Virtue epistemology

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A personification of virtue Virtue. La Vertu (NYPL b14140320-1638489).jpg
A personification of virtue

Virtue epistemology is a current philosophical approach to epistemology that stresses the importance of intellectual and specifically epistemic virtues. Virtue epistemology evaluates knowledge according to the properties of the persons who hold beliefs in addition to or instead of the properties of the propositions and beliefs. Some advocates of virtue epistemology also adhere to theories of virtue ethics, while others see only loose analogy between virtue in ethics and virtue in epistemology.[ who? ]

Contents

Intellectual virtue has been a subject of philosophy since the work of Aristotle, but virtue epistemology is a development in the modern analytic tradition. It is characterized by efforts to solve problems of special concern to modern epistemology, such as justification and reliabilism, by focusing on the knower as agent in a manner similar to how virtue ethics focuses on moral agents rather than moral acts.

The area has a parallel in the theory of Unity of knowledge and action proposed by Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming.

The Raft and the Pyramid

Virtue epistemology was partly inspired by a recent renewal of interest in virtue concepts among moral philosophers, and partly as a response to the intractability of the competing analyses of knowledge that arose in response to Edmund Gettier. Ernest Sosa introduced intellectual virtue into contemporary epistemological discussion in a 1980 paper called "The Raft and the Pyramid". [1]

Sosa argued that an appeal to intellectual virtue could resolve the conflict between foundationalists and coherentists over the structure of epistemic justification. Foundationalism holds that beliefs are founded or based on other beliefs in a hierarchy, similar to the bricks in the structure of a pyramid. Coherentism, on the other hand, uses the metaphor of a raft in which all beliefs are not tied down by foundations but instead are interconnected due to the logical relationships between each belief. Sosa found a flaw in each of these schools of epistemology, in both cases having to do with the relationship between belief and perception.

Coherentism only allows for justification based on logical relations between all the beliefs within a system of beliefs. However, because perceptual beliefs may not have many logical ties with other beliefs in the system, the coherentist account of knowledge cannot accommodate the importance normally attributed to perceptual information. On the other hand, foundationalism arguably encounters a problem[ further explanation needed ] when it attempts to describe how foundational beliefs relate to the sensory experiences that support them.

Coherentism and foundationalism developed as responses to the problems with the "traditional" account of knowledge (as justified true belief) developed by Edmund Gettier in 1963. [2] As a result of Gettier's counterexamples, competing theories were developed, but the disputes between coherentists and foundationalists proved to be intractable. Sosa's paper suggested that virtue may resolve such disputes. [3]

Theory

Virtue epistemology replaces formulaic expressions for apprehending knowledge, such as "S knows that p", by amending these formulas with virtue theory applied to intellect, where virtue then becomes the fulcrum for assessing[ clarification needed ] potential candidates of "knowledge". This amendation raises problems of its own, however. If the same uncertainty about accuracy in creating a formula for testing knowledge equally applies to the authenticity of virtue, then one cannot know if the target virtue is credible.[ clarification needed ] Some virtue epistemologists use reliabilism as a basis for belief justification, stressing reliable functioning of the intellect. [1] [4] [5]

Virtue epistemology is consistent with some of contextualism. Several areas of contextual epistemology attack the problem of knowledge from an objective standpoint. Virtue epistemology attempts to simplify the analysis of knowledge by replacing certain abstractions involved in the pursuit[ clarification needed ] of the highest[ how? ] level of knowledge with flexible and contextual instances[ clarification needed ]. Specifically, it leaves room for cognitive relativism. This degree of reliability[ clarification needed ] is not constant; it can change depending on the context. Under this view, a well-functioning intellectual faculty is a necessary condition for the formation of knowledge. This differs from other areas of epistemology because it takes the state of an individual's intellect into account. As a result of this, social context also has the ability to alter knowledge. Social contexts change over time, making it necessary for beliefs and knowledge to change with it.[ example needed ]

Virtue epistemology, similarly to virtue ethics, is based on the intellectual qualities of the individual as opposed to the quality of the belief; virtue epistemology is person-based, rather than belief-based. Consequently, virtue epistemology can stress "epistemic responsibility"—in which an individual is held responsible for the virtue of their knowledge-gathering faculties.

