There is a traditional conception of knowledge but it is not the Justified True Belief analysis Gettier attacked. On the traditional view, knowledge consists in having a belief that bears a discernible mark of truth. A mark of truth is a truth-entailing property: a property that only true beliefs can have. It is discernible if one can always tell that a belief has it, that is, a sufficiently attentive subject believes that a belief has it if and only if it (...) has it. Requiring a mark of truth makes the view infallibilist. Requiring it to be discernible makes the view internalist. I call the view Classical Infallibilism. (shrink)

According to Veritism, true belief is the sole fundamental epistemic value. Epistemologists often take Veritism to entail that all other epistemic items can only have value by standing in certain instrumental relations—namely, by tending to produce a high ratio of true to false beliefs or by being products of sources with this tendency. Yet many value theorists outside epistemology deny that all derivative value is grounded in instrumental relations to fundamental value. Veritists, I believe, can and should follow suit. After (...) setting the stage in §1, I explain in §2 why Veritism should not take an Instrumentalist form. Instrumentalist Veritism faces a generalized version of the swamping problem. But this problem undermines Instrumentalism, not Veritism: granting Instrumentalism, similar problems arise for any economical epistemic axiology. I show in §3 how Veritism can take a less narrow form and solve the swamping problem. After answering some objections in §4, I consider in §5 what some would regard as a less radical alternative solution and argue that it either fails or collapses into mine. I close in §6 by taking stock and re-evaluating the overall prospects for Veritism, suggesting that it is a highly promising epistemic axiology when divorced from Instrumentalism. (shrink)

This paper explores the nature of curiosity from an epistemological point of view. First it motivates this exploration by explaining why epistemologists do and should care about what curiosity is. Then it surveys the relevant literature and develops a particular approach.

The idea that truth is the fundamental epistemic good is explained and defended. It is argued that this proposal has been prematurely rejected on grounds that are both independently problematic and which also turn on an implausible way of understanding the proposal. A more compelling account of what it means for truth to be the fundamental epistemic good is then developed, one that treats the intellectual virtues, and thereby virtuous inquiry, as the primary theoretical notion.

It is nearly universally acknowledged among epistemologists that a belief, even if true, cannot count as knowledge if it is somehow largely a matter of luck that the person so arrived at the truth. A striking feature of this literature, however, is that while many epistemologists are busy arguing about which particular technical condition most effectively rules out the offensive presence of luck in true believing, almost no one is asking why it matters so much that knowledge be immune from (...) luck in the first place. I argue that the best explanation for the consensus that luck undermines knowledge is that knowledge is, complications aside, credit-worthy true believing. To make this case, I develop both the notions of luck and credit, and sketch a theory of knowledge in those terms. Furthermore, this account also holds promise for being able to solve the “value problem” for knowledge, and it explains why both internal and external conditions are necessary to turn true belief into knowledge. (shrink)

Virtuous arguers are expected to manifest virtues such as intellectual humility and open-mindedness, but from such traits the quality of arguments does not immediately follow. However, it also seems implausible that a virtuous arguer can systematically put forward bad arguments. How could virtue argumentation theory combine both insights? The solution, I argue, lies in an analogy with virtue epistemology: considering both responsibilist and reliabilist virtues gives us a fuller picture of the virtuous arguer.

My central thesis is that philosophers considering questions of epistemic value ought to devote greater attention to the enduring nature of beliefs. I begin by arguing that a commonly drawn analogy between beliefs and actions is flawed in important respects, and that a better, more fruitful analogue for belief would be desire, or a similarly enduring state of an agent. With this in hand, I argue that treating beliefs as enduring, constitutive states of agents allows us to capture the importance (...) of accessible, justified, and true beliefs to sustaining personal identity, autonomy, self-control, and authenticity. We thus arrive at a significant value to such beliefs through their crucial role in our personal, practical identities. (shrink)

Goldman and Olsson ( 2009 ) have responded to the common charge that reliabilist theories of knowledge are incapable of accounting for the value knowledge has beyond mere true belief. We examine their “conditional probability solution” in detail, and show that it does not succeed. The conditional probability relation is too weak to support instrumental value, and the specific relation they describe is inessential to the value of knowledge. At best, they have described conditions in which knowledge indicates that additional (...) epistemic value is likely to be forthcoming in the future. We also argue that their motive analogy breaks down. The problem, we conclude, is that being produced by a reliable process is not sufficient for a belief to be justified. (shrink)

