A FUNÇÃO DAS VIRTUDES NA EPISTEMOLOGIA DE CHRISTOPHER HOOKWAY: ceticismo, estados afetivos e a fenomenologia da investigação

Abstract

This paper elaborates Christopher Hookway’s conception of epistemology, counterposing it to traditional analytic epistemology and presenting the author’s arguments in favor of his main thesis. Which are (a) epistemology doesn’t need necessarily to have the concepts of knowledge and justification as it’s starting point, because (b) cognitive activities, and not cognitive states, are the focus of our epistemic lives and (c) virtues and emotions play a fundamental role in such activities. In the first section we introduce virtue epistemology and some of its main elements so that we can situate Hookway’s theory; in the second section the research project of contemporary epistemology and some reason why it’s unsatisfying are presented; in the third section we elaborate the reorientation in epistemology proposed by Hookway and the role of epistemic virtues in epistemic activities and epistemological issues; finally, some consequences of the use of the concept of virtue in epistemology are put forward.