ABSTRACT Drawing on the theoretical kaleidoscope method, this article aims to develop a pluralistic understanding of global inequality in knowledge production by integrating diverse theoretical frameworks and analysing empirical evidence on inequality in research outcomes and its underlying causes. Economic theory points to the importance of market failures in knowledge production, the key role of public and philanthropic funding of research, and how uncertainty skews investments toward low-risk activities. The theory of epistemic injustice provides insight into how unequal power relations, social structures and prejudice shape inequalities in research. The capability approach provides a unified framework for evaluating and understanding inequalities in global research that encompasses aspects related to both distributive and discriminatory injustice. While the wide gap in knowledge production between the Global North and Global South is explained largely by cross-country differences in public research investment, an expanding body of evidence highlights the influence of reputation, discrimination and systemic biases in driving global inequality in research outcomes. The study identifies policy interventions, including public policies to enhance equitable access to information and education, actions to promote a more just allocation of research funding within academia, and measures to counter prejudice and cultivate epistemic virtue among researchers.

Like the arrival of calculators in 1970s classrooms, large language models (LLMs) provoke both fears of intellectual deskilling and hopes of more efficient learning. In this paper we analyze the calculator analogy, arguing that while it is a useful starting point to understand the potential impact of LLMs in education, it is ultimately insufficient. We show where the analogy holds and, just as importantly, where its limitations reveal the unique pedagogical challenges posed by LLMs. These challenges arise from fundamental differences in how calculators and LLMs mediate learning, reflecting the distinct affordances of each technology. We argue that because of their affordances, realizing the educational potential of LLMs calls for cultivating epistemic virtues suited to human–AI interaction, such as patience, reflective engagement, or intellectual vigilance and humility. Equally, LLM design must actively foster these virtues through features like built-in prompts, feedback loops or reflective questions, to name just a few. • The calculator analogy illuminates but ultimately only partially captures LLMs' unique educational impact. • Technological affordances explain how tools shape, not just support, learning. • LLMs redistribute cognitive labour across all stages of reasoning, from framing to interpretation. • Persuasive fluency makes LLM outputs appear true, amplifying epistemic risks. • Effective use of LLMs demands cultivating epistemic virtues like patience and vigilance.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the role of epistemic emotions in judicial reasoning, and it draws on virtue epistemology and the Theory of Constructed Emotion. It argues that emotions are integral to the intellectual virtues that enable judges to know and decide well. It uses three examples of epistemic emotions: curiosity, doubt, and trust. Curiosity sustains inquiry, doubt disciplines conviction, and trust allows cooperation without surrendering critical distance. Taken together, these emotions constitute a part of the texture of judicial epistemic responsibility. The analysis challenges the traditional ideal of judicial dispassion, suggesting that impartiality depends not on emotional absence but on emotional awareness. It looks from philosophical, psychological, and socio-legal perspectives, and develops an account of judging as an emotionally informed epistemic practice. It concludes by outlining how reflection, dialogue, and institutional design can foster epistemic virtue within the judiciary, reframing the good judge as not merely rational but emotionally literate: capable of feeling one’s way toward knowing well.

The article introduces the concept of “fragile listening” as a framework for describing ambient listening, understood as sensitive, easily disrupted, yet responsive to subtle changes in the sonic environment. Against the backdrop of the genealogy of background music, I propose a metatheoretical “epistemic game” that brings together psychoacoustics, acoustic ecology, and musicology. I argue that these fields do not fully account for threshold-based and diffuse listening practices. Drawing on the work LaBelle, Cobussen, and Hui, I conceptualize fragility as an epistemic virtue. An analysis of platforms and headphone technologies highlights the ethical stakes of cultivating a “vulnerable ear” in the face of algorithmic management of mood and attention. keywords:

ABSTRACT Epistemic courage requires me to sometimes adopt a belief even in the face of doubts. Open-mindedness requires me to be able to reconsider my beliefs. It is generally assumed that we should have both virtues. But it seems that if I am epistemically courageous toward adopting a certain belief, then I can’t also be open-minded toward undoing that same belief. Imagine someone tells you she was harassed, and has some evidence for it (but inconclusive). A case like this might require you to courageously believe the victim despite some remaining doubts. Imagine also that it’s a fact about you that you tend to believe presumed victims. The virtue of open-mindedness would thus require of you to challenge that tendency of yours, that is, to not believe the victim too fast. Hence, it seems that you cannot be epistemically courageous and open-minded at the same time in this situation. This article challenges the prima-facie opposition of these two epistemic virtues. It is argued that instead, courageously acquiring a belief and courageously letting beliefs go are two forms of epistemic courage. Hence, it is suggested that open-mindedness is also a form of epistemic courage.

