In ‘Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason’ Kant presents his thesis that human nature is ‘radically evil’. To be radically evil is to have a propensity toward moral frailty, impurity and even perversity. Kant claims that all humans are ‘by nature’ radically evil. By presenting counter-examples of moral saints, I argue that not all humans are morally corrupt, even if most are. Even so, the possibility of moral failure is central to what makes us human.

The recent literature on the theory of knowledge has taken a distinctive turn by focusing on the role of the cognitive and intellectual virtues in the acquisition of knowledge. The main contours and motivations for such virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge are here sketched and it is argued that virtue epistemology in its most plausible form can be regarded as a refined form of reliabilism, and thus a variety of epistemic externalism. Moreover, it is claimed that there is strong empirical support (...) in favour of the virtue epistemic position so understood, and an empirical study regarding the cognitive processes employed by medical experts in their diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy is cited in this regard. In general, it is argued that one can best account for 'expert' knowledge in terms of a virtue-theoretic epistemology that retains key reliabilist features. It is thus shown that understanding knowledge along virtue-theoretic lines has important implications for our understanding of how knowledge is acquired, and thus for the philosophy of education. (shrink)

This entry introduces many of the most important results of the contemporary Virtue epistemology (hereafter 'VE') research program. These include novel attempts to resolve longstanding disputes, solve perennial problems, grapple with novel challenges, and expand epistemology’s horizons. In the process, it reveals the diversity within VE. Beyond sharing the two unifying commitments mentioned above, its practitioners diverge over the nature of intellectual virtues, which questions to ask, and which methods to use.

Here’s a nice, simple view. Knowing that p is the sole fundamental aim and achievement in the epistemic domain. It is a manifestation of epistemic competence, and we can metaphysically explain both the existence and the normative status of all other epistemic states in terms of knowledge and the competence it manifests. In this paper I will defend this view from a challenge from Ernest Sosa that knowledge is too weak and primitive to do the work the Simple View asks (...) it to do. He claims that we not only need knowing that p, but also reflectively knowing that p and knowing full well that p. I argue that Sosa is mistaken. Good old knowledge, what Sosa calls animal knowledge, when properly understood, can do all of the work that reflective knowledge and knowing full well are supposed to do. Knowledge, at least in the epistemic domain, is all you need. In section 1, I explain in more detail the challenge that Sosa poses for the Simple View, and consequently my direct virtue epistemology. I then explain Sosa’s accounts of reflective knowledge and knowing full well, further clarifying the debate. In sections 2, 3, and 4, I consider Sosa’s arguments that reflective knowledge and knowing full well are distinctive epistemic achievements. Section 2 addresses his argument from the epistemic evaluability of suspending belief. Section 3 addresses his arguments for the claim that a variety of cases can only be adequately accounted for by invoking these other states. Section 4 addresses his arguments about the role of reflective knowledge in rebutting dream skepticism. Responding to Sosa’s arguments also helps to clarify certain features of knowledge and epistemic competence. I conclude by reviewing these features. (shrink)

Explaining phenomena is a primary goal of science. Consequently, it is unsurprising that gaining a proper understanding of the nature of explanation is an important goal of science education. In order to properly understand explanation, however, it is not enough to simply consider theories of the nature of explanation. Properly understanding explanation requires grasping the relation between explanation and understanding, as well as how explanations can lead to scientific knowledge. This article examines the nature of explanation, its relation to understanding, (...) and how explanations are used to generate scientific knowledge via inferences to the best explanation. Studying these features and applications of explanation not only provides insight into a concept that is important for science education in its own right, but also sheds light on an aspect of recent debates concerning the so-called consensus view of nature of science (NOS). Once the relation between explanation, understanding, and knowledge is clear, it becomes apparent that science is unified in important ways. Seeing this unification provides some support for thinking that there are general features of NOS of the sort proposed by the consensus view and that teaching about these general features of NOS should be a goal of science education. (shrink)

We may succed in the fulfilment of our desires but still fail to properly own our practical life, perhaps because we acted as addicts, driven by desires that are alien to our will, or as “wantons,” satisfying the desires that we simply happen to have (Frankfurt, 1988 ). May we equally fail to own the outcomes of our epistemic life? If so, how may we attain epistemic ownership over it? This paper explores the structural parallellism between practical and epistemic rationality, (...) building on Williamson’s ( 2002 ) suggestion that we should commence with successful performances as the foundation for both domains, be it action or knowledge. By highlighting the limitations of higher-order regulative approaches in epistemology, exemplified by Sosa ( 2007, 2011, 2015, 2021 ), the paper introduces a form of teleological epistemic constitutivism inspired by Velleman ( 2000, 2009 ). The proposal is that epistemic ownership is not attained in the mere pursuit of truth or knowledge, but requires furthermore a struggle to understand what we know. (shrink)

Ernest Sosa’s virtue perspectivism goes beyond standard reliabilism by requiring that agents with justified beliefs not only derive their beliefs from virtuous cognitive faculties but have an epistemic perspective that explains the origin of the beliefs and makes their belief-set coherent. I argue that Sosa’s account of the epistemic perspective does not ensure that the perspective will confer justification. An adequate epistemic perspective must establish a non-accidental connection between an agent’s use of a faculty in certain circumstances and its reliability (...) in those circumstances. An agent who is capable of judging the reliability of her faculties in different situations will have a perspective that meets this requirement. Revising virtue perspectivism in this way also permits a stronger response to doxastic ascent arguments against the theory. (shrink)

I argue that current discussions of the epistemological significance of reflection have entangled concerns about reflection with agential concerns. I begin by showing that a central strand of internalist criticism finds externalism unsatisfactory because it fails to provide a particular kind of self-knowledge, knowledge about the epistemic status of one’s own beliefs. Identifying this internalist motivation as the desire for a kind of self-knowledge opens up new possibilities and suggests new conceptual resources. I employ one of these resources—Richard Moran’s distinction (...) between the theoretical stance and the deliberative stance—to locate two types of reflection: mere reflective awareness of one’s attitudes and agent-awareness of one’s attitudes. I then examine Ernest Sosa’s account of the importance of reflection, showing how Moran’s distinction brings out the centrality of agential concerns in Sosa’s argument for reflective knowledge. I also consider briefly its relevance to fully apt knowledge. While I focus on Sosa’s epistemology, the point extends to internalism more generally. (shrink)

Characteristic of neo-pragmatism is a commitment to deflationism about semantic properties, and inferentialism about conceptual content. It is usually thought that deflationism undermines the distinction between realistic discourses and others, and that the neo-pragmatists, unlike the classical pragmatists, cannot recognize that truth is a norm of belief and inquiry. I argue, however, that the distinction between realistic discourses and others can be maintained even in the face of a commitment to deflationism, and that deflationists can recognize that truth is a (...) norm of belief and inquiry. If deflationism is true, realistic discourses, it turns out, are those that are inferentially integrated with a large body of other commitments, whereas those that call for an anti-realist treatment are inferentially isolated. Now, Grimm has persuasively argued that inquiry aims at achieving understanding, and that to understand something is, roughly, to grasp a large body of inferential connections in which it features. So, if he is right, realistic discourses are those in which the aim of inquiry can be achieved. This fact, together with an inferential theory of conceptual content, will, I argue, allow neo-pragmatists to recognize truth as a norm of belief and inquiry, despite their commitment to deflationism. (shrink)