Epistemic Virtues Research Articles

The persona of the physician in the early German Enlightenment: An analysis of the mediation of epistemic strategies in medical textbooks and advice literature.

This article uses medical textbooks and advice literature to analyze the persona of the physician in the early German Enlightenment. The article pursues three lines of argument. First, it uses medical textbooks to situate the physician in the context of early modern observational life, focusing in particular on epistemic virtues, techniques, and technologies for conducting and documenting observations. Second, it introduces the concept of epistemic advantage to analyze the ways in which medical advice literature - ranging from ideal accounts of the political physician to satirical portrayals of the Machiavellian physician - mediated strategies for using medical knowledge to shape people's conceptions of disease as well as of the physician as a medical authority. Third, it launches the concept epistemic contestation to capture situations of distrust and dispute, in which the physician's authority was challenged both by patients and by other medical practitioners. Such mediation of epistemic virtues, techniques, technologies, and strategies in medical textbooks and advice literature must be understood in relation to an emerging media landscape that fundamentally affected the conditions for cultivating and performing a medical persona. By adopting this comprehensive approach to medical personhood, the article appeals to readers interested in early modern and Enlightenment medicine as well as those concerned with the broader intersections of medical persona, authority, power, and knowledge.

From situated knowledges to situated modelling: a relational framework for simulation modelling

ABSTRACT In this paper we extend the use of a relational approach to simulation modelling, a widely used knowledge practice in sustainability science. Among modellers, there is awareness that model results can only be interpreted in view of the assumptions that inform model construction and analysis, but less systematic questioning of those assumptions. Moreover, current methodological discussions tend to focus on integrating social and ecological dynamics or diverse knowledges and data within a model. Yet choices regarding types of modelling, model structure, data handling, interpretation of results and model validation are not purely epistemic. They are entangled with values, contexts of production and use, power relations, and pragmatic considerations. Situated Modelling extends a relational understanding of the world to scientific knowledge production and with that to modelling itself in order to enable a systematic interrogation of these choices and to research social-ecological transformations relationally. To make tangible the situatedness of simulation modelling, we build on existing practices and describe the situatedness of three distinct modelling approaches. We then suggest four guiding principles for Situated Modelling: 1. attending to the apparatus of knowledge production that is socially and materially embedded and produced by e.g. research infrastructures, power relations, and ways of thinking; 2. considering how agency is distributed between model, world, data, modeller in model construction; 3. creating heterogenous collectives which together occupy the formerly individualised subject position; and 4. using agonism as an epistemic virtue to retain and work with significant differentiations of social-ecological dynamics throughout the modelling process.

The Role of Virtue Epistemology in Resolving Internal-External Debates Taking the Sosa Virtue Perspective as an Example

In the development of contemporary epistemology, the evolving research focus of virtue epistemology has shifted towards the rational virtue that generates knowledge, thereby deepening our understanding of the essence of knowledge. Sosa's moral perspective is particularly prominent, skillfully blending the essence of internalism and externalism. Sosa not only retained the emphasis of internalism on the "controllability" of the internal state of the knower, but also absorbed the viewpoint of externalism that emphasizes the close connection between knowledge and the external world. This dual perspective of internal and external cultivation not only enhances the inclusiveness of its theory, but also significantly improves its ability to explain complex knowledge phenomena, opening up new avenues for resolving the long-standing internal and external disputes. Furthermore, Sosa's holistic approach fosters a comprehensive view of epistemic virtue, seamlessly integrating personal introspection with environmental interaction, thereby enriching contemporary debates and fostering a deeper, more nuanced understanding of knowledge acquisition.

Patience, diligence, and humility: epistemic virtues and chemistry in the eighteenth century Dutch Republic

Patience, diligence, and humility: epistemic virtues and chemistry in the eighteenth century Dutch Republic

Friendship with the Ancients

ABSTRACT Friendship with the ancients is a set of imaginative exercises and engagements with the work of deceased authors that allows us to imagine them as friends. Authors from diverse cultures and times such as Mengzi, Niccolò Machiavelli, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Clare Carlisle have engaged in it. The aim of this article is to defend this practice, showing that friendship with the ancients is a species of philosophical friendship, which confers the unique benefits such friendships offer. It is conducive to epistemic virtue, notably the related virtues of epistemic humility and of relational understanding. When we cultivate friendship with the ancients, we are not learning facts about them, but aim at understanding their views in their full scope in a way that a relationship between friends allows.

