This chapter is centered around an apparent tension that research on implicit bias raises between virtue and social knowledge. Research suggests that simply knowing what the prevalent stereotypes are leads individuals to act in prejudiced ways—biasing decisions about whom to trust and whom to ignore, whom to promote and whom to imprison—even if they reflectively reject those stereotypes. Because efforts to combat discrimination obviously depend on knowledge of stereotypes, a question arises about what to do next. This (...) chapter argues that the obstacle to virtue is not knowledge of stereotypes as such, but the “accessibility” of such knowledge to the agent who has it. “Accessibility” refers to how easily knowledge comes to mind. Social agents can acquire the requisite knowledge of stereotypes while resisting their pernicious influence, so long as that knowledge remains, in relevant contexts, relatively inaccessible. (shrink)

Virtue reliabilism appears to have a major advantage over generic reliabilism: only the former has the resources to explain the intuition that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. I argue that this appearance is illusory. It is sustained only by the misguided assumption that a principled distinction can be drawn between those belief-forming methods that are grounded in the agent’s intellectual virtues, and those that are not. A further problem for virtue reliabilism is that of (...) explaining why knowledge is more valuable than mere justified true belief. I argue that virtue reliabilism lacks the resources to explain this value difference. I conclude by considering what it would take for a theory to explain the extra value of knowledge over mere justified true belief. (shrink)

Virtue epistemologists define knowledge as true belief produced by intellectual virtue. In this paper, I review how this definition fails in three important ways. First, it fails as an account of the ordinary knowledge concept, because neither belief nor reliability is essential to knowledge ordinarily understood. Second, it fails as an account of the knowledge relation itself, insofar as that relation is operationalized in the scientific study of cognition. Third, it serves no prescriptive purpose (...) identified up till now. An alternative theory, abilism, provides a superior account of knowledge as it is ordinarily and scientifically understood. According to abilism, knowledge is an accurate representation produced by cognitive ability. (shrink)

Modalists think that knowledge requires forming your belief in a “modally stable” way: using a method that wouldn't easily go wrong, or using a method that wouldn't have given you this belief had it been false. Recent Modalist projects from Justin Clarke-Doane and Dan Baras defend a principle they call “Modal Security,” roughly: if evidence undermines your belief, then it must give you a reason to doubt the safety or sensitivity of your belief. Another recent Modalist project from Carlotta (...) Pavese and Bob Beddor defends “Modal Virtue Epistemology”: knowledge is a belief that is maximally modally robust across “normal” worlds. We'll offer new objections to these recent Modalist projects. We will then argue for a rival view, Explanationism: knowing something is believing it because it's true. We will show how Explanationism offers a better account of undermining defeaters than Modalism, and a better account of knowledge. (shrink)

Here is a definition of knowledge: for you to know a proposition p is for you to have an outright belief in p that is correct precisely because it manifests the virtue of rationality. This definition resembles Ernest Sosa’s “virtue theory”, except that on this definition, the only virtue that must be manifested in all instances of knowledge is rationality, and no reductive account of rationality is attempted—rationality is assumed to be an irreducibly normative notion. (...) This definition is compatible with “internalism” about rationality, and with a form of “pragmatic encroachment” on the conditions of rational outright belief. An interpretation is given of this definition, and especially of the sense of ’because’ that it involves. On this interpretation, this definition entails that both safety and adherence are necessary conditions on knowledge; it supports a kind of contextualism about terms like ‘knowledge’; and it provides resources to defend safety, adherence, and contextualism, against some recent objections. (shrink)

This paper is about the role of self-knowledge in the cognitive life of a virtuous knower. The main idea is that it is hard to know ourselves because introspection is an unreliable epistemic source, and reason can be a source of insidious forms of self-deception. Nevertheless, our epistemic situation is such that an epistemically responsible agent must be constantly looking for a better understanding of her own character traits and beliefs, under the risk of jeopardizing her own status as (...) a knower, ruining her own intellectual life. (shrink)

Virtue epistemology argues that knowledge is more valuable than Gettierized belief because knowledge is an achievement, but Gettierized belief is not. The key premise in the achievement argument is that achievement is apt (successful because competent) and Gettierized belief is inapt (successful because lucky). I first argue that the intuition behind the achievement argument is based wrongly on the fact that ‘being successful because lucky’ implicates ‘being not competent enough’. I then offer an argument from moral luck (...) to argue that virtue epistemologists should maintain that knowledge is no more valuable than Gettierized belief. (shrink)

This paper has three aims. First, I’ll argue that there’s no good reason to accept any kind of ‘easy knowledge’ objection to externalist foundationalism. It might be a little surprising that we can come to know that our perception is accurate by using our perception, but any attempt to argue this is impossible seems to rest on either false premises or fallacious reasoning. Second, there is something defective about using our perception to test whether our perception is working. What (...) this reveals is that there are things we aim for in testing other than knowing that the device being tested is working. I’ll suggest that testing aims for sensitive knowledge that the device is working. Testing a device, such as our perceptual system, by using its own outputs may deliver knowledge, but it can’t deliver sensitive knowledge. So it’s a bad way to test the system. The big conclusion here is that sensitivity is an important epistemic virtue, although it is not necessary for knowledge. Third, I’ll argue that the idea that sensitivity is an epistemic virtue can provide a solution to a tricky puzzle about inductive evidence. This provides another reason for thinking that the conclusion of section two is correct: not all epistemic virtues are to do with knowledge. (shrink)

Kant’s moral philosophy both enjoins the acquisition of self-knowledge as a duty, and precludes certain forms of its acquisition via what has become known as the Opacity Thesis. This article looks at several recent attempts to solve this difficulty and argues that they are inadequate. I argue instead that the Opacity Thesis rules out only the knowledge that one has acted from genuine moral principles, but does not apply in cases of moral failure. The duty of moral self- (...) class='Hi'>knowledge applies therefore only to one’s awareness of one’s status as a moral being and to the knowledge of one’s moral failings, both in particular actions and one’s overall character failings, one’s vices. This kind of knowledge is morally salutary as an aid to discovering one’s individual moral weakness as well as the subjective ends for which one acts, and in this way for taking up the morally required end of treating human beings as human beings. In this way, moral self-knowledge can be understood as a necessary element of moral improvement, and I conclude by suggesting several ways to understand it thereby as genuinely primary among the duties to oneself. (shrink)