This article starts by defining instrumentalized knowledge (IK) as the practice of selectively valuing some set of reliable beliefs for the promotion of a more generally false or unreliable worldview. IK is typically exploited by conspiratorial echo chambers, which display systematic distrust and opposition towards mainstream epistemic authorities. We argue that IK is problematic in that it violates core epistemic virtues, and this gives rise to clear and present harms when abused by said echo chambers. Yet, we contend, mainstream epistemic (...) authorities (MEAs) are also complicit in practices resembling IK; we refer to these practices as instrumentalized knowledge* (IK*). IK* differs from IK in that the selective valuing of beliefs corresponds to a ”reliable” worldview, namely, one independently verified by the relevant epistemic experts. We argue that IK*, despite its apparent veracity, is also problematic, as it violates the same epistemic virtues as IK despite its aim of promoting true beliefs. This, we argue, leads it to being counterproductive in its goal of producing knowledge for the sake of the pursuit of truth, thereby raising the question of what distinguishes virtuous from nonvirtuous practices of instrumentalized knowledge. In an attempt to avoid this violation and to distinguish IK* from IK, we investigate whether and how IK* could still be epistemically virtuous. We conclude that IK* can be virtuous if its goal is to produce understanding as opposed to mere knowledge. (shrink)

What is the best model of epistemic agency for virtue epistemology? Insofar as the intellectual and moral virtues are similar, it is desirable to develop models of agency that are similar across the two realms. Unlike Aristotle, the Stoics present a model of the virtues on which the moral and intellectual virtues are unified. The Stoics’ materialism and determinism also help to explain how we can be responsible for our beliefs even when we cannot believe otherwise. In this paper I (...) show how a neo-Stoic model of epistemic agency can address common objections to treating epistemic and moral agency similarly and allow a robust explanatory role for character in determining our actions and beliefs. The picture of epistemic responsibility that flows from this model also explains why we often deserve credit for our knowledge, while demonstrating that the truth of our beliefs is not something for which we are epistemically responsible. (shrink)

Traditionally, the debate between epistemological internalists and externalists has centered on the value of knowledge and its justification. A value pluralist, virtue-theoretic approach to epistemology allows us to accept what I shall call the insight of externalism while still acknowledging the importance of internalists’ insistence on the value of reflection. Intellectual virtue can function as the unifying consideration in a study of a host of epistemic values, including understanding, wisdom, and what I call articulate reflection. Each of these epistemic values (...) is a good internal to inquiry. Thus, an inquiry-based conception of virtue is particularly well suited to help us account for a wide variety of epistemic goods, without reducing the value of those many goods to their contribution to the value of knowledge. Moreover, an inquiry-based conception of virtue can function as the unifying consideration in a general study of value, the scope of which is not restricted to epistemic value. (shrink)

Alvin Goldman and Erik Olsson have recently proposed a novel solution to the value problem in epistemology, i.e., to the question of how to account for the apparent surplus value of knowledge over mere true belief. Their “conditional probability solution” maintains that even simple process reliabilism can account for the added value of knowledge, since forming true beliefs in a reliable way raises the objective probability that the subject will have more true belief of a similar kind in the future. (...) I argue that this proposal confronts significant internal problems and implicitly invokes higher-level epistemic conditions that run against the spirit of externalism. (shrink)

Various social epistemologists employ what seem to be rather distinct notions of group rationality. In this essay, I offer an account of group rationality that is able to unify the dominant notions present in the literature under a single framework. I argue that if we employ a teleological account of epistemic rationality, and then allow that there are many different epistemic goals that are worth pursuing for various groups and individuals, we can then see how those seemingly divergent understandings of (...) group rationality are all intimately related. I close by showing how the view has the additional benefit of allowing us to generate practical, normative suggestions for groups in the real world. (shrink)