For the Sake of Knowledge: The Epistemic Value of Other-Regarding Epistemic Virtues

AbstractThis paper examines the epistemic value of other-regarding epistemic virtues, challenging the common view that these virtues are primarily moral in nature. To this end, it proposes a new framework to explain the role of epistemic virtues: the Epistemic Social Environment (ESE). It is argued that the value of an epistemic virtue stems from its contribution to a healthy ESE. This approach enables a broader and unified theory of epistemic virtues, emphasising their role in the communal production of knowledge. Ultimately, the paper aims to reconcile virtue epistemology with insights from social epistemology, offering a comprehensive account of the epistemic value of sharing knowledge.

Critical Social Epistemology of Social Media and Epistemic Virtues

ABSTRACT This paper suggests that virtue epistemology can help decide how to respond to conflicts between different epistemic goals for social media. It is a contribution to critical epistemology of social media insofar as it supplements system-level consideration with insights from individualist epistemology. In particular, whereas the proposal of critical social epistemology of social media by Joshua Habgood-Coote suggests that conflicts between epistemic goals of social media have to be solved by ethical consideration, I suggest that virtue epistemology can also solve at least some of these conflicts fully within the epistemic realm.

Intellectual autonomy as the aim of critical thinking

Critical thinking is often nominated as a graduate attribute, a learning outcome, and is even offered as a discrete subject in schools and universities. Therefore, it is important to gain clarity about the fundamental goal or purpose of critical thinking education. What should instructors be aiming at when they seek to instil critical thinking in their students? In this paper, we argue that the aim of critical thinking is the achievement and maintenance of intellectual autonomy. In setting out our argument for this conclusion, we investigate the three most plausible candidates for the goal of critical thinking practice. The first such candidate is successful inquiry: inquiry that succeeds in obtaining epistemic goods such as knowledge, true belief, or empirically adequate explanation. The second candidate is epistemically virtuous inquiry, i.e. inquiry that exhibits the full range of epistemic virtues, including the skills and capacities needed to support them. The third candidate is intellectual autonomy. We develop an account of intellectual autonomy as a form of self-respect attached to one’s epistemic and intellectual life and argue that only intellectual autonomy in this sense does full justice to the practice of critical thinking.

The virtue of ignorance: How epistemic agency needs cognitive limitations

AbstractThe thesis defended in this article is that epistemology should treat some of our cognitive limitations not as unfortunate defects or external perturbations to be idealized away in theories of epistemic agency, but as necessary underpinnings of good reasoning. We begin with a problem regarding deliberation that calls epistemic agency into question: our reasons in support of belief are never conclusive and never rule out all doubt. Yet we must rule out all doubt to close deliberation; we must close deliberation to form a full belief; and we must form a full belief to have knowledge. The problem with the first step calls the whole into question. The solution (if we seek an alternative to rejecting traditional epistemic agency, including the existence of beliefs) is our limitations: they prevent us from considering all possible doubt, leaving a tractable space of possibilities. When these limitations are virtuous, they contribute to an effective cognitive system. Once we understand the role of our limitations, it will lead us to a deeper understanding of deliberation, belief, epistemic virtue, and epistemic agency. Limitations are as much a part of agency as, for example, logical relations are. Idealizing them away means idealizing away actual agency.

Epistemic emotions and self-trust

AbstractEpistemic emotions – namely affective phenomena like curiosity, certainty, and doubt – have been claimed to play a key role in epistemic evaluation and motivation, and, relatedly, to be an integral aspect of the epistemic virtues. In this paper I argue that the experience of epistemic emotions is extensively shaped by self-trust. More specifically, I claim that the set of epistemic emotions that we can undergo, and how these unfold over time, is modulated by the level of trust in one’s abilities as a knower. I do so by drawing on research on epistemic injustice, as well as through the exploration of some features of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and depression. I then argue that the connection between epistemic emotions and self-trust can be best accounted for by conceiving of self-trust, through the framework of philosophical phenomenology, as an affective background orientation which has a structuring role in our cognitive and affective experience.

Women and Values in the Vortex of Objectivity: Sharon L. Crasnow's Contribution to the Feminist Discussion of Philosophy of Science

This study investigates Sharon L. Crasnow's perspective on the philosophy of science, specifically exploring its compatibility with feminist ideals. Crasnow introduces her notion of model-based objectivity as a reaction and expansion of the principles advocated by feminist empiricism, postmodernism, and Harding and Wylie's feminist standpoint viewpoint theory. Crasnow holds the belief that there is an inherent connection between science and value. The efficacy of grounding in scientific endeavor and the development of epistemic virtues depend on specific societal principles, such as acknowledging and appreciating women's contributions in scientific discussions. Feminism is not considered a dedicated adherence to a particular set of beliefs or ideology. Instead, people view feminism as a mindset or a critical scientific perspective. According to Crasnow, the best way to understand natural reality is to use a model to achieve a clear and objective understanding. The procedure entails identifying specific values that lay the groundwork for modeling. These values are evaluated by considering pragmatic variables and maximizing the achievement of goals. In this context, objectivity refers to the validation of a value based on its ability to improve people's lives to the fullest extent. This enhances the model's capacity to serve as a means of accomplishing it.