Abstract The division of cognitive labor leads to what Barry has recently called epistemic alienation : a problematic separation of individuals from epistemic goods. According to Barry, individuals are alienated from epistemic virtues because an efficient division of cognitive labor requires them to manifest a lack of virtues. I argue that this is a mistaken diagnosis of the source of epistemic alienation. Participating in high-functioning collectives does not prevent individuals from being robustly virtuous; rather, our cognitive limitations make it impossible for us to live up to the highest standards of epistemic conduct. Collectives transcend these cognitive limitations to achieve what individuals cannot by harnessing those same limitations in their members. Furthermore, I argue that we should distinguish the epistemic weaknesses that facilitate the division of cognitive labor from those that result from the division of labor. Only the latter are aspects of epistemic alienation. By dividing our cognitive labor over larger populations of agents and artifacts, we have massively accelerated our rate of epistemic productivity but have thereby created conditions that are variously inhospitable for the thinking of individuals by alienating them from the products, processes, and environments of inquiry. These forms of separation are problematic insofar as they amplify intellectual vices, incapacitate reason, and induce cognitive biases.

In “The Apt Curation Model: An Epistemic Virtue Theory of AI-assisted Authorship” (Philosophy & Technology 39 (2026)) Tiegue Vieira Rodrigues argues that we should conceive of the author in AI-supported processes as an apt curator of texts. He pleads for extending the accurate-adroit-apt framework towards human-AI authorship and developing four curatorial virtues: dialogical, evaluative, integrative, and architectural. This ‘Apt Curation Problem’ solves the problems constituted by the lack of a locus for the epistemic and semantic properties of authorship in the case of AI-assisted text production. In this commentary on Rodrigues’ article, I aim to do three things: (1) summarize and praise the article; (2) reframe the apt curation model as a possible move in the conceptual engineering of AI and authorship; and (3) I argue that the apt curation model stands in need of more conceptual ethics – the metaphilosophical practice of giving reasons for the (sustained) use of a concept. Before we can accept new models of authorship, we still have to weigh our concerns and goals associated with construing authorship in the context of AI in Rodrigues’ way, against other concerns and goals that might drive other conceptualizations, given our current capacities and circumstances.

Luciano Floridi’s concept of distant writing – which is the textual production mediated by generative AI – has presented us with a challenge to traditional accounts of authorship and epistemic agency. In this paper, we analyze the epistemological consequences of this new paradigm, arguing that distant writing reframes rather than diminishes the author’s role, shifting epistemic competence from direct composition to second-order curatorial acts: architectural design, dialogical refinement, evaluative verification, and integrative synthesis. Applying Ernest Sosa’s virtue epistemology, we develop the Apt Curation Model, which positions the human author as the central epistemic agent, not as sentence originator, but as virtuous curator whose competence makes the text an apt epistemic performance. We rebut the opacity objection that AI’s inscrutability reduces authorship to epistemic luck, demonstrating through Floridi’s Levels of Abstraction that curatorial virtues constitute responsible engagement. We conclude by examining domain specificity and identifying implications for pedagogy and intellectual property law.

ABSTRACT Respect is a foundational moral and social value, yet its conceptualisation by and about children and young people remains underexplored. This systematic qualitative literature review examines how respect and disrespect are theorised, defined or conceptualised in relation to children and young people, and the extent to which their perspectives are represented in schools, higher education, care and community settings. Guided by PRISMA protocols, 10 databases were searched, yielding 814 records; 26 peer‐reviewed articles met the inclusion criteria. Five overarching themes emerged: (1) Recognition and moral worth , emphasising respect as a universal entitlement and basis for rights; (2) Relational and reciprocal dynamics , highlighting mutuality, dialogue and authentic engagement; (3) Respect as a behavioural , emotional and cultural construct , shaped by norms, authority and gendered expectations; (4) Educational and developmental value , positioning respect as a teachable moral and epistemic virtue; and (5) Social justice , inclusion and power , critiquing top‐down, punitive respect agendas that alienate young people. Across contexts, respect was most often conceptualised as relational and care‐oriented, expressed through attentiveness, fairness and recognition of individuality. Disrespect, conversely, was linked to misrecognition, exclusion and structural inequalities. Future research should recognise young people as capable of contributing to theoretical and practical understandings of moral principles such as respect.

