Curiosity, Checking, and Knowing: a Virtue-Theoretical Perspective

Abstract

In his important and original book, Knowing and Checking, Guido Melchior provides advice on how to tackle skepticism. I argue that his analysis points to a possible virtue-theoretic answer to skepticism, which I call the restraint solution, i.e., activate your self-trust and restrain your inquisitiveness! It leads one to the ideal of bounded reflective curiosity: when it comes to knowledge, we should restrain our second-order, reflective curiosity and stay content with the somewhat Moorean trust in ordinary everyday beliefs. We can preserve our ordinary, first-order vigilance and investigative interest (curiosity) without falling into skeptical over-caution which is basically a reflective, second-order vicious attitude.