For example, Massimo Pigliucci applies virtue epistemology to critical thinking and suggests the virtuous individual will consider the following:

Varieties

Virtue epistemologists differ in the role they believe virtue to play: eliminative virtue replaces epistemic concepts like knowledge and justification with intellectual virtue and intellectual vice, while non-eliminative virtue epistemology retains a role for such traditional concepts and uses virtue to provide substantive explanation of them.

Virtue epistemologists differ in what they believe epistemic virtues to be. Some accounts are Aristotelian, drawing a relationship between intellectual virtue and character in a similar way to the way moral virtue is related to character. "Weak" virtue epistemology, on the other hand, doesn't require any particular commitment or cultivation of intellectual virtue. Abrol Fairweather argues that "weak" virtue epistemologists "merely [use] virtue theory as a novel lexicon for expressing an independent epistemic theory". [7]

Some virtue epistemologists favor the "virtue reliabilist" account of virtues as reliably functioning cognitive faculties, and others favor a "virtue responsibilist" account in which the responsible epistemic conduct of the agent plays a key role.

Virtue reliabilism

Virtue reliabilism emphasizes that the process whereby truth is garnered must be reliable. However, the stress of the reliability[ clarification needed ] is not on the mechanism of justification[ clarification needed ]. Instead, the extent of the person's reality-tracking ability determines how virtuous that person's intellect is, and therefore how good their knowledge is.

For Sosa, the more virtuous faculties are related to direct sensory perception and memory, and less virtuous capacities are ones related to beliefs derived from the primary memory or sense experience.[ ambiguous ] Sosa has two criteria for a belief to be "fully apt": It must be "meta-justified"—the agent must have hit the truth as such—and it must be "apt"—the agent must have been displaying his virtuous capacities in claiming such a belief or hitting the truth as such. By analogy, a hunter must not only be able to hit the target with precision and accuracy, but the shot must be one that the hunter should have taken.

John Greco, another advocate of virtue reliabilism, believes that knowledge and justified belief "are grounded in stable and reliable cognitive character. Such character may include both a person's natural cognitive faculties as well as her acquired habits of thought.... So long as such habits are both stable and successful, they make up the kind of character that gives rise to knowledge." [8] This characterization of virtue reliabilism is more inclusive than Sosa's, eschewing the focus on memorial or sensory experience and instead locating virtue in an agent's stable and reliable dispositions to generate successful cognition. Greco makes room for the inclusion of the intellectual virtues typically construed by the responsibilist camp of virtue epistemology, since many of these virtues can be thought of as stable, reliable dispositions of character.

Virtue responsibilism

In virtue responsibilism, the emphasis is not on faculties such as perception and memory. Instead, certain intellectual character traits are valued as more virtuous than others. These can be creativity, inquisitiveness, rational rigor, honesty, or a number of other possibilities. Generally, these theories are normative in nature. A few different approaches are taken.

Some, such as Lorraine Code, think that intellectual virtues involve having the correct cognitive character and epistemic relation to the world rooted in a social context. She sees the acquisition of correct knowledge about the world as the primary "good", and the end towards which our intellectual efforts should be oriented, with the desire for truth as the primary motivating factor for our epistemological virtues. [9]

James Montmarquet's theory of intellectual virtue is similar to Code's, but specifically defines additional intellectual virtues in order to defuse the potential dogmatism or fanaticism that is compatible with Code's desire for truth. The primary virtue is conscientiousness, which focuses on the correct end of intellectual living. In order to obtain conscientiousness, it is important to maintain impartiality, sobriety, and courage. [10]

Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski has proposed a neo-Aristotelian model of virtue epistemology, emphasizing the role of phronesis (practical wisdom) as an architectonic virtue unifying moral and intellectual virtues even more radically than Aristotle proposed. [11] As delineated in her model, the virtues are "a deep and enduring acquired excellence of a person, involving a characteristic motivation to produce a certain desired end and reliable success in bringing about that end." [12] As she sees it, the "characteristic motivation" of an intellectual virtue is the desire for truth, understanding, and other species of cognitive contact with reality. The notion of "reliable success" is invoked in order to avoid issues of well-intentioned but unsuccessful agents who desire truth but use poorly suited methods to pursue it.