Can Good Information Prevent Misconduct? The Role of Organizational Epistemic Virtues for Ethical Behavior

Can Good Information Prevent Misconduct? The Role of Organizational Epistemic Virtues for Ethical Behavior

Decolonizing “Decolonization” and Knowledge Production beyond Eurocentrism

Abstract I historicize decolonial theories within the context of epistemic contestations and knowledge production in Africa. I offer a critical appraisal of decolonization as simulated within Western academic institutions and argue that the current tempo of decolonization movements is by no means an accident of history; it is, in fact, a residual narrative of colonial epistemology. I offer internal critique and discuss the limitations of decolonization as an intellectual strategy, before addressing how Western academics have appropriated the discourse in a manner fitting an intellectual crusade. The decolonial scholar is, at the same time, perpetuating the mandate of colonial epistemology by substituting coloniality with subjective displacement. Finally, I suggest a modest proposal for adopting a new framework that admits the epistemic virtues of decolonization while eschewing its limitations and internal contradictions. My argument is that decolonization studies, as understood in contemporary African philosophy, has remained afflicted with the same disease it seeks to cure by (i) uncritical affiliation with historical generalizations, (ii) failure to recognize that history is no location of innocence and (iii) recolonization of non-Western ontologies through epistemic imperialism and network legitimation.

The University As Infrastructure of Becoming: Re-Activating Academic Freedom Through Humility in Times of Radical Uncertainty

ABSTRACT Traditionally, the field of science and technology studies (STS) considered the scientific laboratory as the central site of knowledge production and technological development. While providing rich analyses of the social construction of scientific knowledge and the role of non-human actors, STS scholars have often neglected the university – the very context in which laboratories themselves are embedded – as a relevant object of research. In this paper, we argue for re-introducing the university as a relevant category and object of analysis by using the notion of epistemic virtues to link epistemic culture – traditionally the focus of STS – and epistemic structure – traditionally the focus of higher education studies. Advancing this line of argumentation, we make three analytical moves. First, we explore academic freedom as a specific version of negative liberty that extends beyond disciplinary boundaries. We suggest that academics continuously negotiate academic freedom considering culturally and socially situated epistemic virtues such as objectivity and neutrality. Second, we introduce the notion of humility to revisit scientific knowledge production more generally and academic freedom in particular. Finally, we argue that practicing humility leads to enacting the university as an infrastructure of becoming otherwise, thereby enriching our understanding of universities as distinct and highly complex social spaces with a logic of their own.

The Future of Double Consciousness: Epistemic Virtue, Identity, and Structural Anti-Blackness

This paper considers two conceptual expansions of Du Boisian double consciousness—white double consciousness (Alcoff 2015) and kaleidoscopic consciousness (Medina 2013)—both of which aim to articulate the moral-epistemic potential of cultivating double consciousness from racially dominant or other socially privileged positions. We analyze these concepts and challenge them on the grounds that they lack continuity with their Du Boisian predecessor and face problems of practical feasibility. As we show, these expansions obscure structural barriers that make white double consciousness and kaleidoscopic consciousness unlikely antidotes to the kind of racial domination that double consciousness was introduced to illuminate. We conclude that while more intersectional and pluralistic accounts of double consciousness may be desirable, the project of expansion has moral limits. Identifying these limitations, we outline ways in which double consciousness—as a tool for conceptualizing the genealogy of structural anti-Blackness—remains valuable in the absence of ever-expanding revision.

Defending Autonomy as a Criterion for Epistemic Virtue

ABSTRACT Catherine Elgin has recently offered compatibility with autonomy as a plausible criterion for the epistemic virtues. This approach mixes elements of Kantianism with virtue theory. Sasha Mudd has criticized this combination on the grounds that it weakens the structure of Kantian autonomy and undermines its resources for responding to cultural relativism. Elgin’s more recent defense of the role of autonomy has taken a more Kantian turn. Here, I defend Elgin’s original claim, grounding it in a distinctively virtue theoretic account of the development of virtues. Exploring how individuals develop their epistemic virtues within a social context, I show how these virtues can be grounded in both developmental and constitutive relational autonomy. I further argue that a virtue theoretic conception of autonomy should be substantive, not just procedural, and this limits concerns about relativism.

