Virtue epistemology

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Virtue epistemology refers to any number of philosophical approaches which address contemporary problems in the theory of knowledge (epistemology) by means of the concept of intellectual (epistemic) virtues. Commonly accepted epistemic virtues include creativity, intellectual humility, and objectivity. These virtues can either be conceived of as faculties or as exemplary traits.

Intellectual virtue has been a subject of philosophy since the works of Plato and Aristotle, but virtue epistemology, in the contemporary analytic tradition, is characterized by efforts to solve problems of special concern to modern epistemology, such as justification and reliabilism, by throwing attention on the knower as agent in a manner similar to virtue ethics.

Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski has proposed a particularly ambitious neo-Aristotelian model of virtue epistemology, emphasizing the role of phronesis as an archetectonic virtue unifying moral and intellectual virtues even more radically than Aristotle proposed. Other notable proponents of virtue epistemology include Guy Axtell, Abrol Fairweather, Alvin Goldman, John Greco, Alvin Plantinga, and Ernest Sosa.

[edit] Partial Bibliography for Virtue Epistemology

Aquino, Frederick D. Communities of Informed Judgment: Newman’s Illative Sense and Accounts of Rationality. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2004.
_____. “Broadening Horizons: Constructing an Epistemology of Religious Belief.” Louvain Studies, forthcoming.
_____. “Newman and Virtue Epistemology.” In Newman and Truth. Peeters/Eerdmans, forthcoming.
_____. “Newman’s Idea of Practical Wisdom.” Forthcoming.
Axtell, Guy, ed. Knowledge, Belief, and Character: Readings in Contemporary Virtue. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.
_____. “Epistemic Luck in Light of the Virtues.” In Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, ed. *Abrol Fairweather and Linda Zagzebski, 158-77. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Blackburn, Simon. “Reason, Virtue, and Knowledge.” In Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, ed. Abrol Fairweather and Linda Zagzebski, 15-29. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Bonjour, Laurence, and Ernest Sosa. Epistemic Justification: Internalism vs. Externalism, Foundations vs. Virtues. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.
Brady, Michael and Duncan Pritchard. “Moral and Epistemic Virtues.” In Moral and Epistemic Virtues, ed. Michael Brady and Duncan Pritchard, 1-12. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2003.
Dalmiya, Vrinda. “Why Should a Knower Care?” Hypatia 17, no. 1 (2002): 34-52.
Fairweather, Abrol. “Epistemic Motivation.” In Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, ed. Abrol Fairweather and Linda Zagzebski, 63-81. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Goldman, Alvin I. “The Unity of the Epistemic Virtues.” In Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, ed. Abrol Fairweather and Linda Zagzebski, 30-48. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Hibbs, Thomas S. “Aquinas, Virtue, and Recent Epistemology.” The Review of Metaphysics 52, no. 3 (1999): 573-594.
Hookway, Christopher. “How to be a Virtue Epistemologist.” In Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, ed. Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski, 183-202. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003.
Kawall, Jason. “Other-regarding Epistemic Virtues.” Ratio XV 3 (2002): 257-275.
Lehrer, Keith. “The Virtue of Knowledge.” In Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, ed. Abrol Fairweather and Linda Zagzebski, 200-213. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
McKinnon, Christine. “Knowing Cognitive Selves.” In Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, ed. Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski, 227-254. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003.
Moros, Enrique R. and Richard J. Umbers. “Distinguishing Virtues from Faculties in Virtue Epistemology.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy XLII, (2004): 61-85.
Riggs, Wayne D. “Understanding ‘Virtue’ and the Virtue of Understanding.” In Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, ed. Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski, 203-226. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003.
Roberts, Robert C. and W. Jay Wood. “Humility and Epistemic Goods.” In Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, ed. Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski, 257-279. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003.
Sosa, Ernest. “The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence versus Foundations in the Theory of Knowledge.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5, (1980): 3-25.
_____. “For the Love of Truth?” In Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, ed. Abrol Fairweather and Linda Zagzebski, 49-62. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
_____. “The Place of Truth in Epistemology.” In Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, ed. Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski, 155- 179. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003.
Wood, W. Jay. Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998.
Zagzebski, Linda. Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
_____. “Must Knowers Be Agents?” In Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, ed. Abrol Fairweather and Linda Zagzebski, 142-157. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
_____. “The Search for the Source of Epistemic Good.” In Moral and Epistemic Virtues, ed. Michael Brady and Duncan Pritchard, 13-28. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2003.
_____. “Intellectual Motivation and the Good of Truth.” In Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, ed. Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski, 135-154. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003.
_____, and Abrol Fairweather. “Introduction.” In Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, ed. Abrol Fairweather and Linda Zagzebski, 3-14. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
_____, and Michael DePaul. “Introduction.” In Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, ed. Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski, 1-12. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003.