Stratified Virtue Epistemology

This accessible Element defends version of virtue epistemology shown to have all-things-considered advantages over other views on the market. The view is unorthodox, in that it incorporates Sosa's animal/reflective knowledge distinction, which has thus far had few takers. The author shows why embracing a multi-tiered framework is not a liability within virtue epistemology but instead affords it an edge not attainable otherwise. The particular account of knowledge goes beyond Sosa's own view by introducing and incorporating several theoretical innovations (regarding both basing and risk, as well as the introduction of multiple species of reflective knowledge) which are aimed at revamping how we think about 'high-grade' knowledge, how we attain it, and what it demands of us. The result is a new and improved stratified virtue epistemology that can hold up against scrutiny.

This accessible Element defends version of virtue epistemology shown to have all-things-considered advantages over other views on the market. The view is unorthodox, in that it incorporates Sosa's animal/reflective knowledge distinction, which has thus far had few takers. The author shows why embracing a multi-tiered framework is not a liability within virtue epistemology but instead affords it an edge not attainable otherwise. The particular account of knowledge goes beyond Sosa's own view by introducing and incorporating several theoretical innovations (regarding both basing and risk, as well as the introduction of multiple species of reflective knowledge) which are aimed at revamping how we think about 'high-grade' knowledge, how we attain it, and what it demands of us. The result is a new and improved stratified virtue epistemology that can hold up against scrutiny.

This collection of 19 chapters, all appearing in print here for the first time and written by an international team of established and emerging scholars, explores the place of intellectual virtues and vices in a social world. Relevant virtues include open-mindedness, curiosity, intellectual courage, diligence in inquiry, and the like. Relevant vices include dogmatism, need for immediate certainty, and gullibility and the like. The chapters are divided into four key sections: Foundational Issues; Individual Virtues; Collective Virtues; and Methods and Measurements. And the chapters explore the most salient questions in this areas of research, including: How are individual intellectual virtues and vices affected by their social contexts? Does being in touch with other open-minded people make us more open-minded? Conversely, does connection to other dogmatic people make us more dogmatic? Can groups possess virtues and vices distinct from those of their members? For instance, could a group of dogmatic individuals operate in an open-minded way despite the vices of its members? Each chapter receives commentary from two other authors in the volume, and each original author then replies to these commentaries. Together, the authors form part of a collective conversation about how we can know about what we know. In so doing, they not only theorize but enact social virtue epistemology.

Virtue epistemology is an exciting, new movement receiving an enormous amount of attention from top epistemologists and ethicists; this pioneering volume reflects the best work in that vein. Featuring superb writing from contemporary American philosophers, it includes thirteen never before published essays that focus on the place of the concept of virtue in epistemology. In recent years, philosophers have been debating how this concept functions in definitions of knowledge. They question the extent to which knowledge is both normative (i.e., with a moral component) and non-normative, and many of them dispute the focus on justification, which has proven to be too restrictive. Epistemologists are searching for a way to combine the traditional concepts of ethical theory with epistemic concepts; the result is a new approach called virtue epistemology--one that has established itself as a particularly favorable alternative. Containing the fruits of recent study on virtue epistemology, this volume offers a superb selection of contributors--including Robert Audi, Simon Blackburn, Richard Foley, Alvin Goldman, Hilary Kornblith, Keith Lehrer, Ernest Sosa, and Linda Zagzebski--whose work brings epistemology into dialogue with everyday issues.

This book presents four bridges connecting work in virtue epistemology and work in philosophy of science (broadly construed) that may serve as catalysts for the further development of naturalized virtue epistemology. These bridges are: empirically informed theories of epistemic virtue; virtue theoretic solutions to under determination; epistemic virtues in the history of science; and the value of understanding. Virtue epistemology has opened many new areas of inquiry in contemporary epistemology including: epistemic agency, the role of motivations and emotions in epistemology, the nature of abilities, skills and competences, wisdom and curiosity. Value driven epistemic inquiry has become quite complex and there is a need for a responsible and rigorous process of constructing naturalized theories of epistemic virtue. This volume makes the involvement of the sciences more explicit and looks at the empirical aspect of virtue epistemology. Concerns about virtue epistemology are considered in the essays contained here, including the question: can any virtue epistemology meet both the normativity constraint and the empirical constraint? The volume suggests that these worries should not be seen as impediments but rather as useful constraints and desiderata to guide the construction of naturalized theories of epistemic virtue.

Virtue ethics has attracted a lot of attention and there has been considerable interest in virtue epistemology as an alternative to traditional approaches in that field. This book fills a gap in the literature for a text that brings virtue epistemologists and virtue ethicists together.

This volume brings together recent work by leading and up-and-coming philosophers on the topic of virtue epistemology. The prospects of virtue-theoretic analyses of knowledge depend crucially on our ability to give some independent account of what epistemic virtues are and what they are for. The contributions here ask how epistemic virtues matter apart from any narrow concern with defining knowledge; they show how epistemic virtues figure in accounts of various aspects of our lives, with a special emphasis on our practical lives. In essence, the essays here put epistemic virtues to work.

This remarkable book is the first attempt to establish a theory of knowledge based on the model of virtue theory in ethics.