Virtue, Knowledge, and Modality

Speaker

Abstract

Traditional virtue epistemology argues that knowledge is true belief grounded in success from competent agency, and that therefore knowledge is a kind of achievement in this sense. This, in turn, entails that knowledge displays a particular modal file, and also explains the relevant sense in which knowledge is incompatible with luck, that success in knowledge is “no accident.” In recent work, I have argued that traditional virtue epistemology must be revised to accommodate important lessons from social epistemology. In particular, I have argued that some cases of knowledge are grounded in competent joint agency rather than competent individual agency. In this lecture, I develop and defend this new approach by considering the modal profile of joint achievements, or achievements grounded in competent joint agency. By doing so, we better see how virtue epistemology can accommodate the anti-individualist lessons of social epistemology, and how proposals by Zagzebski and Sosa fail to do this.

Abstract

Epistemologists have come to realize that epistemic trust, as an important intellectual virtue, plays a key role in the generation and transmission of knowledge. Based on relevant research in epistemology, child psychology, and developmental pragmatics, I have revealed the basic structure of epistemic trust, an intellectual virtue, which mainly involves two competence elements: epistemic acuity and epistemic vigilance. Epistemic acuity is mainly used to identify trustworthy people. It is very sensitive to signals of reliable ability, goodwill, and good understanding of potential trustees; while epistemic vigilance is mainly used to identify untrustworthy people. It is very alert to information about unreliable ability, insincere will, and problematic communication content and style of potential trustees. Once we can skillfully use these two abilities in communication practice to screen out those who are truly trustworthy, it means that we have the intellectual virtue of epistemic trust.

Abstract

Kant famously holds the dogma that all necessities are knowable a priori. One major breakthrough of contemporary analytic philosophy, chiefly due to the seminal works of Saul Kripke and David Kaplan, is the establishment of the falsity of the Kantian dogma. In particular, it is now widely acknowledged that some necessities, such as that the Morning Star is identical to the Evening Star, are only knowable aposteriori. However, it still remains in great dispute whether some modified version of the Kantian dogma is sustainable after all. Kripke himself suggested one way to connect necessity and apriority: though not the truth value of all necessities are knowable a priori, the general modal status of all necessities are knowable a priori. So for instance, it is not knowable a priori that “the Morning Star is the Evening Star” is true, it is nevertheless knowable a priori that if “the Morning Star is the Evening Star” is true, it is necessarily true, and that if it is false, it is necessarily false. There have been a number of counterexamples to the Kripkean proposal, variously discussed by philosophers such as Casullo (2003), Kipper (2017), Haze (2018) and Strohminger and Yli-Vakkuri (2018). In light of these recent developments, I will argue for a new way to rehabilitate the Kantian dogma. In particular, I will advance a distinction between primitive necessity and non-primitive necessity, and argue that all primitive necessities are knowable a priori to be necessary.