a wide variety of journals and volumes. Historically, virtue epistemology has its roots in the work of Thomas Reid, and the explosion of Reid scholarship in the last few years is perhaps both a cause and an effect of recent interest in the position.In this paper I want to examine the virtues and vices of virtue epistemology. My conclusion will be that the position is correct, when qualified appropriately. The central claim of virtue epistemology is that, Gettier problems aside, knowledge is true belief which results from a cognitive virtue. In section one I will clarify this claim with some brief remarks about the nature of virtues in general, and cognitive virtues in particular. In section two I will consider two objections to the theory of knowledge which results. In section three of the paper I will argue that virtue epistemology can be qualified so as to avoid the objections raised in section two. Finally, I will argue that the amendments which solve the objections of section two also allow us to solve a version of the dreaded generality problem.

Intellectual Virtues

Philosophy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlie Crerar ◽  
Teresa Allen ◽  
Heather Battaly
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Intellectual Virtue ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Intellectual Virtues ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Intellectual Humility ◽  
Professional Fields ◽  
Aristotelian Tradition

Intellectual virtues are qualities that make us excellent thinkers. There are different analyses of exactly which qualities count as intellectual virtues: virtue responsibilists have emphasized praiseworthy character traits, such as open-mindedness and intellectual humility, while virtue reliabilists have emphasized reliable skills and faculties, such as vision, memory, and skills of logic. Importantly, all agree that intellectual virtues are (i) excellences, as opposed to defects; and (ii) distinctively intellectual and not, or not simply, moral. In other words, intellectual virtues are qualities that make us excellent (and not defective) as thinkers, not (or not simply) as people in general. This bibliography provides an overview of philosophical work on the intellectual virtues. It includes articles and books addressing responsibilist and reliabilist analyses of the structure of intellectual virtue; analyses of individual intellectual virtues; the application of intellectual virtue to education and other professional fields; the role of intellectual virtues in epistemology; and, finally, the structure of intellectual vice. It also includes some historical sources on intellectual virtue, though its focus is contemporary. Analyses of intellectual virtue (and of individual intellectual virtues) have developed in tandem with the epistemological subfield of virtue epistemology, which employs the notion of intellectual virtue in an account of knowledge. These analyses also frequently draw on virtue ethics, especially in the Aristotelian tradition. Some of the sources cited touch upon connections between intellectual virtue and these fields, though a fuller treatment of these topics can be found in the corresponding bibliographies on Virtue Epistemology and Virtue Ethics.

scholarly journals Educating for Intellectual Virtue: A Critique from Action Guidance

Episteme ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Kotzee ◽  
J. Adam Carter ◽  
Harvey Siegel
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
Intellectual Virtue ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
Intellectual Virtues ◽  
Effective Pedagogy ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Action Guidance ◽  
Pedagogical Challenge

Abstract Virtue epistemology is among the dominant influences in mainstream epistemology today. An important commitment of one strand of virtue epistemology – responsibilist virtue epistemology – is that it must provide regulative normative guidance for good thinking. Recently, a number of virtue epistemologists (most notably Baehr) have held that virtue epistemology not only can provide regulative normative guidance, but moreover that we should reconceive the primary epistemic aim of all education as the inculcation of the intellectual virtues. Baehr's picture contrasts with another well-known position – that the primary aim of education is the promotion of critical thinking. In this paper – that we hold makes a contribution to both philosophy of education and epistemology and, a fortiori, epistemology of education – we challenge this picture. We outline three criteria that any putative aim of education must meet and hold that it is the aim of critical thinking, rather than the aim of instilling intellectual virtue, that best meets these criteria. On this basis, we propose a new challenge for intellectual virtue epistemology, next to the well-known empirically driven ‘situationist challenge’. What we call the ‘pedagogical challenge’ maintains that the intellectual virtues approach does not have available a suitably effective pedagogy to qualify the acquisition of intellectual virtue as the primary aim of education. This is because the pedagogic model of the intellectual virtues approach (borrowed largely from exemplarist thinking) is not properly action-guiding. Instead, we hold that, without much further development in virtue-based theory, logic and critical thinking must still play the primary role in the epistemology of education.