Virtue reliabilists argue that an agent can only gain knowledge if she responsibly employs a reliable belief-forming process. This in turn demands that she is either aware that her process is reliable or is sensitive to her process’s reliability in some other way. According to a recent argument in the philosophy of mind, sometimes a cognitive mechanism (i.e. precision estimation) can ensure that a belief-forming process is only employed when it’s reliable. If this is correct, epistemic responsibility can (...) sometimes be explained entirely on the subpersonal level. In this paper, I argue that the mechanism of precision estimation–the alleged new variety of epistemic responsibility–is a more ubiquitous phenomenon than epistemic responsibility. I show that precision estimation operates at levels that are not always concerned with the epistemic domain. Lastly, I broaden this argument to explain how all subpersonal epistemologies are likely to fall prey to the problem of demarcating cognitive agency and the problem of attributing beliefs. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga’s theory of knowledge, as developed in his Warrant trilogy, has shaped the debates surrounding many areas in epistemology in profound ways. Plantinga has received his share of criticism, however, particularly in his treatment of belief in God as being “properly basic”. There has also been much confusion surrounding his notions of warrant and proper function, to which Plantinga has responded numerous times. Many critics remain unsatisfied, while others have developed alternative understandings of warrant in order to rescue (...) Plantinga’s theory from certain objections. The most promising of such attempts fall under the broad category of “virtue epistemology” or a “virtue-theoretic” approach. The work being done in virtue epistemology is still in its early stages and a consensus on what actually constitutes virtue epistemology has yet to be reached. While some have attempted to structure an entire theory of knowledge based on the virtues possessed by the knower, others have focused more on the role of epistemic virtues as an attempt to supplement existing theories, including Plantinga’s. In this paper, I will offer an analysis of what such an attempt might look like and evaluate the potential success of broadening Plantinga’s original model. -/- My proposal is that certain features of a virtue-theoretic approach (also referred to as “agent-reliabilism”) could improve Plantinga’s model in significant ways. Not only would such a broadened approach be better equipped to handle common objections, but it would also be better suited to contribute an enhanced understanding of the task of epistemology, one that seeks to discover multiple epistemic goods other than what has been traditionally confined to the realm of knowledge. I conclude by applying this approach to Plantinga’s treatment of theistic belief in Warranted Christian Belief and by articulating a few of the ways in which epistemic virtues can increase the degree of warrant enjoyed by such belief. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the ways in which epistemic anxiety promotes well-being, specifically by examining the positive contributions that feelings of epistemic anxiety make toward intellectually virtuous inquiry. While the prospects for connecting the concept of epistemic anxiety to the two most prominent accounts of intellectual virtue, i.e., “virtue-reliabilism” and “virtue-responsibilism”, are promising, I primarily focus on whether the capacity for epistemic anxiety counts as an intellectual virtue in the reliabilist sense. As I argue, there (...) is a close yet unexplored connection between feelings of epistemic anxiety and the form of inference commonly known as “Inference to the Best Explanation” (IBE). Specifically, I argue that both the recognition that some fact requires an explanation—a necessary first step in applying IBE—and the subsequent motivation to employ IBE are typically facilitated by feelings of epistemic anxiety. So, provided IBE is truth-conducive the capacity for epistemic anxiety should count as an intellectual virtue in the reliabilist sense. After outlining my main argument, I address the challenge that the capacity for epistemic anxiety has the potential to be misleading. To respond to this challenge, I discuss how our recognition that a fact requires an explanation must in part be a species of practical knowledge, rather than theoretical knowledge. For the agent to skillfully distinguish between facts that require an explanation and facts that do not, she must develop the virtuous disposition to feel the appropriate amount of epistemic anxiety. Despite the many negative aspects associated with anxiety, as I conclude, being disposed to feel the appropriate amount of epistemic anxiety is ultimately good for us. (shrink)

What is it to base a belief on reasons? Existing attempts to give an account of the basing relation encounter a dilemma: either one appeals to some kind of neutral process that does not adequately reflect the way basing is a content‐sensitive first‐personal activity, or one appeals to linking or bridge principles that over‐intellectualize and threaten regress. We explain why this dilemma arises, and diagnose the commitments that are key obstacles to providing a satisfactory account. We explain why they should (...) be rejected anyway, and then offer a new, knowledge‐first virtue epistemological theory of the basing relation that shows how we can substantially theorize about mental processes without these commitments. The resulting view plausibly captures the way in which basing is an inherently mental and content‐sensitive process. (shrink)

This essay defends a novel form of virtue epistemology: Modal Virtue Epistemology. It borrows from traditional virtue epistemology the idea that knowledge is a type of skillful performance. But it goes on to understand skillfulness in purely modal terms — that is, in terms of success across a range of counterfactual scenarios. We argue that this approach offers a promising way of synthesizing virtue epistemology with a modal account of knowledge, according to which (...) class='Hi'>knowledge is safe belief. In particular, we argue that the modal elements of the view offer important advantages over traditional virtue epistemology, which assigns a central explanatory role to aptness. At the same time, the virtue epistemological elements of the theory reveal new avenues for overcoming obstacles to traditional modal accounts of knowledge. Finally, we highlight the advantages of Modal Virtue Epistemology over alternative syntheses, such as Pritchard's (2012) hybrid approach. (shrink)