We are naturally inclined to judge that it is better to know that p than to merely truly believe that p. How to account for this intuition? In this paper, I examine Williamson, Goldman and Olsson, and Pritchard's answers, and agree with Pritchard that it cannot be consistently claimed that knowledge is epistemically superior to mere true belief, and that truth is the only finally valuable epistemic good. Contrary to Pritchard, I argue that the latter claim is deeply mistaken. I (...) do so by showing that mere true beliefs have no epistemic value at all. I sketch the consequences of this point concerning the epistemic value of knowledge, and answer some objections to the thesis that mere true beliefs do not possess epistemic value. (shrink)

A satisfying theory of knowledge has to explain why knowledge seems to be better than mere true belief. In this paper, I try to show that the best reliabilist explanation (ERA+) is still not able to solve this problem. According to an already elaborated answer (ERA), it is better to possess knowledge that p because this makes likely that one’s future belief of a similar kind will also be true. I begin with a metaphysical comment which gives birth to ERA (...) +, a better formulation of ERA. Then, I raise two objections against ERA+. The first objection shows that the truth of the reliabilist answer requires the conception of a specific theory of instrumental value. In the second objection, I present an example in order to show that ERA+ actually fails to explain why it is better to possess knowledge than a mere true belief. (shrink)

In this entry, I offer a critical analysis of virtue epistemology, which is a fundamental collection of recent approaches to epistemology. After a few remarks on the roots of this view, I reconstruct the key features of the two main accounts of virtue epistemology and I discuss how these accounts respond to some traditional epistemological challenges. -/- Questo contributo propone una disamina critica dell’epistemologia delle virtù, una delle correnti più importanti della teoria della conoscenza contemporanea. Dopo un breve affondo sulle (...) origini di questa corrente, vengono analizzate le caratteristiche dei due approcci fondamentali all’epistemologia delle virtù e le risposte che essi offrono ad alcuni problemi epistemologici tradizionali. (shrink)

For any normative domain, we can theorize about what is good in that domain. Such theories include utilitarianism, a view about what is good morally. But there are many domains other than the moral; these include the prudential, the aesthetic, and the intellectual or epistemic. In this last domain, it is good to be knowledgeable and bad to ignore evidence, quite apart from the morality, prudence, and aesthetics of these things. This dissertation builds a theory that stands to the epistemic (...) domain as utilitarianism stands to the moral domain. It builds an epistemic value theory. (shrink)

To say that evidence is normative is to say that what evidence one possesses, and how this evidence relates to any proposition, determines which attitude among believing, disbelieving and withholding one ought to take toward this proposition if one deliberates about whether to believe it. It has been suggested by McHugh that this view can be vindicated by resting on the premise that truth is epistemically valuable. In this paper, I modify the strategy sketched by McHugh so as to overcome (...) the initial difficulty that it is unable to vindicate the claim that on counterbalanced evidence with respect to P one ought to conclude deliberation by withholding on P. However, I describe the more serious difficulty that this strategy rests on principles whose acceptance commits one to acknowledging non-evidential reasons for believing. A way to overcome this second difficulty, against the evidentialists who deny this, is to show that we sometimes manage to believe on the basis of non-epistemic considerations. If this is so, one fundamental motivation behind the evidentialist idea that non-epistemic considerations could not enter as reason in deliberation would lose its force. In the second part of this paper I address several strategies proposed in the attempt to show that we sometimes manage to believe on the basis of non-epistemic considerations and show that they all fail. So, I conclude that the strategy inspired by McHugh to ground the normativity of evidence on the value of truth ultimately fails. (shrink)

In this paper, I present the recently much discussed Value Challenge for Theories of Knowledge and formulate Generic Theistic reliabilism as a theory, which can answer this challenge, with respect to Theism and the proposition ”God exists’.