Intellectual Virtues and Truth, Understanding, and Wisdom

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Baehr
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Intellectual Virtue ◽  
Intellectual Virtues ◽  
Intellectual Humility ◽  
Cognitive Error ◽  
Intellectual Courage ◽  
Personal Character ◽  
Theoretical Wisdom

This chapter addresses the proper end or aim of intellectual virtues. After distinguishing between two fundamentally different conceptions of intellectual virtue, the author considers the plausibility, with respect to each conception, of the “binary thesis,” according to which the proper aim of intellectual virtues is true belief and the avoidance of cognitive error. The author goes on to argue that if one understands intellectual virtues (as many virtue epistemologists do) as admirable traits of personal character—for example, as traits like curiosity, open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and intellectual humility—then sophia or theoretical wisdom presents itself as a plausible way of understanding their aim.

scholarly journals Virtue Epistemology and Abilism on Knowledge

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Turri
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Intellectual Virtue ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Alternative Theory ◽  
Accurate Representation ◽  
Ordinary Knowledge

Virtue epistemologists define knowledge as true belief produced by intellectual virtue. In this paper, I review how this definition fails in three important ways. First, it fails as an account of the ordinary knowledge concept, because neither belief nor reliability is essential to knowledge ordinarily understood. Second, it fails as an account of the knowledge relation itself, insofar as that relation is operationalized in the scientific study of cognition. Third, it serves no prescriptive purpose identified up till now. An alternative theory, abilism, provides a superior account of knowledge as it is ordinarily and scientifically understood. According to abilism, knowledge is an accurate representation produced by cognitive ability.

scholarly journals Conhecimento sem valor?

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-357
Author(s):  
Felipe Rocha L. Santos
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Good Theory ◽  
Value Of Knowledge ◽  
Final Value ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology ◽  
Mere True Belief

The value problem is the problem that arises from the following reasoning: if both the knowledge and mere true belief are equally useful, then for what reason knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. Despite being formulated initially in Plato’s Meno dialogue, the value problem seems to have received little attention since. In contemporary epistemology, the value problem became central, requiring that any good theory of knowledge should be able to explain the value of knowledge in order to be a good theory of knowledge. Recently, new demands to the value of problem arise, demanding that it should be explained not only the reason why knowledge is more valuable, but also the reason why knowledge has final value. In this paper, two answers to the value problem that have been made recently are analyzed, namely the reliabilist solution and the virtue epistemology solution, and I will conclude that both solutions fail to explain the final value of knowledge.

Autonomous Knowledge

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Adam Carter
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Performance Enhancement ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Propositional Knowledge ◽  
Value Of Knowledge ◽  
New Class ◽  
And Performance

A central conclusion developed and defended throughout the book is that epistemic autonomy is necessary for knowledge (both knowledge-that and knowledge-how) and in ways that epistemologists have not yet fully appreciated. The book is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 motivates (using a series of twists on Lehrer’s TrueTemp case) the claim that propositional knowledge requires autonomous belief. Chapters 2 and 3 flesh out this proposal in two ways, by defending a specific form of history-sensitive externalism with respect to propositional knowledge-apt autonomous belief (Chapter 2) and by showing how the idea that knowledge requires autonomous belief—understood along the externalist lines proposed—corresponds with an entirely new class of knowledge defeaters (Chapter 3). Chapter 4 extends the proposal to (both intellectualist and anti-intellectualist) knowledge-how and performance enhancement, and in a way that combines insights from virtue epistemology with research on freedom, responsibility, and manipulation. Chapter 5 concludes with a new twist on the Value of Knowledge debate, by vindicating the value of epistemically autonomous knowledge over that which falls short, including (mere) heteronomous but otherwise epistemically impeccable justified true belief.

Reliabilist Virtue Epistemology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Greco ◽  
Jonathan Reibsamen
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Naturalized Epistemology ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Value Of Knowledge ◽  
Intellectual Abilities ◽  
Virtue Reliabilism ◽  
Virtue Responsibilism ◽  
The Gettier Problem

According to reliabilist virtue epistemology, or virtue reliabilism, knowledge is true belief that is produced by intellectual excellence (or virtue), where intellectual excellence is understood in terms of reliable, truth-directed cognitive dispositions. This chapter explains why virtue reliabilism is a form of epistemological externalism, is a moderately naturalized epistemology, and is distinct from virtue responsibilism. It explains virtue reliabilism’s answers to various forms of skepticism, its solution to the Gettier Problem, and its explanation of the value of knowledge. The chapter also describes several varieties of contemporary virtue reliabilism. Finally, it offers replies to two recently prominent objections to virtue reliabilism: that it is committed to an untenable epistemological individualism, and that there are empirical reasons to doubt whether people generally have the kinds of intellectual abilities that virtue reliabilism requires for knowledge.

The Structure of Open-Mindedness

2011 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Baehr
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Intellectual Virtue ◽  
College Freshman ◽  
Intellectual Virtues ◽  
Introductory Course ◽  
Ways Of Thinking

Open-mindedness enjoys widespread recognition as an intellectual virtue. This is evident, among other ways, in its appearance on nearly every list of intellectual virtues in the virtue epistemology literature. Despite its popularity, however, it is far from clear what exactly openmindedness amounts to: that is, what sort of intellectual orientation or activity is essential to it. In fact, there are ways of thinking about open-mindedness that cast serious doubt on its status as an intellectual virtue.Consider the following description, from Robert Roberts and Jay Wood (2007), of a ‘bright college freshman, taking an introductory course in philosophy.’

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