Abstract This Open Forum paper examines how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming not only what humans know but how knowledge itself is constructed, remembered and valued. It argues that AI has evolved from a tool of efficiency into an epistemic infrastructure, a system that reframes cognition, morality and identity across generations. Using Rousseau’s concept of conscience, Heidegger’s enframing (Gestell), and Postman’s technopoly as lenses, the paper situates today’s cognitive transformation within a philosophical lineage from natural conscience to predictive cognition. It proposes that the rise of AI-mediated environments represents an epistemological rupture—a transition from embodied, effortful knowledge-making to instantaneous, machine-guided cognition. Tracing five generational cohorts from Baby Boomers to Generation Alpha, it identifies a widening gap between those who were relatively AI-independent to a generation that is developing interface-based cognition, with high dependence on AI learning environments. The implications are neurological as well as epistemological. Insights from neuroscience and cognitive psychology indicate that reliance on generative systems may weaken neural pathways linked to memory, reflection, and metacognitive control. The paper introduces the concept of epistemic sovereignty—the capacity to author knowledge independently—and argues that its erosion signals not diminished intelligence but diminished authorship. As analogue generations disappear, so too may the brains unshaped by algorithmic mediation. Preserving their epistemic virtues will require deliberate design and regulation of learning environments that restore friction, ambiguity and cognitive struggle as essential features of human development. The paper calls for an epistemology of resistance—an intentional re-authoring of the mind in the age of artificial cognition. As such, this paper develops a discussion framework for cognitive sovereignty in AI-saturated environments and outlines strategic implications for education, work and policy.

When the psychologist James McKeen Cattell was in graduate school, he took drugs like cannabis, opium and caffeine to investigate their effects on human psychology. This article explores Cattell’s self experiments and why he never published this work. Some might see self experimentation with drugs as pleasure seeking masquerading as science, but Cattell and other contemporary psychologists thought it was a serious endeavor that could reveal important truths about the human mind. However, Cattell’s tendency to overindulge in drugs beyond the limits he planned for his experiments did interfere with his desire to adhere to the epistemic virtues of scientific psychology, which dictated experiments should be carefully controlled and replicable. While this violation of epistemic virtue bothered Cattell, personal moral concerns about the ethics of drug taking were the primary factor that drove him to abandon his work on drugs. In the conclusion, I show how similar personal concerns among other researchers prevented drugs from becoming a major topic of research in the early days of experimental psychology, despite the fascination they held for many pioneers in the field. I examine how personal factors can be a constraining force on the practice of science, particularly in cases of self experimentation where scientists use their own bodies as tools for making knowledge.

This paper explores the concept of self-realization, the basic norm of deep ecology, and argues that it can be understood as an epistemic virtue. In the tradition of the deep ecology movement, self-realization has been portrayed as a lifelong process through which one can expand one's identity and realize a deep connection with all human and non-human entities of nature. However, the moral status of self-realization remains controversial. Existing literature on deep ecology has largely focused on whether self-realization is morally neutral or inherently moral. However, it overlooks the epistemic dimension of self-realization. In order to address this gap, this paper draws insights from virtue epistemology. Using such insights, it conducts a conceptual and critical analysis of the existing literature to determine whether the norm of self-realization can be considered as a character-based epistemic virtue. Through this analysis, this paper argues that self-realization qualifies as an epistemic virtue. In addition, this paper demonstrates that the virtue of self-realization promotes the cultivation of other epistemic virtues and the eradication of ecological ignorance. IUBAT Review—A Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 8(2): 205-216

ABSTRACT Children with Down syndrome, along with other conditions, may face more frequently acts of epistemic injustice because of their social status and common beliefs about their intellectual abilities. They face risks of having their knowledge and perspectives ignored or silenced despite institutional claims of equity and inclusion. This research examines how epistemic injustices is understood in kindergartens, focusing on children with Down syndrome (DS). The study investigates three main questions: (1) What are kindergarten teachers’ views about children with DS? (2) How do everyday teaching methods potentially create epistemic injustices? (3) What methods can promote epistemic justice in early childhood education? The research draws on eight semi-structured interviews with teachers from different kindergartens in Oslo, Norway. The participants demonstrated positive attitudes towards children with DS, yet their responses contained implicit prejudices and ambivalent statements, which threatened the children’s epistemic autonomy. The practices intended to be supportive through overcompensatory empathy create power imbalances that prevent genuine participation. The study demonstrates the need to develop epistemic virtues together with reflective practices and inclusive teaching. The research advances knowledge about epistemic (in)justice in early childhood education while providing specific recommendations for teachers who want to enhance the epistemic contributions of children with DS.