Plantinga's theory of warrant

Alvin Plantinga offers another theory of knowledge closely related to virtue epistemology. According to him, knowledge is warranted if one's intellectual faculties are operating as they are designed to. That is, knowledge is valid if it is obtained through the correct operation of the faculties of the intellect which are designed to have an inherent ability, because they are designed that way, to capture and produce true beliefs. [13]

Jonathan Kvanvig's understanding and assertion

In Jonathan Kvanvig's essay, Why Should Inquiring Minds Want to Know?: Meno Problems and Epistemological Axiology he asserts that epistemology has no place in philosophical study. The value of knowledge originates from the Socratic dialogue written by Plato called Meno. In Meno, Socrates' distinction between "true belief" and "knowledge" forms the basis of the philosophical definition of knowledge as "justified true belief". Socrates explains the similarities and differences between "true belief" and "knowledge", arguing that justified true belief fails to "stay in their place" and must be "tethered". According to Kvanvig, true belief is what is necessary to maximize truth and to avoid error, thus dropping justification from the equation of knowledge. He argues that once we recognize what the manipulated boundary notion of non-Gettierized account of knowledge is, then it becomes clear that there is nothing valuable about the anti-Gettier condition on knowledge. Kvanvig acknowledges that true belief falls short of knowledge, however to him, true belief is no less valuable than knowledge. Kvanvig believes that epistemology should be focused on understanding, an epistemic standing that Kvanvig maintains is of more value than knowledge and justified true belief.

Potential advantages

Some varieties of virtue epistemology that contain normative elements, such as virtue responsibilism, can provide a unified framework of normativity and value. Others, such as Sosa's account, can circumvent Cartesian skepticism with the necessity of externalism interacting with internalism. In this same vein, and because of the inherent flexibility and social nature of some of types of virtue epistemology, social conditioning and influence can be understood within an epistemological framework and explored. This flexibility and connection between internal and external makes virtue epistemology more accessible. [14]

Prominent criticism

One criticism [15] of virtue epistemology has focused upon its characterization of human cognition as grounded in stable character dispositions (e.g. the disposition to use reliable faculties, or one's excellent character traits construed as dispositions). As discussed by a parallel criticism leveled at virtue ethics, [16] virtue theories, whether moral or epistemic, typically consider character traits as stable across time, and efficacious as explanatory reasons for persons behaving and thinking as they do. However, this supposition has been challenged by the "situationist critique" in psychology, which argues that human epistemic character changes depending on context, even when that change is epistemically irrelevant. Thus, irrelevant differences in a situation can prompt a drastic change in cognitive behavior.

Reliabilists might characterize this as effecting a drop in reliable functioning, whereas responsibilists would see these variations as negating one's excellent cognitive character. It is therefore argued that virtue theorists should either amend their conception of human psychology to accommodate this or explain how the results of situationist psychological research do not contradict their theory.

See also

Related Research Articles

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues. Debates in (contemporary) epistemology are generally clustered around four core areas:

  1. The philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and the conditions required for a belief to constitute knowledge, such as truth and justification
  2. Potential sources of knowledge and justified belief, such as perception, reason, memory, and testimony
  3. The structure of a body of knowledge or justified belief, including whether all justified beliefs must be derived from justified foundational beliefs or whether justification requires only a coherent set of beliefs
  4. Philosophical skepticism, which questions the possibility of knowledge, and related problems, such as whether skepticism poses a threat to our ordinary knowledge claims and whether it is possible to refute skeptical arguments

Internalism and externalism are two opposite ways of integration of explaining various subjects in several areas of philosophy. These include human motivation, knowledge, justification, meaning, and truth. The distinction arises in many areas of debate with similar but distinct meanings. Internal–external distinction is a distinction used in philosophy to divide an ontology into two parts: an internal part concerning observation related to philosophy, and an external part concerning question related to philosophy.