Social Inquisitiveness: A Normative Account of the Social Epistemic Virtue of Good Questioning

Abstract In this paper I offer a characterization of the intellectual virtue of social inquisitiveness, paying attention to its difference from the individual virtue of inquisitiveness. I defend that there is a significant distinction between individual and social epistemic virtues: individual epistemic virtues are attributed to individuals and assessed by the quality of their cognitive powers, while social epistemic virtues are attributed to epistemic communities and are assessed by the quality of the epistemic relations within the communities. I begin presenting Lani Watson's characterization of the (individual) practice of questioning and its related intellectual virtue, inquisitiveness. While she does not employ normative language, I show that her description can be constructed through four norms. Then, based on an account of epistemic communities, I defend that, while epistemic virtues attributable to individuals have norms regulating cognitive powers, epistemic virtues attributable to epistemic communities have norms regulating social epistemic interactions and shared epistemic responsibility. I then present a robust characterization of the epistemic virtue of social inquisitiveness through its social epistemic norms: DISTRIBUTION, ACCESSIBILITY, SOCIAL SINCERITY, SOCIAL CONTEXT, and FREQUENCY. I respond to two possible objections to my account and conclude by offering suggestions to broaden the scope of the epistemology of questioning.

Maintenance and Its Knowledges: Functional Exploration, Biographical Supervision, and Behavioural Examination

This introductory article to the thematic collection entitled “Maintenance and its Knowledges” makes a significant departure from breakdown-centred studies. It foregrounds the epistemic virtues of maintenance, a practice that cultivates continuity, by examining a still underestimated and unexplored dimension: the forms of knowledge associated with maintenance activities. A twofold aim guides such an exploration. First, repair and maintenance interventions are examined as particular sites and moments of knowledge generation. Second, building on the scholarship dedicated to improvisation and learning dynamics in the Global South that has structured numerous works on maintenance, this article considers how it can be extended towards the Global North. Recalling that maintenance has been mostly investigated from the question of how, it stresses out the various tools involved in knowledge generation, the organisation of tasks at play in different settings and their politics. It then goes beyond the how question to embrace a more ontological perspective, focussing on what people do properly maintain, and what kinds of knowledge emerge at this particular moment. Such a line of inquiry opens up three directions towards which the production of knowledge is oriented in maintenance: functional exploration, biographical supervision, and behavioural examination.

Epistemic Autonomy and the Shaping of Our Epistemic Lives

ABSTRACT I present an account of epistemic autonomy as a distinctively wide-ranging epistemic virtue, one that helps us to understand a range of phenomena that might otherwise seem quite disparate – from the appropriate selection of epistemic methods, stances and topics of inquiry, to the harms of epistemic oppression, gaslighting and related phenomena. The account draws on four elements commonly incorporated into accounts of personal autonomy: (i) self-governance, (ii) authenticity, (iii) self-creation and (iv) independence. I further argue that for a distinctively epistemic virtue of autonomy; the above elements must ultimately reliably lead to valuable epistemic goods (for the agent herself and others). I then turn to the domains or ways in which epistemic autonomy so understood, can be made manifest. I suggest that epistemic autonomy is a virtue that allows us to appropriately choose (i) subject matters and areas of inquiry, (ii) methods, sources, and processes of belief formation, (iii) epistemic goals and (iv) epistemic stances or frameworks. So understood, epistemic autonomy has a role to play in shaping most every aspect of our epistemic lives.

Proselytizing is not evangelism: epistemic virtue and religious suasion at a post‐fundamentalist church in Nashville

AbstractThis essay proposes a moral epistemological explanation for many US evangelicals’ growing unease about proselytizing. Drawing on extensive fieldwork at a church in Nashville, Tennessee, it highlights how a particular kind of epistemological certainty became a driving value of evangelical biblicism when early nineteenth‐century evangelicals attempted to apply the precepts of inductive science to textual interpretation. Members of the church I studied routinely express regret about this historical entanglement, which they blame for their denomination's dogmatic and ultimately unsuccessful fixation on persuading other people to believe the exact same things as they do. Against ‘proselytizing’ driven by ‘the desire to be right’, my interlocutors are trying to develop a practical social ethics whose explicitly biblical inspiration, they hope, will motivate others to want to become Christians. I show that as an analytic, religious suasion makes concepts like ‘proselytizing’ and ‘evangelism’ ethnographic again by sending them back to the field where our interlocutors themselves define and critique them. Doing this allows us to better grasp nuances in evangelicals’ own evolving ideologies and practices for making their religion intelligible to themselves and others.