It will be argued that personal agency, far from lacking epistemic value, contributes to knowledge in a substantial way. To this end, it will be claimed that what Sosa calls an epistemic perspective is necessary to solve the binding problem in epistemology at the three junctures at which it can occur: as the Pyrrhonian question of whether one can rationally endorse one’s epistemic rationality; as the problem of the epistemic status of guessing; and as the enquiry into the contribution (...) of the agential perspective for evading coincidental luck. Our aim has been that of elucidating and expanding Sosa’s virtue perspectivism. (shrink)

The value problem for knowledge is the problem of explaining why knowledge is cognitively more valuable than mere true belief. If an account of the nature of knowledge is unable to solve the value problem for knowledge, this provides a pro tanto reason to reject that account. Recent literature argues that process reliabilism is unable to solve the value problem because it succumbs to an objection known as the swamping objection. Virtue reliabilism (i.e., agent reliabilism), (...) on the other hand, is able to solve the value problem because it can avoid the swamping objection. I argue that virtue reliabilism escapes the swamping objection only by employing what I call an entailment strategy. Furthermore, since an entailment strategy is open to the process reliabilist (in two different forms), I argue that the process reliabilist is also able to escape the swamping objection and thereby solve the value problem for knowledge. (shrink)

Publication date: 29 September 2016 Source: Author: Samy S. Abu Naser, Mazen J. Al Shobaki, Youssef M. Abu Amuna This paper aims to measure knowledge management maturity in higher education institutions to determine the impact of knowledge management on high performance. Also the study aims to compare knowledge management maturity between universities and intermediate colleges. This study was applied on five higher education institutions in Gaza strip, Palestine. Asian productivity organization model was applied to measure Knowledge (...) Management Maturity. Second dimension which assess high performance was developed by the authors. The controlled sample was. Several statistical tools were used for data analysis and hypotheses testing, including reliability correlation using Cronbach’s alpha, “ANOVA”, Simple Linear Regression and Step Wise Regression. The overall findings of the current study shows that maturity level is in the second level. Findings also support the main hypothesis and it is sub- hypotheses. The most important factors effecting high performance are: Processes, knowledge management leadership, People, knowledge management Outcomes. Furthermore the current study is unique by the virtue of its nature, scope and way of implied investigation, as it is the first comparative study between universities and intermediate colleges in Gaza Strip that explores the status of knowledge management maturity using the Asian productivity Model. (shrink)

The ancient Greeks almost universally accepted the thesis that virtues are skills. Skills have an underlying intellectual structure , and having a particular skill entails understanding the relevant logos. possessing a general ability to diagnose and solve problems . as well as having appropriate experience. Two implications of accepting this thesis for moral epistemology and epistemology in general are considered. Thinking of virtues as skills yields a viable virtue epistemology in which moral knowledge is a species of a (...) general kind of knowledge that is not philosophically suspect. Also, the debate between internalists and externalists in epistemology is subversively resolved as moot by adopting this strategy: the locus of justification for a belief is in the nature of skill. Thus, the contingent fact that some skills allow Homo Sapiens an ‘internal access’. while others do not, is theoretically neutral when considering the nature of justification per se. (shrink)

Robust Virtue Epistemology maintains that knowledge is achieved just when an agent gets to the truth through, or because of, the manifestation of intellectual virtue or ability. A notorious objection to the view is that the satisfaction of the virtue condition will be insufficient to ensure the safety of the target belief; that is, RVE is no anti-luck epistemology. Some of the most promising recent attempts to get around this problem are considered and shown to ultimately (...) fail. Finally, a new proposal for defending RVE as a kind of anti-luck epistemology is defended. The view developed here turns importantly on the idea that knowledge depends on ability and luck in a way that is gradient, not rigid, and that we know just when our cognitive success depends on ability not rather, but more so, than luck. (shrink)

This paper aims to assess knowledge management maturity at HEI to determine the most effecting variables on knowledge management that enhance the total performance of the organization. This study was applied on Al-Azhar University in Gaza strip, Palestine. This paper depends on Asian productivity organization model that used to assess KM maturity. Second dimension assess high performance was developed by the authors. The controlled sample was (364). Several statistical tools were used for data analysis and hypotheses testing, including (...) reliability Correlation using Cronbach’s alpha, “ANOVA”, Simple Linear Regression and Step Wise Regression. The overall findings of the current study suggest that KMM is suitable for measuring and lead to enhance high performance. KMM assessment shows that the university maturity level is in level three. Findings also support the main hypothesis and it is subhypotheses. The most important factors effecting high performance are: Processes, KM leadership, People, KM Outcomes, Knowledge Process. Furthermore the current study is unique by the virtue of its nature, scope and way of implied investigation, as it is the first study at HEI in Palestine explores the status of KMM using the Asian productivity model. (shrink)

In this book review, I discuss Smith’s new interpretation of Socrates' epistemology of virtue, according to which (a) Socratic virtue knowledge is craft knowledge (knowing how to live well), and such knowledge comes in degrees; and (b) Socrates has a certain degree of virtue knowledge, and one does not have to be an inerrant expert to have any virtue knowledge at all. I argue that Smith succeeds in presenting Socratic philosophy in (...) a new light, while also pointing to remaining questions about his account of virtue—specifically, about what exactly the craft of virtue is and how we can practice it and thereby improve ourselves. (shrink)

I examine Zhu Xi's investigation thesis, the claim that a necessary condition (in ordinary cases) for one’s acting fully virtuously is one’s investigating the all-pervasive pattern in things (gewu格物). I identify four key objections that the thesis faces, which I label the rationalism, elitism, demandingness, and irrelevance worries. Zhu Xi, I argue, has resources for responding to each of these worries, and for defending a broadly intellectualist conception of fully virtuous agency.