Gettier cases reveal the paradoxes within the universally applied, but therefore misunderstood, framework of Plato’s “justified true belief” (JTB). By identifying and addressing five challenges this analysis highlights the limitations of JTB in dynamic contexts. The resulting instabilities and contradictions necessitate a shift toward a dualistic model of knowledge, distinguishing between static knowledge (SK), which is timeless and unchanging, and dynamic knowledge (DK), which can adapt and evolve with changing circumstances. In this framework, Gettier cases will be explained as conceptual (...) coincidences. In dynamic environments, knowledge claims demand methodologies that transcend the limitations of JTB to adapt to evolving information. Assertions in this regard, with their critical moments procedurally lead to more useful conceptualizations. Consequently, DK offers tools for epistemological analysis with both an idealistic and a pragmatic approach, the latter defined as “justified true crisis” (JTC). (shrink)

در قرائت لیندا زاگزبسکی از معرفت‌شناسی فضیلت عناصر بسیاری در کنار هم قرار گرفته‌اند. در این نظریۀ ترکیبی -اگر نگوییم التقاطی- زمینه برای طرح ایرادات بسیار است. در این مقاله، پس از ارائه تقریری بسیار مختصر از لبّ نظریۀ معرفت‌شناسی فضیلت زاگزبسکی، چهار ایراد درباره آن مطرح شده که از این قرارند: فضیلت و باورِ برآمده از مسیری که زاگزبسکی ترسیم می‌کند در همه موارد شرط لازم و کافی برای حصول معرفت نیست؛ تفکیک میان فضایل طبیعی و اکتسابی و نقش (...) هر کدام از آنها در کسب معرفت در نظریه زاگزبسکی به روشنی تبیین نشده و قابل مناقشه است؛ جایگاه عامل و باورنده در نظریۀ زاگزبسکی به مثابه فاعل و دارنده شناخت، از منظر اعتمادگرایانه و طبیعی‌گرایانۀ محض قابل مناقشه است؛ از منظر علوم تجربی و همچنین فلسفه مبتنی بر آزمون، فضایل و رذایل و فهرست آنها به شکلی دیگر تبیین می‌شود؛ و نهایتاً این که جایگاه انگیزۀ کسب معرفت و همچنین رانه‌هایی که به حصول معرفت منجر می‌شوند قابل مناقشه است. (shrink)

The paper discusses Bernard Bolzano’s epistemological approach to believing and knowing with regard to the epistemic requirements of an axiomatic model of science. It relates Bolzano’s notions of believing, knowing and evaluation to notions of infallibility, immediacy and foundational truth. If axiomatic systems require their foundational truths to be infallibly known, this knowledge involves both evaluation of the infallibility of the asserted truth and evaluation of its being foundational. The twofold attempt to examine one’s assertions and to do so by (...) searching for the objective grounds of the truths asserted lies at the heart of Bolzano’s notion of knowledge. However, the explanatory task of searching for grounds requires methods that cannot warrant infallibility. Hence, its constitutive role in a conception of knowledge seems to imply the fallibility of such knowledge. I argue that the explanatory task contained in Bolzanian knowing involves a high degree of epistemic virtues, and that it is only through some salient virtue that the credit of infallibility can distinguish Bolzanian knowing from a high degree of Bolzanian believing. (shrink)

The article makes a general argument against understanding the concept of knowledge as a justified true belief (JTB) as a traditional. For this purpose, it analyzes the works of researchers who begin question the traditionality of JTB. Their arguments are supplemented and placed in the context of a unified argument against the thesis of traditionality. In addition, attempts to defend the status of JTB by describing this concept as intuitive or umbrella term are criticized.

The classical Virtue Epistemology, one of the most interesting contributions of late 20th century American philosophy, proposed to analyze knowledge and epistemic evaluation in general in terms of intellectual virtues. In this approach, these virtues were understood as faculties or personal traits that contribute to the production of knowledge and other epistemic goods. However, the value of some plausible candidates for intellectual virtues, which can be called “generous virtues,” cannot be explained in those terms. This paper proposes a novel account (...) of the general value of intellectual virtues that includes other‑regarding ones. To that end, it considers three strategies of socialization of Virtue Epistemology, and proposes original solution: Epistemic Social Environmentalism. (shrink)