We investigate the explanatory role of epistemic virtue in accounting for the success of science as a social institution that is characterized by predominantly epistemic ends. We explore several structural explanations of the epistemic success of science that commonly rule out virtue attributions to scientists. These accounts underline the economic structure of science as the chief explanatory factor in its collective success, and endorse a common conclusion, namely that collective epistemic virtue can obtain in the absence of individual epistemic virtue. We call this position virtue radicalism. We analyze the credibility crisis in the social and behavioral sciences as an anomaly for the virtue radicalist position, as the same incentive structure is shared across all scientific fields but leads to different collective outcomes. We then argue for a stronger claim against virtue radicalism, namely that the collective success of science cannot be reduced to any social structure, because the presence of a significant proportion of epistemically virtuous scientists in a scientific community is a necessary condition for the establishment, maintenance, and reform of any social structure with a view to reliable and sustainable knowledge-production.

Contemporary medical AI systems exhibit a critical vulnerability: they deliver confident predictions without mechanisms to express uncertainty or acknowledge limitations, leading to dangerous overreliance in clinical settings. This paper introduces the BODHI (Bridging, Open, Discerning, Humble, Inquiring) framework, a dual-reflective architecture grounded in two essential epistemic virtues: curiosity and humility, as foundational design principles for healthcare AI. Curiosity drives systems to actively explore diagnostic uncertainty, seek additional information when faced with ambiguous presentations, and recognize when training distributions fail to match clinical reality. Humility provides complementary restraint, enabling uncertainty quantification, boundary recognition, and appropriate deference to human expertise. We demonstrate how these virtues function synergistically in a dynamic feedback loop, preventing both reckless exploration and excessive caution while supporting collaborative clinical decision-making. Drawing from psychological theories of curiosity and cross-species evidence of epistemic humility, we argue that these capacities represent fundamental biological design principles essential for systems operating in high-stakes, uncertain environments. The BODHI framework addresses systemic failures in medical AI deployment, from biased training data to institutional workflow pressures, by embedding uncertainty awareness and collaborative restraint into foundational system architecture. Key implementation features include calibrated confidence measures, out-of-distribution detection, curiosity-driven escalation protocols, and transparency mechanisms that adapt to clinical context. Rather than pursuing algorithmic perfection through pure optimization, we advocate for human-AI partnerships that enhance clinical reasoning through mutual accountability and calibrated trust. This approach represents a paradigm shift from overconfident automation toward collaborative systems that embody the wisdom to pause, reflect, and defer when appropriate.

Contemporary medical AI systems exhibit a critical vulnerability: they deliver confident predictions without mechanisms to express uncertainty or acknowledge limitations, leading to dangerous overreliance in clinical settings. This paper introduces the BODHI (Bridging, Open, Discerning, Humble, Inquiring) framework, a dual-reflective architecture grounded in two essential epistemic virtues: curiosity and humility, as foundational design principles for healthcare AI. Curiosity drives systems to actively explore diagnostic uncertainty, seek additional information when faced with ambiguous presentations, and recognize when training distributions fail to match clinical reality. Humility provides complementary restraint, enabling uncertainty quantification, boundary recognition, and appropriate deference to human expertise. We demonstrate how these virtues function synergistically in a dynamic feedback loop, preventing both reckless exploration and excessive caution while supporting collaborative clinical decision-making. Drawing from psychological theories of curiosity and cross-species evidence of epistemic humility, we argue that these capacities represent fundamental biological design principles essential for systems operating in high-stakes, uncertain environments. The BODHI framework addresses systemic failures in medical AI deployment, from biased training data to institutional workflow pressures, by embedding uncertainty awareness and collaborative restraint into foundational system architecture. Key implementation features include calibrated confidence measures, out-of-distribution detection, curiosity-driven escalation protocols, and transparency mechanisms that adapt to clinical context. Rather than pursuing algorithmic perfection through pure optimization, we advocate for human-AI partnerships that enhance clinical reasoning through mutual accountability and calibrated trust. This approach represents a paradigm shift from overconfident automation toward collaborative systems that embody the wisdom to pause, reflect, and defer when appropriate.