This paper applies a virtue epistemology approach to using the Internet, as to improve our information-seeking behaviours. Virtue epistemology focusses on the cognitive character of agents and is less concerned with the nature of truth and epistemic justification as compared to traditional analytic epistemology. Due to this focus on cognitive character and agency, it is a fruitful but underexplored approach to using the Internet in an epistemically desirable way. Thus, the central question in this paper is: How to (...) use the Internet in an epistemically virtuous way? Using the work of Jason Baehr, it starts by outlining nine intellectual or epistemic virtues: curiosity, intellectual autonomy, intellectual humility, attentiveness, intellectual carefulness, intellectual thoroughness, open-mindedness, intellectual courage and intellectual tenacity. It then explores how we should deploy these virtues and avoid the corresponding vices when interacting with the Internet, particularly search engines. Whilst an epistemically virtuous use of the Internet will not guarantee that one will acquire true beliefs, understanding or even knowledge, it will strongly improve one’s information-seeking behaviours. The paper ends with arguing that teaching and assessing online intellectual virtues should be part of school and university curricula, perhaps embedded in critical thinking courses, or even better, as individual units. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to show how Plato suggested demarcating between knowledge and other kinds of human intellectual activities. The article proposes to distinguish between two ways of such a demarcation. The first, called `the external demarcation', takes place when one differentiates between knowledge and non-knowledge, the rational and non-rational or the reasonable and non-reasonable. The second, called `internal', marks the difference within knowledge itself and could be illustrated by the difference between the (...) so called hard and soft sciences. The analyses lead tothe following conclusions. Plato refers to the whole of human intellectual activity as doxa, which is divided into two spheres. The first of them is knowledge proper whose criterion is phronesis. Three other kinds of doxa are derived from knowledge proper: 1) the traditional peri phuseos investigation (called also sophia); 2) popular doxai concerning virtues; 3) wisdom of the antilogikoi. The difference represents the external demarcation. There may be, however, a difference in the scope of knowledge proper (the internal demarcation). If the peri phuseos investigators were able to explain the field of values, the result of their investigation could be acknowledged as knowledge, although it would still be characterized as inferior due to its being based on senses. What is interesting about knowledge proper is that it is not firm and reliable but only hypothetical. It does not determine the skeptical reading of the Phaedo but it indicates that Plato has just begun his own philosophical project (which is still in progress) and the knowledge presented in the dialogue is his first positive suggestion how to solve the problem of demarcation. (shrink)

Virtue epistemologies about knowledge have traditionally been divided into two camps: virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. Initially, what set them apart was that virtue responsibilism took intellectual character virtues and responsible agency to be necessary to knowledge acquisition, whereas virtue reliabilism took reliable cognitive faculties to be constitutive of it instead. Despite recent concessions between these camps, there are residual disagreements. Chapter 8 focuses primarily on Linda Zagzebski’s account of virtue responsibilism and (...) John Greco’s and Ernest Sosa’s defenses of virtue reliabilism. It argues that despite their misgivings about virtue responsibilism, Greco and Sosa are ultimately required to accept that intellectual character virtues involve a substantial truth-motivational component, and that knowledge requires a kind of epistemic responsibility that is far more substantive than a causal, naturalistic notion of attribution. (shrink)

Cognitive integration is a defining yet overlooked feature of our intellect that may nevertheless have substantial effects on the process of knowledge-acquisition. To bring those effects to the fore, I explore the topic of cognitive integration both from the perspective of virtue reliabilism within externalist epistemology and the perspective of extended cognition within externalist philosophy of mind and cognitive science. On the basis of this interdisciplinary focus, I argue that cognitive integration can provide a minimalist yet adequate epistemic (...) norm of subjective justification: so long as the agent’s belief-forming process has been integrated in his cognitive character, the agent can be justified in holding the resulting beliefs merely by lacking any doubts there was something wrong in the way he arrived at them. Moreover, since both externalist philosophy of mind and externalist epistemology treat the process of cognitive integration in the same way, we can claim that epistemic cognitive characters may extend beyond our organismic cognitive capacities to the artifacts we employ or even to other agents we interact with. This move is not only necessary for accounting for advanced cases of knowledge that is the product of the operation of epistemic artifacts or the interactive activity of research teams, but it can further lead to interesting ramifications both for social epistemology and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Robust virtue epistemology holds that knowledge is true belief obtained through cognitive ability. In this essay I explain that robust virtue epistemology faces a dilemma, and the viability of the theory depends on an adequate understanding of the ‘through’ relation. Greco interprets this ‘through’ relation as one of causal explanation; the success is through the agent’s abilities iff the abilities play a sufficiently salient role in a causal explanation of why she possesses a true belief. In this (...) paper I argue that Greco’s account of the ‘through’ relation is inadequate. I describe kinds of counterexample and explain why salience is the wrong kind of property to track epistemically relevant conditions or to capture the nature of knowledge. Advocates of robust virtue epistemology should develop an alternative account of the ‘through’ relation. I also argue that virtue epistemology should employ an environment-relative interpretation of epistemic virtue. (shrink)

The first part of the paper (p. 10-21) tries to answer the first question of the title and describes a set of seven “knowledge-claims” made by Socrates: 1. There is a distinction between right opinion and knowledge. 2. Virtue is knowledge. 3. Nobody willingly does wrong. 4. To do injustice is the greatest evil for the wrongdoer himself. 5. An even greater evil is if the wrongdoer is not punished. 6. The just person is happy; the (...) unjust person is unhappy. 7. The pleasant is not the good. These claims seem to be the “few” (oliga) (Men. 98 b3) but “very important” (kallista) (Grg. 472 c8) things that Socrates claims to know. The second part (p. 22-39) tries to answer the second question and defends the thesis that the supposed “knowledge” of Socrates is dianoetic, but not noetic. The main new idea of this paperis the comparison of the Socratic knowledge-claims with the upper states of the mind symbolized in theDivided Line, noesis and dianoia (cf. R. 511 d7-e1). Posted. (shrink)

