Robust virtue epistemology and epistemic anti-individualism

Jesper Kallestrup*, Duncan Pritchard

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

56 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

According to robust virtue epistemology, knowledge is a cognitive achievement, where this means that the agent's cognitive success is because of her cognitive ability. One type of objection to robust virtue epistemology that has been put forward in the contemporary literature is that this view has problems dealing with certain kinds of testimonial knowledge, and thus that it is in tension with standard views in the epistemology of testimony. We build on this critique to argue that insofar as agents epistemically depend on third-party members of their epistemic community as many social epistemologists contend, then there will be cases where two agents differ epistemically despite being virtue-theoretic duplicates. This means that robust virtue epistemology, at least insofar as it is understood along standard lines such that it endorses epistemic individualism, is also in tension with a central commitment of contemporary social epistemology.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)84-103
Number of pages20
JournalPacific Philosophical Quarterly
Volume93
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2012

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