Within contemporary analytic philosophy, there exists a position known as virtue epistemology, which seeks to illuminate various epistemological problems through the notion of the epistemic or intellectual virtues of the epistemic agent. One of its ma...
Within contemporary analytic philosophy, there exists a position known as virtue epistemology, which seeks to illuminate various epistemological problems through the notion of the epistemic or intellectual virtues of the epistemic agent. One of its major positions, virtue responsibilism defines intellectual virtue as a admirable intellectual character trait of an epistemic agent. According to this view, character traits such as open-mindedness, intellectual humility, and intellectual courage are all considered intellectual virtues. However, virtue responsibilism faces a fundamental problem regarding what makes such character traits intellectual virtues. Traditional virtue responsibilists have explained the intellectual status of these traits by appealing to admirable intellectual motivations, such as a love of knowledge, that underlie them. Yet if intellectual virtue is defined in this way, it becomes problematic, since an intellectual virtus so construed may not be truth-conducive. For the desire for knowledge and the possession of knowledge are different matters. Consequently, most traditional virtue responsibilists does not regard truth-conduciveness as a necessary condition for intellectual virtue. However, I argue that the requirement that intellectual virtue be truth-conducive cannot be easily abandoned, and that any virtue epistemological position which does so faces serious philosophical problems. Moreover, recently some philosophers have argued that the intellectual virtues proposed by virtue responsibilism can achieve epistemic value only conditionally or locally, and therefore fail to be identified as genuine intellectual virtues. With this objection, I argue that the responses offered by some virtue responsibilists are unsatisfactory. To solve this problem, I introduce Aristotle’s concept of practical wisdom (phronesis) with the thesis of the unity of the intellectual virtue, and argue that the intellectual virtues proposed by virtue responsibilism can be understood as genuine while also being systematically truth-conducive. If virtue responsibilism adopts Aristotle’s notion of practical wisdom to distinguish the strict intellectual virtue, and accepts the thesis of the unity of the intellectual virtue, then intellectual virtues can be regarded as both genuine and truth-conducive. To this end, Chapter 1 introduces the two main positions of virtue epistemology—virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism—explaining how they differ and their historical development. Chapter 2 presents the ‘truth-conduciveness problem’ for virtue responsibilism, focusing on three propositions that virtue responsibilism must address, and identifies the limitations of existing solutions. Chapter 3 proposes Aristotle’s notion of practical wisdom and the unity of the intellectual virtue as a genuine solution to this problem, showing how this framework reveals the systematic truth-conduciveness of intellectual virtues and invalidates recent objections. Chapter 4 examines six possible objections to my proposed solution, and Chapter 5 concludes by summarizing the overall argument and highlighting the philosophical significance and contribution of this study within virtue epistemology.