This paper compares epistemic virtue from the viewpoints of Zagzebski and Mulla Sadra, aiming to determine the extent to which their viewpoints on epistemic virtue are similar. Zagzebski, the contemporary philosopher, considers epistemic virtue as the basis on which knowledge is interpreted. She sees epistemic virtue as a requirement for achieving knowledge. Mulla Sadra, the founder of Transcendent Philosophy, considers knowledge as an outcome of intellectual virtues without which there would be no (...) class='Hi'>knowledge. The role these two philosophers ascribe to moral and intellectual virtues and vices in forming the identity makes it possible to compare their interpretation of epistemic virtues. As a virtue responsibilist, Zagzebski sees epistemic virtue as a character trait and explains its nature by its different components. Sadra as well, sees epistemic virtue as a character trait. Evidence shows that Sadra’s definition of intellectual virtues is similar to that given by Zagzebski in many respects. Examining Zagzebski’s viewpoint on epistemic virtue, this paper will discuss Sadra’s viewpoint on epistemic virtue as well as its contribution to knowledge. In conclusion the similarities of the two viewpoints will be delineated. (shrink)

Reflection on the nature and value of fiction has often paid attention to the possibility of acquiring knowledge through engaging with fictional works. The alleged imaginative character of fiction appreciation and the sort of emotional responses that fiction is able to prompt in the viewer have been frequently invoked in order to explain the peculiar cognitive value that fictions may possess. In this paper, I would like to question whether fiction as such possesses a specific kind of value. Although (...) I agree that fictional works can convey certain kinds of knowledge, I think that the cognitive virtues that we attribute to fictional works do not have much to do with their fictional character as such. Rather, these values are grounded upon the various properties that the different representational artifacts that can serve to produce fictional works possess. Thus while I think fictional works can deliver various sorts of cognitive value, this value is not intrinsically connected with the fictional nature of these works. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that knowledge is characteristically safe true belief. We argue that an adequate approach to epistemic luck must not be indexed to methods of belief formation, but rather to explanations for belief. This shift is problematic for several prominent approaches to the theory of knowledge, including virtue reliabilism and proper functionalism (as normally conceived). The view that knowledge is characteristically safe true belief is better able to accommodate the shift in question.

In his Treatise of Human Nature Hume makes clear that it is his aim to make moral philosophy more scientific and properly grounded on experience and observation. The “experimental” approach to philosophy, Hume warns his readers, is “abstruse,” “abstract” and “speculative” in nature. It depends on careful and exact reasoning that foregoes the path of an “easy” philosophy, which relies on a more direct appeal to our passions and sentiments . Hume justifies this approach by way of an analogy concerning (...) the relevance of anatomy to painting. “The anatomist,” he says, “ought never to emulate the painter.” At the same time, the painter cannot afford to ignore the anatomist: An anatomist [...] is admirably fitted to give advice to a painter ... We must have an exact knowledge of the parts, their situation and connexion, before we can design with any elegance or correctness. And thus the most abstruse speculations concerning human nature, however cold and uninteresting, become subservient to practical morality; and may render this latter science more correct in its precepts, and more persuasive in its exhortations. As these remarks suggest, Hume’s anatomy of virtue is not without its own practical aims and objectives. It is advanced with a view to identifying and carefully delineating the true foundations of morality in human nature and correcting our practices in light of this. With this improvement in our understanding of the nature and basis of virtue, we can better appreciate the way in which virtue secures happiness for ourselves and others and may also avoid the distortions and corruptions of morality by religious superstition. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Drawing inspiration from Fred Dretske, L. S. Carrier, John A. Barker, and Robert Nozick, we develop a tracking analysis of knowing according to which a true belief constitutes knowledge if and only if it is based on reasons that are sensitive to the fact that makes it true, that is, reasons that wouldn’t obtain if the belief weren’t true. We show that our sensitivity analysis handles numerous Gettier-type cases and lottery problems, blocks pathways leading to skepticism, and validates (...) the epistemic closure thesis that correct inferences from known premises yield knowledge of the conclusions. We discuss the plausible views of Ted Warfield and Branden Fitelson regarding cases of knowledge acquired via inference from false premises, and we show how our sensitivity analysis can account for such cases. We present arguments designed to discredit putative counterexamples to sensitivity analyses recently proffered by Tristan Haze, John Williams and Neil Sinhababu, which involve true statements made by untrustworthy informants and strange clocks that sometimes display the correct time while running backwards. Finally, we show that in virtue of employing the paradox-free subjunctive conditionals codified by Relevance Logic theorists instead of the paradox-laden subjunctive conditionals codified by Robert Stalnaker and David Lewis. (shrink)

Discussions of group knowledge typically focus on whether a group’s knowledge that p reduces to group members’ knowledge that p. Drawing on the cumulative reading of collective knowledge ascriptions and considerations about the importance of the division of epistemic labour, I argue what I call the Fragmented Knowledge account, which allows for more complex relations between individual and collective knowledge. According to this account, a group can know an answer to a question in (...) class='Hi'>virtue of members of the group knowing parts of that answer, when the whole answer is available to group-level action. I argue that this account explains a swathe of central cases of group knowledge, as well as explaining some central features of group knowledge. (shrink)

In the Protagoras, Socrates argues that all the virtues are the very same knowledge of human wellbeing so that virtue is all one. But elsewhere Socrates appears to endorse that the virtues-such as courage, temperance, and reverence-are different parts of a single whole. Ambiguity interpretations harmonize the conflicting texts by taking the virtue words to be equivocal, such as between theoretical and applied expertise, or between a power and its deeds. I argue that such interpretations have failed (...) in their specifics and in general, as I defend an alternative that takes into account Socrates' higher purpose in testing others, namely to show them their ignorance of virtue. (shrink)

The paper assesses Knowledge Management Maturity(KMM) in the universities to determine the impact of knowledge management on performance excellence. This study was applied on Al-Azhar University and Al-Quds Open University in Gaza strip, Palestine. This paper depends on Asian productivity organization model that used to assess KMM. Second dimension which assess performance excellence was developed by the authors. The controlled sample was (610). Several statistical tools were used for data analysis and hypotheses testing, including reliability Correlation using Cronbach’s (...) alpha, “ANOVA”, Simple Linear Regression and Step Wise Regression. The overall findings of the current study suggest that KMM is suitable for measuring performance excellence. KMM assessment shows that both universities maturity level is in level three. Findings also support the main hypothesis and it is sub- hypotheses. The most important factors effecting performance excellence are: Processes, KM leadership, People, KM Outcomes. Furthermore the current study is unique by the virtue of its nature, scope and way of implied investigation, as it is the first comparative study in the universities of Palestine explores the status of KMM using the Asian productivity Model. (shrink)

