Intellectually Virtuous Inquirer and the Practical Value of Truth

Veritism is the thesis that the truth is the fundamental epistemic good. According to Duncan Pritchard, the most pressing objections to veritism are the trivial truths objection and the trivial inquiry problem. The former states that veritism entails that trivial truths are as important as deep and important truths. The latter is a problem that a veritist must prefer trivial inquiry that generates many trivial truths to the serious inquiry with the hope but no guarantee to discover some deep and important truth. Both objections arise from the inability of veritism prima facie to properly rate the different types of truths. Pritchard's solution is to approach the truth from the perspective of the intellectually virtuous inquirer who would prefer weighty truth over trivial truth. In my commentary, I criticise the proposed solution as circular reasoning. The necessary virtue for an intellectually virtuous inquirer is that they would prefer the weighty truth over the trivial one and at the same time, the weighty truth is superior because it is the goal for intellectually virtuous inquirer. I suggest another path to substantiate veritism in the face of the two sibling objections. I argue that truth is the fundamental epistemic good as it makes the epistemic realm practically valuable more than any other epistemic good. The weighty truths are preferable to the trivial ones because the practical value of the deep and important truths is usually higher. The suggested path goes away from the attempts to prove the epistemic value of truth only within the epistemic realm, yet I argue it does not compel the intellectually virtuous inquirer to seek the truth only for the sake of practical reasons.

Pritchard’s Case for Veritism

In his “In Defense of Veritism”, Duncan Pritchard reconsiders the case for epistemic value truth monism, or the thesis that truth is the sole fundamental epistemic good. I begin by clarifying Pritchard’s thesis, and then turn to an evaluation of Pritchard’s defense. By way of clarification, Pritchard understands “fundamental” value to be non-instrumental value. Accordingly, Pritchard’s veritism turns out to be the thesis that truth is the sole epistemic good with non-instrumental epistemic value, all other epistemic goods being valuable in virtue of their instrumental relation to truth. By way of evaluation, I argue that the case for veritism has not been made. The central point is this: Even if all epistemic value involves some or other relation to the truth, there are multiple relations to truth in addition to instrumental relations. Moreover, some of these seem capable of grounding further, fundamental (i.e., non-instrumental) epistemic goods. For example, knowledge has a constitutive relation to truth, and knowledge seems to be epistemically valuable for its own sake. Likewise, justified belief has an intentional relation to truth, and justified belief seems to be epistemically valuable for its own sake. Finally, I argue that, contra Pritchard, this central point seems confirmed rather than undermined by looking to the notion of an intellectually virtuous inquirer. Plausibly, a virtuous inquirer values such goods as justified belief and knowledge for their own sake qua epistemic goods, and not merely for their instrumental value for attaining truth.

Pritchard, D. (2016). Epistemic Angst. Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing. Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press

El libro Epistemic Angst (2016a) de Duncan Pritchard pretende, de acuerdo con una lectura predominante del pensamiento de Wittgenstein, curarnos de la angustia epistémica que producen las variedades más relevantes del escepticismo contemporáneo (Pritchard, 2016a). El libro tiene un interés innegable tanto para los que cultivan dicho campo de investigación como para los estudiosos del pensamiento tardío de Wittgenstein o para los que se sientan atraídos por una de las variantes más significativas de la teoría del conocimiento y la percepción actuales, el disyuntivismo epistémico, auspiciada de manera destacada por John McDowell (1995, por ejemplo). Adicionalmente, y de manera central, el volumen que reseñamos supone un gran aporte al vigente, y muy activo en los últimos tiempos, campo de la conocida como “epistemología de goznes”, que desarrolla los supuestos epistémicos tan sólo esbozados en Sobre la certeza, obra póstuma compuesta a partir de los últimos cuadernos del ya mencionado Ludwig Wittgenstein. Finalmente, el libro tiene un gran atractivo por el modo en que dialoga críticamente con otros proponentes de dicha epistemología, así como con los defensores de respuestas alternativas al reto escéptico, bien sean internistas o externistas.

Against Quasi-Fideism

Duncan Pritchard has recently ventured to carve out a novel position in the epistemology of religious belief called quasi-fideism. Its core is an application of ideas from Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology to religious belief. Among its many advertised benefits are that it can do justice to two seemingly conflicting ideas about religious belief, to wit: (a) that it is, at least at some level, a matter of ungrounded faith, but also (b) that it can be epistemically rationally grounded. In this paper, I argue that quasi-fideism fails. Its central tenets either have unattractive consequences or are implausible.

