Robust Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Anti‐individualism

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.

Intellectual autonomy, epistemic dependence and cognitive enhancement

“…Despite this difference, both are integrated only if a kind of cognitive ownership condition is satisfied (even if the content of what one must endorse differs to some extent across these cases in light of the direct/indirect distinction). 53 Of course, one kind of rejoinder will be to embrace a strong form of what Kallestrup and Pritchard (2012) term epistemic individualism. According to the most general version of this thesis, positive epistemic status supervenes exclusively on biological properties of the subject.…”

“…That verdict was, recall, that cognitive enhancement in healthy agents, such as by relying on Modafinil, seems to pose a prima facie threat to intellectual autonomy that is not posed in equal measure in cases where an individual Footnote 53 continued However, this is a false choice; as Kallestrup and Pritchard (2012) have argued, epistemic individualism actually has a hard time making sense of mundane cases of testimonial knowledge dependence. See, along with Kallestrup and Pritchard (2012), also Pritchard (2013a, 2013b)for arguments from arguments against epistemic individualism. 54 Note that the kind of cognitive ownership that is necessary for cognitive integration might in some cases require simply appreciating of an external resource that it is reliable, and possessing some rough conception of what the mechanisms is reliable at doing (without additional cognitive command of the details).…”

Anti-risk epistemology and negative epistemic dependence

“…26 I claim that positive epistemic dependence is the best way to make sense of why one can gain testimonial knowledge in friendly epistemic environments by, for the most part (though never exclusively), trusting an informant. For more on this point, and on negative epistemic dependence in general, see Kallestrup and Pritchard (2012) and Pritchard (2016a).…”

Epistemic Internalism and Knowledge-Relevant Anti-Individualist Responsibility

“…It is a mistake to take information sharing or transmission as exhausting the forms of epistemic interdependence to which our beliefs are subjected (see e.g. Goldberg 2011, Kallestrup and Pritchard 2013, Pritchard 2015b, Carter and Pritchard 2017. And importantly for our purposes, neglecting the complexity of our epistemic interactions distorts the internalism/externalism debate.…”

“…interdependence that enables or prevents some given epistemic standing), see e.g. Kallestrup and Pritchard 2013, Pritchard 2015b, Carter and Pritchard 2017 easily solved in favour of the externalist). 8 Having said that, this antiindividualism, as we´ll see ( §3), is compatible with the main rationale behind internalism, so it seems that we should reformulate the debate in antiindividualistic-friendly terms in order to keep it interesting, as opposed to easily rejecting internalism ( §5).…”