A new way to transpose the virtue epistemologist’s ‘knowledge = apt belief’ template to the collective level, as a thesis about group knowledge, is developed. In particular, it is shown how specifically judgmental belief can be realised at the collective level in a way that is structurally analogous, on a telic theory of epistemic normativity (e.g., Sosa 2020), to how it is realised at the individual level—viz., through a (collective) intentional attempt to get it right aptly (whether (...) p) by alethically affirming that p. An advantage of the proposal developed is that it is shown to be compatible with competing views—viz., joint acceptance accounts and social-distributive accounts—of how group members must interact in order to materially realise a group belief. I conclude by showing how the proposed judgment-focused collective (telic) virtue epistemology has important advantages over a rival version of collective virtue epistemology defended in recent work by Jesper Kallestrup (2016). (shrink)

Abstract The present paper examines the role of epistemic virtues in the formation of intellectual identity and its impact on improving our truth-seeking behaviors. A epistemic virtue is a special faculty or trait of a person whose operation makes that person a thinker, believer, learner, scholar, knower, cognizer, perceiver, etc., or causes his intellectual development and perfection, and improves his truth-seeking and knowledge-acquiring behaviours and places him on the path to attain understanding, perception and wisdom. Virtue epistemology (...) is a set of approaches in contemporary epistemology that regards knowledge as "a true belief arising from humans epistemic virtues." Virtue responsibilism and Virtue reliabilism are two important approaches to virtue epistemology that differ together in their attitude to the nature of epistemic virtue. Responsibilisms regards epistemic virtues as an acquired character traits that must be attained through practice and training with plenty of effort from the agent who possesses the will. In contrast, virtue reliabilisms considers epistemic virtues as reliable and innate cognitive faculties, and believes that this natural faculties has been placed in the human being from the very beginning and, if used in the appropriate condition and in a proper environment, is reliably truth-conducive. So virtue epistemology, which is distinguished from belief-based analytical epistemology by focusing on the cognitive character of the agent rather than the belief, regards epistemic virtues as the constructive factor of the epistemic agent and the condition of reaching the truth. From the two approaches of virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism, this paper focuses on the second approach and with using of the nine-fold virtues, that Jason Baehr posed, shows how to make epistemically good and thinker human by utilizing these virtues and avoiding the corresponding vices and through this, gained the truth in various epistemic areas. After explaining these virtues and their role in the two mentioned domains based on the virtue epistemology, the significance of this relationship in the view of Mulla Sadra as an example of Islamic philosophy is examined, For the reason that he sees knowledge as the produce of some factors that epistemic virtues is considered part of them. In the view of Sadra, epistemic virtues is the specific attributes and traits of reason faculty that their function causes man to be a very good and strong perciever, and their actual possesion or their gradual acquisition leads to the perfection of the soul and the dignity of human existence. In a new theory of soul-  Ph.D. Student of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Qom University, Qom, Iran (Responsible author) [email protected]  Associate Professor of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Qom University, Qom, Iran. [email protected]  Professor of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Qom University, Qom, Iran. [email protected] 2/ Comparative Theology, Vol: 9, No: 19, Spring & Summer 2018 knowledge, he considers the journey of the soul from the outset as evolutionary journey, and, on the other hand, he considers all human activities directly as an activity of the soul (epistemic agent), which he performs through his own faculties. As a result, the soul is a increasing and evolving being, while at the same time acquiring knowledge is also from its own activities, and therefore the factors that make up the soul are also influential in its products. Now, as knowledge comes from soul exposure to the outside world, the more this soul is refined from pollutions and adorned to virtues, the better reflection from reality will be. Undoubtedly, the desire to engage in the process of truth-seeking and the responsible use of cognitive virtues and skills lead man to a desirable goal (recognition of truth) and forms his true intellectual identity. In the end, the paper suggests that because of the importance of epistemic virtues in the improvement of truth-seeking behaviors, educating and cultivating of these types of virtues should be part of the spoken and written course content of universities and schools, and must be proper critical thinking is institutionalized and strengthened in the spirit of community members. Educational resources contain a wide range of information that can deeply influence our epistemic behaviors and actions. Hence, it is necessary to include praised cognitive skills and epistemic virtues training in them. Teachers play an important role in educating and developing epistemic virtues as part of the formal curriculum content of educational centers, perhaps as part of critical thinking and logic courses. The formal education of epistemic virtues and the creation of opportunities for practicing and exercising them will be a good starting point for institutionalizing and developing admired cognitive skills among members of the community. In a society where individuals in their epistemic processes use their own cognitive virtues and organize their beliefs on their basis, the community itself and the social relations will also be virtuous, because the necessity of such an virtues is that individuals interact with their peers and In these interactions, rule virtue. Observing fairness towards others, intellectual humility, intellectual generosity, courage against miscreant and one who has weak arguments, observance of neutrality and other epistemic virtues, if it is to be found in societies as a habit and praised skill, then that society will be virtuous and its relations will be healthier and with the cultivating of those virtues, Intellectual and moral development will also become easier and more common. Intellectual virtues (or praised cognitive skills) should be taught to the community members, so that they display such characteristics when engaging in social activities, whean expressing opinions, when doing research, and so on. It is important to change our education policies, because the decay of praised cognitive skills leads to devastating consequences for intellectual identity and the truth-seeking and knowledgeacquiring behavior of the community members. (shrink)