The article examines the academic ethos of pre-revolutionary philosophy at Kazan University through an analysis of professors’ reviews of students’ prize-winning essays from 1913–1916. The study is based on the methodology of the «moral economy» of science, which involves studying the informal values and practices of a scholarly community. The primary focus is on reconstructing the system of epistemic virtues and vices that shaped the normative boundaries of the professional community. The analysis reveals two interconnected groups of virtues. The foundation consisted of «reliabilist» virtues ensuring knowledge reliability: philological accuracy, meticulous work with primary sources, methodological correctness, and stylistic clarity. These underpinned «responsibilist» virtues aimed at generating new understanding: critical autonomy, methodological reflection, interdisciplinary boldness, and independent problem-setting. The hierarchy of vices, such as superficiality, stylistic imperfection, and factual errors, was constructed as a strict antithesis to these virtues. Thus, the academic ethos of the Kazan philosophical school represented an integrated system that combined the reproduction of classical «normal science» standards with the encouragement of intellectual responsibility and the creative development of norms.

ABSTRACT There have been a number of recent readings of Daoist creativity in terms of contextual responsiveness, playfulness, flexibility, adaptivity, novelty, and epistemic virtue. These readings emphasize how the Daoist classics, the Laozi and the Zhuangzi, offer a model of agency that avoids excessive conscious intentionality, control, rigidity, dogmatism, and perspectival myopia. This paper claims that these readings, while not incorrect, are one-sidedly in favor of the “everyday” at the expense of the more “fantastical” aspects of Daoist creativity. These readings appear to be rooted in an understanding of Daoist creation that mostly ignores the constant, self-causal, and absolutely inclusive nature of the Dao’s generative power. By contrast, this paper argues that Daoist creativity is better viewed as the local expression of Daoist creation, thus rendering Daoist creation itself global creativity. This view of Daoist creativity reads the famous examples of creators in Daoist texts as cases of beings who receive inspiration from, and ultimately identify with, the Dao’s or nature’s global creativity. This is a thoroughly non-supernatural notion of inspiration. Daoist creativity is thus the making explicit of Daoist creation in specific aesthetic forms and objects. This is a reading that requires championing the fantastical, paradoxical, and stranger aspects of Daoist metaphysics. Through a switch of perspective to the source of creation itself, Daoist creativity is no longer addressed only in terms of the reactive traits listed above, but rather seen in its full positive identity as an expression of the Dao’s constant self-generation.

The paper examines expertise as an epistemic and social practice that fosters trust in the face of information instability and digital noise. We analyze philosophical foundations of expertise drawing on the concepts of epistemic virtue (L. Zagzebski) and the social nature of knowledge (R. Rorty). A distinction between the cognitive, epistemic, expert, and ethical levels of expert knowledge is made. We explain why genuine expertise is impossible without the subject’s personal responsibility as well as without the recognition of corresponding judgments as trustworthy. In the contemporary society, experts are seen not simply as bearers of knowledge, but as participants in a public space where their knowledge must be recognized as authentic and meaningful.

Research is a central driver of scientific and technological progress, yet it also generates significant ethical challenges related to risk, justice, and responsibility. Traditional approaches to research ethics have largely focused on regulatory compliance and the protection of human and animal subjects. While necessary, these regulatory frameworks do not fully address the deeper philosophical questions about the aims, values, and power structures that shape contemporary knowledge production. This article argues that research ethics must be understood as the moral architecture of inquiry: an integrated set of epistemic virtues, procedural commitments, and governance principles that guide both how and why research is conducted. Drawing on classical and contemporary philosophical sources including Aristotle’s conception of knowledge, Kantian respect for persons, Rawlsian justice, and Jonas’s imperative of responsibility alongside feminist and postcolonial analyses of epistemic injustice, the article advances a holistic framework for ethical research. The discussion highlights the ethical significance of epistemic virtues, the challenges of evaluating uncertain consequences, the rights of human and non-human subjects, and the need for transparent and inclusive governance. Ultimately, the article calls for a proactive, philosophically grounded approach to research ethics that ensures innovation contributes to a more just and sustainable future.