فضائل العقل إبستمولوجيا الفضيلة في سياق التَّنمية الثقافية -/- إحدى السمات الرائعة لجنسنا هي ميله إلى البحث. ولكن البحث يمكن أن يسير بشكل جيد أو بشكل سيء. وربما يرد الخطأ إلى خلل في قدرة إدراكية مثل ضعف الذاكرة، ومع ذلك، غالبًا ما يصدر نجاح أو إخفاق البحث عن مصدر شخصي. إذ يتطلب ممارسة سمات شخصية عقلية مثل الملاحظة اليقظة، أو التحليل الدقيق والشامل، أو التفسير والتقييم المنصفين. عندما نفكر في الشخصية أو الفضائل، فإننا نفكر في شيء أخلاقي على نحو مميز. (...) ولكن السمة الأخلاقية لا تستنفد السمة الشخصية. ذلك بأن للسمة الشخصية بعدًا معرفيًا أو عقليًا: يمكن أيضًا الاعتماد على الشخص الفاضل للاهتمام بغايات مثل الحقيقة والمعرفة والدليل والعقلانية والفهم. وبسبب هذا الاهتمام ستظهر سمات معرفية أخرى مثل حب الاستطلاع، والانتباه، والحرص، والشمولية في البحث، والإنصاف، والانفتاح العقلي، والأناة الفكرية، والصدق، والشجاعة، والتواضع. وعندما تزودنا إبستمولوجيا الفضيلة بأوصاف الفضائل المعرفية، فإنها تهدف إلى تشجيع كائن عقلي جيد، وتدعم الإصلاح الثقافي والازدهار الفكري. ويكشف العمل الحالي في إبستمولوجيا الفضيلة التطبيقية عن مشروعات أخذت طريقها إلى التنفيذ في التعليم. تهدف أكاديمية الفضائل العقلية، مثلا، إلى تعزيز الفضائل العقلية. زد على ذلك أن أنصار إبستمولوجيا الفضيلة يقومون أيضًا بتطبيق وجهات نظرهم على مسائل تتعلق باتخاذ القرارات البيئية، والرعاية الصحية والطب. وتهدف هذه المقالة إلى تحديد موضوع إبستمولوجيا الفضيلة، وبيان نشأتها واتجاهاتها، وتهدف أيضا إلى تفسير طبيعة الفضائل العقلية، وبنيتها، ودورها في استدامة التَّنمية الثقافية. -/- . (shrink)

إبستمولوجيا الفضيلة هي محاولة لاستكشاف الفضائل العقلية والبحث فى الطريقة التى تشكل معالجتنا لمسائل المعرفة. ظهر مصطلح "إبستمولوجيا الفضيلة" لأول مرة في كتاب سوسا "المعرفة من وجهة نظر"1991. ولكن فكرة الفضيلة العقلية ظهرت لأول مرة في المشهد الإبستمولوجي المعاصر في مقال سوسا "الطوافة والهرم" 1980. وفي ذلك الوقت كانت الإبستمولوجيا تزخر بحلول مقترحة لمشكلة جيتير ، واعتراضات حديثة على النزعة الداخلية والنزعة الخارجية معا، واختلافات بين أنصار نظرية الأسس وأنصار نظرية الاتساق. وخلص سوسا في هذا المقال إلى نتيجة مؤداها أن (...) فكرة الفضيلة العقلية intellectual virtue ربما تساعدنا في حل النزاع بين نزعة الأسس ونزعة الاتساق. وبعد أن نشر سوسا مقاله، تحول بعض فلاسفة المعرفة إلى مفاهيم الفضيلة العقلية لمعالجة مجموعة واسعة من مشكلات المعرفة. وتستطيع أن تقول إن إبستمولوجيا الفضيلة جاءت في الأصل لتضع بعض التحسينات على نزعة الثقة، ولتكون طريقة لحل المشكلات التي كانت تزعج نظريات التسويغ القائمة على الاعتقاد. وفي هذه الدراسة تجد تأملا دقيقا في دلالة إبستمولوجيا الفضيلة، ونشأتها، واتجاهاتها، وماتقدمه من حلول لمشكلات المعرفة التقليدية، ومن فائدة للتربية والتكوين الفكري عامة. (shrink)