What is the source of aesthetic knowledge? Empirical knowledge, it is generally held, bottoms out in perception. Such knowledge can be transmitted to others through testimony, preserved by memory, and amplified via inference. But perception is where the rubber hits the road. What about aesthetic knowledge? Does it too bottom out in perception? Most say “yes”. But this is wrong. When it comes to aesthetic knowledge, it is appreciation, not perception, where the rubber hits the (...) road. The ultimate source of aesthetic knowledge is feeling. In this essay, we articulate and defend the very idea of affective knowledge and reveal aesthetic knowledge to be a species of the genus. We then show how the view resolves a thorny problem that has bedeviled aesthetic epistemologists: how to reconcile the seemingly direct character of aesthetic knowledge with the possibility of acquiring such knowledge from criticism. One learns from criticism, we argue, when it guides one’s engagement with an object so that one can appreciate it in virtue of those of its features that render it worthy of appreciation. (shrink)

How should we understand good philosophical inquiry? Ernest Sosa has argued that the key to answering this question lies with virtue-based epistemology. According to virtue-based epistemology, competences are prior to epistemic justification. More precisely, a subject is justified in having some type of belief only because she could have a belief of that type by exercising her competences. Virtue epistemology is well positioned to explain why, in forming false philosophical beliefs, agents are often less rational than it (...) is possible to be. False philosophical beliefs are often unjustified—and the agent is thereby less rational for having them—precisely because these beliefs could not be formed by exercising competences. But, virtue epistemology is not well positioned to explain why, in failing to form some true philosophical beliefs, agents are less rational than it is possible to be. In cases where agents fall short by failing to believe philosophical truths, the problem is not that they believe things they shouldn’t, but that they lack beliefs they ought to have. We argue that Timothy Williamson's recent critique of the a priori/a posteriori distinction falls prey to similar problem cases. Williamson fails to see that a type of belief might be a priori justified if and only if, even without any special confirming experiences, agents fall short by failing to have this type of belief. We conclude that there are types of beliefs that are deeply a priori justified for any agent regardless of what epistemic competences the agent has. However, we also point out that this view has a problem of its own: it appears to make the acquisition of a priori knowledge too easy. We end by suggesting that a move back towards virtue-based epistemology is necessary. But in order for this move to be effective, epistemic competences will have to be understood very differently than in the reliabilist tradition. (shrink)

Knowledge, like other things of value, can be faked. According to Hawley (2011), know-how is harder to fake than knowledge-that, given that merely apparent propositional knowledge is in general more resilient to our attempts at successful detection than are corresponding attempts to fake know-how. While Hawley’s reasoning for a kind of detection resilience asymmetry between know-how and know-that looks initially plausible, it should ultimately be resisted. In showing why, we outline different ways in which know-how can be (...) faked even when a given performance is successful; and in doing so, we distinguish how know-how can be faked (no less than know-that) via upstream and downstream indicators of its presence, and within each of these categories, we’ll distinguish (in connection with detection resilience) both faking symptoms and (various kinds of) criteria. The unappreciated resilience of faked knowledge-how to successful detection highlights a largely overlooked dimension of social-epistemic risk – risk we face not just in our capacity as recipients of testimony, but in our capacity as both (would-be) apprentices and clients of knowledge-how. (shrink)

I provide a novel knowledge-first account of justification that avoids the pitfalls of existing accounts while preserving the underlying insight of knowledge-first epistemologies: that knowledge comes first. The view I propose is, roughly, this: justification is grounded in our practical knowledge (know-how) concerning the acquisition of propositional knowledge (knowledge-that). I first refine my thesis in response to immediate objections. In subsequent sections I explain the various ways in which this thesis is theoretically superior to (...) existing knowledge-first accounts of justification. The upshot is a virtue-theoretic, knowledge-first view of justification that is internalist-friendly and able to explain more facts about justification than any other available view. (shrink)

Virtue-based moral cognitivism holds that at least some of the value of some art consists in conveying knowledge about the nature of virtue and vice. We explore here a challenge to this view, which extends the so-called situationist challenge to virtue ethics. Evidence from social psychology indicates that individuals’ behavior is often susceptible to trivial and normatively irrelevant situational influences. This evidence not only challenges approaches to ethics that emphasize the role of virtue but also (...) undermines versions of moral cognitivism, because the value of art cannot consist in teaching us about traits that do not exist. We thus recommend a new account of the cognitive value of art: art teaches how context and character interact to produce action. (shrink)

We argue against the knowledge rule of assertion, and in favour of integrating the account of assertion more tightly with our best theories of evidence and action. We think that the knowledge rule has an incredible consequence when it comes to practical deliberation, that it can be right for a person to do something that she can't properly assert she can do. We develop some vignettes that show how this is possible, and how odd this consequence is. We (...) then argue that these vignettes point towards alternate rules that tie assertion to sufficient evidence-responsiveness or to proper action. These rules have many of the virtues that are commonly claimed for the knowledge rule, but lack the knowledge rule's problematic consequences when it comes to assertions about what to do. (shrink)

The domain of modal epistemology tackles questions regarding the sources of our knowledge of modalities (i.e., possibility and necessity), and what justifies our beliefs about modalities. Virtue epistemology, on the other hand, aims at explaining epistemological concepts like knowledge and justification in terms of properties of the epistemic subject, i.e., cognitive capacities and character traits. While there is extensive literature on both domains, almost all attempts to analyze modal knowledge elude the importance of the agent’s intellectual (...) character traits in justifying beliefs about what is possible or necessary. My aim in this paper is to argue that intellectual traits of character, like thoroughness, autonomy, epistemic courage and open-mindedness, are relevant to modal epistemology. (shrink)

Intentional action is, in some sense, non-accidental, and one common way action theorists have attempted to explain this is with reference to control. The idea, in short, is that intentional action implicates control, and control precludes accidentality. But in virtue of what, exactly, would exercising control over an action suffice to make it non-accidental in whatever sense is required for the action to be intentional? One interesting and prima facie plausible idea that we wish to explore in this paper (...) is that control is non-accidental in virtue of requiring knowledge – either knowledge-that or knowledge-how (e.g., Beddor and Pavese 2021; cf., Setiya 2008; 2012 and Habgood-Coote 2018). We review in detail some key recent work defending such knowledge-centric theories of control, and we show that none of these accounts holds water. We conclude with some discussion about how control opposes the sort of luck intentional action excludes without doing so by requiring knowledge (that- or how). (shrink)