Reliabilism, a category of theories in the philosophical discipline of epistemology, has been advanced as a theory both of justification and of knowledge. Process reliabilism has been used as an argument against philosophical skepticism, such as the brain in a vat thought experiment. Process reliabilism is a form of epistemic externalism.

Justification is the property of belief that qualifies it as knowledge rather than mere opinion. Epistemology is the study of reasons that someone holds a rationally admissible belief. Epistemologists are concerned with various epistemic features of belief, which include the ideas of warrant, knowledge, rationality, and probability, among others.

Understanding is a cognitive process related to an abstract or physical object, such as a person, situation, or message whereby one is able to use concepts to model that object. Understanding is a relation between the knower and an object of understanding. Understanding implies abilities and dispositions with respect to an object of knowledge that are sufficient to support intelligent behavior.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knowledge</span> Awareness of facts or being competent

Knowledge is a form of awareness or familiarity. It is often understood as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also mean familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinct from opinion or guesswork by virtue of justification. While there is wide agreement among philosophers that propositional knowledge is a form of true belief, many controversies in philosophy focus on justification. This includes questions like whether justification is needed at all, how to understand it, and whether something else besides it is needed. These controversies intensified due to a series of thought experiments by Edmund Gettier and have provoked various alternative definitions. Some of them deny that justification is necessary and suggest alternative criteria. Others accept that justification is an essential aspect and formulate additional requirements.

The epistemic virtues, as identified by virtue epistemologists, reflect their contention that belief is an ethical process, and thus susceptible to intellectual virtue or vice. Some epistemic virtues have been identified by W. Jay Wood, based on research into the medieval tradition. Epistemic virtues are sometimes also called intellectual virtues.

Contextualism, also known as epistemic contextualism, is a family of views in philosophy which emphasize the context in which an action, utterance, or expression occurs. Proponents of contextualism argue that, in some important respect, the action, utterance, or expression can only be understood relative to that context. Contextualist views hold that philosophically controversial concepts, such as "meaning P", "knowing that P", "having a reason to A", and possibly even "being true" or "being right" only have meaning relative to a specified context. Other philosophers contend that context-dependence leads to complete relativism.

Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski is an American philosopher. She is the Emerita George Lynn Cross Research Professor, as well as Emerita Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, at the University of Oklahoma. She writes in the areas of epistemology, philosophy of religion, and virtue theory.

Naturalized epistemology is a collection of philosophic views concerned with the theory of knowledge that emphasize the role of natural scientific methods. This shared emphasis on scientific methods of studying knowledge shifts focus to the empirical processes of knowledge acquisition and away from many traditional philosophical questions. There are noteworthy distinctions within naturalized epistemology. Replacement naturalism maintains that traditional epistemology should be abandoned and replaced with the methodologies of the natural sciences. The general thesis of cooperative naturalism is that traditional epistemology can benefit in its inquiry by using the knowledge we have gained from the cognitive sciences. Substantive naturalism focuses on an asserted equality of facts of knowledge and natural facts.

Laurence BonJour is an American philosopher and Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Washington.

Keith Lehrer is Emeritus Regent's Professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona and a research professor of philosophy at the University of Miami, where he spends half of each academic year.

Metaepistemology is the branch of epistemology and metaphilosophy that studies the underlying assumptions made in debates in epistemology, including those concerning the existence and authority of epistemic facts and reasons, the nature and aim of epistemology, and the methodology of epistemology.

Ernest Sosa is an American philosopher primarily interested in epistemology. Since 2007 he has been Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, but he spent most of his career at Brown University.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to epistemology:

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", "What do people know?", "How do we know what we know?", and "Why do we know what we know?". Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief, and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims.

Intellectual responsibility is a philosophical concept related to that of epistemic justification. According to Frederick F. Schmitt, "the conception of justified belief as epistemically responsible belief has been endorsed by a number of philosophers, including Roderick Chisholm (1977), Hilary Kornblith (1983), and Lorraine Code (1983)."