إبستمولوجيا الفضيلة هي محاولة لاستكشاف الفضائل العقلية والبحث فى الطريقة التى تشكل بها معالجتنا لمسائل المعرفة. ظهر مصطلح "إبستمولوجيا الفضيلة" لأول مرة في كتاب سوسا "المعرفة من وجهة نظر"1991. ولكن فكرة الفضيلة العقلية ظهرت لأول مرة في المشهد الإبستمولوجي المعاصر في مقال سوسا "الطوافة والهرم" 1980. وفي ذلك الوقت كانت الإبستمولوجيا تزخر بحلول مقترحة لمشكلة جيتير، واعتراضات حديثة على النزعة الداخلية والنزعة الخارجية معا، واختلافات بين أنصار نظرية الأسس وأنصار نظرية الاتساق. وخلص سوسا في هذا المقال إلى نتيجة مؤداها أن (...) فكرة الفضيلة العقلية ربما تساعدنا في حل النزاع بين نزعة الأسس ونزعة الاتساق. وبعد أن نشر سوسا مقاله، تحول بعض فلاسفة المعرفة إلى مفاهيم الفضيلة العقلية لمعالجة مجموعة واسعة من مشكلات المعرفة. وتستطيع أن تقول إن إبستمولوجيا الفضيلة جاءت في الأصل لتضع بعض التحسينات على نزعة الثقة، ولتكون طريقة لحل المشكلات التي كانت تزعج نظريات التسويغ القائمة على الاعتقاد. وفي هذه الدراسة تجد تأملا دقيقا في دلالة إبستمولوجيا الفضيلة، ونشأتها، واتجاهاتها، وماتقدمه من حلول لمشكلات المعرفة التقليدية، ومن فائدة للتربية والتكوين الفكري عامة. (shrink)

يلقي سوسا ( -1940) في هذا الكتاب المسائل الكلاسيكية والمعاصرة في نظرية المعرفة، ويعرض مشكلاتها، ويقترح لها الحلول. بداية من الشكية، ومرورا بمشكلة جيتير، والنزاع بين نزعة الأسس ونزعة الاتساق على بنية المعرفة، والخلاف بين النزعة الخارجية والنزعة الداخلية على طبيعة المعرفة، وانتهاء بالدفاع عن إبستمولوجيا الفضيلة التي أسسها واستهل البحث فيها عام 1980، ويناقش العلاقة بين أنصار الثقة وأنصار المسئولية في هذا الفرع المعرفي الجديد. وأنت حين تطالع عرض سوسا لمسائل المعرفة إنما تطالع عقلا ناقدا وفكرا دقيقا في طبيعة (...) المعرفة، ومجالها، وأنواعها ومستوياتها، وقيمتها، والفضيلة أو القدرة المعرفية التي تكون هذه المعرفة. وستجد أيضا أنه يكشف المضمون الحقيقي لفلسفة ديكارت في المعرفة مع مصادرها القديمة، ويقدم تطويرا معاصرا للبناء الديكارتي يقوم على العلم والحس المشترك وليس اللاهوت كما فعل ديكارت. شكلت كتابات سوسا معالم البحث المعرفي المعاصر على مدار أربعة عقود أو يزيد. ومن الخير أن يظهر قراء العربية على هذا الكتاب الخليق بالعناية، وعلى فلسفة مؤلفه الحقيق أن يلقب الآن بعميد الإبستمولوجيا. وقيل عن المؤلف والكتاب:"لا يوجد فيلسوف حي في الوقت الحاضر يفهم الإبستمولوجيا فهما مفصلا وشاملا وواضحا مثلما يفهمها إرنست سوسا. وهذا كتاب تنويري ومرشد كأشد ما يكون التنوير والإرشاد". -/- In this concise book, one of the world’s leading epistemologists provides a sophisticated, revisionist introduction to the problem of knowledge in Western philosophy. Modern and contemporary accounts of epistemology tend to focus on limited questions of knowledge and skepticism, such as how we can know the external world, other minds, the past through memory, the future through induction, or the world’s depth and structure through inference. This book steps back for a better view of the more general issues posed by the ancient Greek Pyrrhonists. Returning to and illuminating this older, broader epistemological tradition, Ernest Sosa develops an original account of the subject, giving it substance not with Cartesian theology but with science and common sense. Descartes is a part of this ancient tradition, but he goes beyond it by considering not just whether knowledge is possible in the first place, but also how we can properly attain it. In Cartesian epistemology, Sosa finds a virtue-theoretic account, one that he extends beyond the Cartesian context. Once epistemology is viewed in this light, many of its problems can be solved or fall away. The result is an important reevaluation of epistemology that will be essential reading for students and teachers. -/- . (shrink)