According to attributor virtue epistemology (the view defended by Ernest Sosa, John Greco, and others), S knows that p only if her true belief that p is attributable to some intellectual virtue, competence, or ability that she possesses. Attributor virtue epistemology captures a wide range of our intuitions about the nature and value of knowledge, and it has many able defenders. Unfortunately, it has an unrecognized consequence that many epistemologists will think is sufficient for rejecting it: (...) namely, it makes knowledge depend on factors that aren't truth-relevant, even in the broadest sense of this term, and it also makes knowledge depend in counterintuitive ways on factors that are truth-relevant in the more common narrow sense of this term. As I show in this paper, the primary objection to interest-relative views in the pragmatic encroachment debate can be raised even more effectively against attributor virtue epistemology. (shrink)

This paper examines a passage in the Theaetetus where Plato distinguishes knowledge from true belief by appealing to the example of a jury hearing a case. While the jurors may have true belief, Socrates puts forward two reasons why they cannot achieve knowledge. The reasons for this nescience have typically been taken to be in tension with each other . This paper proposes a solution to the putative difficulty by arguing that what links the two cases of nescience (...) is that in neither case do the jurors act from an epistemic virtue and that doing so is a necessary condition of knowledge. Appreciating that it is a necessary condition of knowledge that it be the result of an epistemic agent's agency in a distinctive way provides a satisfying solution to the difficulty Burnyeat detected and also does justice to an otherwise neglected aspect of Plato's epistemology: his talk of cognitive capacities and virtues and his focus on what it is that is active and passive in epistemic processes. (shrink)

This article traces a growing interest among epistemologists in the intellectuals of epistemic virtues. These are cognitive dispositions exercised in the formation of beliefs. Attempts to give intellectual virtues a central normative and/or explanatory role in epistemology occur together with renewed interest in the ethics/epistemology analogy, and in the role of intellectual virtue in Aristotle's epistemology. The central distinction drawn here is between two opposed forms of virtue epistemology, virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. The article develops (...) the shared and distinctive claims made by contemporary proponents of each form, in their respective treatments of knowledge and justification. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Socratic Virtue: Making the Best of the Neither-Good-Nor-BadJ. Clerk ShawNaomi Reshotko. Socratic Virtue: Making the Best of the Neither-Good-Nor-Bad. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xiv + 204. Cloth, $68.00.In this engaging and provocative book, Naomi Reshotko advances a naturalistic interpretation of Socratic philosophy, i.e., of those views expressed by Plato’s Socrates that best comport with Aristotle’s descriptions of Socrates. She contrasts her reading with (...) those that project foreign commitments onto the text, including: (i) moralism, or the separation of ethics from empirical science; (ii) two-dimensional semantics, or theories of meaning that distinguish the semantic contribution to a psychological state made by its subject’s conception of its objects from that made by its actual objects; and (iii) privileged access, or psychological theories that grant human beings incorrigibility concerning some aspect of their own psyches.Part I reviews and synthesizes views that the author shares with Terry Penner: that all desire is for one’s own real (not apparent) good, so that an agent’s belief about what is overall best for her invariably guides her actions; that all human virtue is identical to wisdom; and that virtue, so understood, guarantees the greatest possible satisfaction of the desire for one’s own real good, and so makes one live as well as possible.Part II places the distinction among the good, the bad, and the neither-good-nor-bad (NGNB) at the center of Socratic ethics. On Reshotko’s reading, the only goods are virtue and happiness, and the only bads vice and misery. She does not adequately explain why all actions are NGNB (16, 173), even though actions are individuated by their actual consequences (34–36), so that every action is either good or bad (98). Virtue’s goodness is due to its stable nomological (not conceptual or logical) connection to happiness. This makes virtue the only unconditional, other-generated good, while happiness is the only unconditional, self-generated good—its goodness does not depend on any nomological relation it enters into.Part III provides more detail about virtue and happiness. First, Reshotko explains that virtue is wisdom because it is the science of human happiness, and that this science is identical to every other science. Strictly speaking, nobody knows anything without knowing everything, although some people do grasp “some parts of knowledge” (160). Reshotko advocates this view as a solution to the closing puzzles of the Charmides. Socrates and Critias cannot figure out how temperance benefits, first because they assume that it is knowledge [End Page 132] of all things except good and bad, and then because they assume that it is knowledge of good and bad in isolation from other sciences (173a–175a). But if Socratic wisdom is the structured grasp of everything, then their puzzle is resolved. Second, Reshotko claims that happiness is a life maximally composed of pleasures. While she is sympathetic with the view that happiness is composed of modal pleasures (see G. Rudebusch, Socrates, Pleasure, and Value, Oxford 1999), she concludes that sensate pleasures can also be parts of happiness (185n7).The book’s major flaw is its limited engagement with textual evidence that seems to tell against the author’s readings and its limited coverage of alternative interpretations from the secondary literature. I mention three striking examples here.First, Reshotko argues that harming others is inconsistent with self-benefit because of the likelihood of reciprocal harm (65–71). She then notes passages where Socrates speaks as though harming others harms one’s soul simply by making it more unjust, which makes vice sound like a self-generated bad. Gorgias 472c–481b is particularly problematic in this respect, since Socrates claims there that doing injustice is less painful (but worse) than suffering it. Reshotko tries to make such passages conform with her initial explanation: harming others tends to entrench false beliefs that harming others is consistent with self-benefit, which leads to more harm of others and so more reciprocal harm (71–72, 174). This may be workable, but absent more extensive argument, it seems like an ad hoc maneuver.Second, Reshotko wants to avoid giving... (shrink)