Jonathan Lee Kvanvig is Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Lackey</span> American philosopher

Jennifer Lackey is an American academic; she is the Wayne and Elizabeth Jones Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University. Lackey is known for her research in epistemology, especially on testimony, disagreement, memory, the norms of assertion, and virtue epistemology. She is the author of Learning from Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge and of numerous articles and book chapters. She is also co-editor of The Epistemology of Testimony and The Epistemology of Disagreement: New Essays.

Definitions of knowledge try to determine the essential features of knowledge. Closely related terms are conception of knowledge, theory of knowledge, and analysis of knowledge. Some general features of knowledge are widely accepted among philosophers, for example, that it constitutes a cognitive success or an epistemic contact with reality and that propositional knowledge involves true belief. Most definitions of knowledge in analytic philosophy focus on propositional knowledge or knowledge-that, as in knowing that Dave is at home, in contrast to knowledge-how (know-how) expressing practical competence. However, despite the intense study of knowledge in epistemology, the disagreements about its precise nature are still both numerous and deep. Some of those disagreements arise from the fact that different theorists have different goals in mind: some try to provide a practically useful definition by delineating its most salient feature or features, while others aim at a theoretically precise definition of its necessary and sufficient conditions. Further disputes are caused by methodological differences: some theorists start from abstract and general intuitions or hypotheses, others from concrete and specific cases, and still others from linguistic usage. Additional disagreements arise concerning the standards of knowledge: whether knowledge is something rare that demands very high standards, like infallibility, or whether it is something common that requires only the possession of some evidence.

References

  1. 1 2 Sosa, Ernest (1980). "The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence versus Foundations in the Theory of Knowledge". Midwest Studies in Philosophy. 5: 3–25.
  2. ↑ Gettier, Edmund (1963). "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" (PDF). Analysis. 23 (6): 121–23. doi:10.1093/analys/23.6.121.
  3. ↑ Linda Zagzebski; Abrol Fairweather, eds. (2001). Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility . p.  4. ISBN   978-0-19-514077-4.
  4. ↑ Greco, J. (1999). Tomberlin, J. (ed.). "Agent Reliabilism". Philosophical Perspectives. 13: 273–96.
  5. ↑ Greco, J. (2000). Putting Skeptics in their Place. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  6. ↑ Pigliucci, Massimo (2017). "The Virtuous Skeptic". Skeptical Inquirer . 41 (2): 54–57. Archived from the original on 2018-11-09. Retrieved 14 November 2018.
  7. ↑ Fairweather, Abrol (2001). "Epistemic Motivation". In Abrol Fairweather; Linda Zagzebski (eds.). Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Virtue and Responsibility. Oxford University Press.
  8. ↑ Greco, John (1999-01-01). "Agent Reliabilism". Philosophical Perspectives. 13: 273–296. JSTOR   2676106.
  9. ↑ Code, Lorraine. Epistemic Responsibility, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England for Brown University Press, 1987.
  10. ↑ Montmarquet, J.A. Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1993.
  11. ↑ Zagzebski, Linda. "Intellectual Motivation and the Good of Truth.", in Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology. eds. M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski, 135–54, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003.
  12. ↑ Zagzebski, Linda (2008). Virtues of the Mind, Selections in Epistemology: An Anthology. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 443. ISBN   978-1-4051-6967-7.
  13. ↑ Plantinga, Alvin. Warrant and Proper Function, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
  14. ↑ Zagzebski, Linda (1998, 2005). Virtue epistemology. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge. Retrieved May 01, 2008, from http://0-www.rep.routledge.com.csulib.ctstateu.edu:80/article/P057SECT3%5B%5D (requires member login)
  15. ↑ Olin, Lauren; Doris, John M. (2013-06-19). "Vicious minds". Philosophical Studies. 168 (3): 665–692. doi:10.1007/s11098-013-0153-3. ISSN   0031-8116. S2CID   170140936.
  16. ↑ Doris, John M. (1998-12-01). "Persons, Situations, and Virtue Ethics". Noûs. 32 (4): 504–530. doi:10.1111/0029-4624.00136. ISSN   1468-0068.

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