A abordagem modal da sorte e a epistemologia anti-sorte de Duncan Pritchard

Neste artigo, abordaremos o conceito de sorte na denominada epistemologia anti-sorte desenvolvida pelo epistemólogo Duncan Pritchard, bem como as críticas envolvidas a tal conceito e seus critérios. Para isso, realizaremos uma introdução aos problemas Gettier, a generalização e defesa da inescapabilidade destes problemas pela epistemóloga Linda Zagzebski, observando por meio de seu artigo a sorte sendo considerada um fator relevante na possessão de conhecimento. Desta maneira, será destacado as caracterizações consideradas mais relevantes na definição do termo, dando destaque a abordagem modal proposta por Duncan Pritchard em seu livro Epistemic Luck e sua maior elaboração em artigos anteriores, a identificação dos tipos de sorte importantes nos aspectos relevantes ao conhecimento, bem como a aplicação destas análises em sua epistemologia anti-sorte. Em seguida, será exposto críticas a abordagem anti-sorte por Ian Church – envolvendo a persistência da gettierização de casos – e Brent Madison, argumentando uma possível confusão entre inconsistência justificacional e descricional dos casos com sorte epistêmica. Logo após serão apresentadas críticas ao escopo da abordagem modal por parte de Jennifer Lackey, com considerações de Pritchard e observações finais acerca do projeto anti-sorte.

EPISTEMOLOGICAL DISJUNCTIVISM: NEO-WITTGENSTEINIAN AND MODERATE NEO-MOOREAN

ABSTRACTDuncan Pritchard proposes a biscopic solution to the problem of radical skepticism, which consists in epistemological disjunctivism and a theory about the limits of rational evaluation inspired by Wittgenstein's On Certainty. According to the latter theory, we cannot have rationally grounded knowledge of the denials of radical skeptical hypotheses, a consequence that Pritchard finds attractive insofar as he thinks that claims to know the falsity of radical skeptical hypotheses are epistemically immodest. I argue that there is room for a neo-Moorean to dispute Pritchard's argument for the Wittgensteinian proposal and I raise some doubts about its underlying motivation. Finally, I put forward an alternative, which I call “moderate neo-Moorean epistemological disjunctivism.” While this theory contends that we possess rationally grounded anti-skeptical knowledge, it also allows for a degree of epistemic modesty, by conceding that perceptual knowledge never amounts to knowledge that is absolutely certain.

How far can Extended Knowledge be Extended?

Duncan Pritchard (2010) has developed a theory of extended knowledge based on the notion of extended cognition initially developed by Clark and Chalmers (1998). Pritchard’s account gives a central role to the notion of creditability, which requires the following two conditions to be met: (i) beliefs must be attributable to the cognitive ability of the agent; and (ii) the agent must take responsibility for her beliefs. This chapter argues that difficulties arise when this notion of creditability is applied to situations where one’s cognition is extended by a second knowing agent rather than by an artifact, like a notebook or telescope. The chapter illustrates this by applying Pritchard’s account of extended knowledge to collaborating scientists. The beliefs acquired through collaborative research cannot satisfy both of Pritchard’s conditions of creditability. Further, there is evidence that scientists are not prepared to take responsibility for the actions of the scientists with whom they collaborate.

Vícios intelectuais, virtudes e investigação

Este artigo tem como objetivo propor uma definição de virtudes e vícios intelectuais relativos a uma investigação. Por investigação aqui entende-se qualquer busca que proporcione um produto epistêmico como por exemplo Conhecimento ou Entendimento. Para isso, faço uma análise da definição de virtudes e vícios oferecida por Quassim Cassam e discuto alguns problemas desta definição. Proponho que, ao contrário de Cassam e de Duncan Pritchard, a meta de uma investigação não é apenas Conhecimento ou apenas Entendimento. Em seguida, na parte final do artigo, proponho duas aplicações práticas a definição de virtudes e vícios intelectuais. A primeira eu descrevo como o uso da Internet pode proporcionar em nós mais vícios que virtudes intelectuais, e a segunda descrevo que na prática e pesquisa médica, ao que parece, também há mais vícios que virtudes intelectuais.