1st Edition
Social Virtue Epistemology
This collection of 19 chapters, all appearing in print here for the first time and written by an international team of established and emerging scholars, explores the place of intellectual virtues and vices in a social world. Relevant virtues include open-mindedness, curiosity, intellectual courage, diligence in inquiry, and the like. Relevant vices include dogmatism, need for immediate certainty, and gullibility and the like.
The chapters are divided into four key sections: Foundational Issues; Individual Virtues; Collective Virtues; and Methods and Measurements. And the chapters explore the most salient questions in this areas of research, including: How are individual intellectual virtues and vices affected by their social contexts? Does being in touch with other open-minded people make us more open-minded? Conversely, does connection to other dogmatic people make us more dogmatic? Can groups possess virtues and vices distinct from those of their members? For instance, could a group of dogmatic individuals operate in an open-minded way despite the vices of its members?
Each chapter receives commentary from two other authors in the volume, and each original author then replies to these commentaries. Together, the authors form part of a collective conversation about how we can know about what we know. In so doing, they not only theorize but enact social virtue epistemology.
Introduction: A research program for social virtue epistemology
Mark Alfano, Colin Klein, and Jeroen de Ridder
Part I: Foundational Issues
1. Interactionism, Debiasing, and the Division of Epistemic Labour Steven Bland
1b. Commentary from Neil Levy
1c. Commentary from Michel Croce and Duncan Pritchard
1d. Steven Bland’s Response to Commentaries
2. Attunement: On the Cognitive Virtues of Attention Georgi Gardiner
2b. Commentary from J. Adam Carter
2c. Commentary from S. Goldberg
2d. Georgi Gardiner’s Response to Commentaries
3. From vice epistemology to critical character epistemology Ian James Kidd
3b. Commentary from J. Adam Carter
3c. Commentary from S. Goldberg
3d. Georgi Gardiner’s Response to Commentaries
4. Narrowing the Scope of Virtue Epistemology Neil Levy
4b. Commentary from Steven Bland
4c. Commentary from Quassim Cassam
4d. Neil Levy’s Response to Commentaries
5. Mindshaping and intellectual virtues A. Tanesini
5b. Commentary from Ian James Kidd
5c. Commentary from Thi Nguyen
5d. A. Tanesini’s Response to Commentaries
Part II: Individual Virtues and Vices
6. The Vices And Virtues Of Extremism Quassim Cassam
6b. Commentary from Barend de Rooij and Boudewijn de Bruin
6c. Commentary from Marco Meyer
6d. Quassim Cassam’s Response to Commentaries
7. Expectations of Expertise: Boot-strapping in Social Epistemology Sanford C. Goldber
7b. Commentary from Heidi Grasswick
7c. Commentary from Erik J. Olsson
7d. Sanford C. Goldberg’s Response to Commentaries
8. Fake News, Conspiracy Theorizing, and Intellectual Vice Marco Meyer and Mark Alfano
8b. Commentary from Quassim Cassam
8c. Commentary from Colin Klein
8d. Marco Meyer and Mark Alfano’s Response to Commentaries
9. Playfulness Versus Epistemic Traps C. Thi Nguyen
9b. Commentary from Ian James Kidd
9c. Commentary from Lani Watson
9d. C. Thi Nguyen’s Response to Commentaries
Part III: Collective virtues and vices
10. Solidarity: Virtue or Vice? Heather Battaly
10b. Commentary from T. Ryan Byerly
10c. Commentary from Duncan Prichard
10d. Heather Battaly’s Response to Commentaries
11. Collective (Telic) Virtue Epistemology J. Adam Carter
11b. Commentary from Jeroen de Ridder
11c. Commentary from Kate Devitt
11d. J. Adam Carter’s Response to Commentaries
12. Three Models for Collective Intellectual Virtues Jeroen de Ridder
12b. Commentary from Kate Devitt
12c. Commentary from Heidi Grasswick
12d. Jeroen de Ridder’s Response to Commentaries
13. Real Life Collective Epistemic Virtue and Vice Barend de Rooij and Boudewijn de Bruin
13b. Commentary from Steven Bland
13c. Commentary from Neil levy
13d. Barend de Rooij and Boudewijn de Bruin’s Response to Commentaries
14. The Social Virtue of Questioning: A Genealogical Account Lani Watson
14b. Commentary from J. Adam Carter
14c. Commentary from S. Goldberg
14d. Lani Watson’s Response to Commentaries
Part IV: Methods and Measurementes
15. An Interdisciplinary Methodology for Studying Collective Intellectual Character Traits T Ryan Byerly
15b. Commentary from Heather Battaly
15c. Commentary from Marco Meyer
15d. T Ryan Byerly’s Response to Commentaries
16. A Bayesian social platform for inclusive and evidence-based decision making
S. Kate Devitt, Tamara R. Pearce, Alok Kumar Chowdhury, and Kerrie Mengersen
16b. Commentary from Jeroen de Ridder
16c. Commentary from Erik J. Olsson
16d. S. Kate Devitt, Kerrie Mengersen, Tamara R. Pearce and Alok Kumar Chowdhury’s response to commentaries
17. Measuring Social Epistemic Virtues: A Field Guide Marco Mayer
17b. Commentary from T Ryan Byerly
17c. Commentary from Alessandra Tanesini
17d. Marco Meyer’s response to commentaries
18. Learning from Ranters: the Effect of Information Resistance on the Epistemic Quality of Social Network Deliberation Michael Morreau and Erik J. Olsson
18b. Commentary from Georgi Gardiner
18c. Commentary from Thi Nguyen
18d. Michael Morreau and Erik J. Olsson’s Response to Commentaries
19. Education as the Social Cultivation of Intellectual Virtue Michel Croce and Duncan Pritchard
19b. Commentary from Alessandra Tanesini
19c. Commentary from Lani Watson
19d. Michel Croce and Duncan Pritchard’s Response to Commentaries
Biography
Mark Alfano is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Macquarie University. In 2019, he published Nietzsche’s Moral Psychology (Cambridge UP). His papers have won awards from the Philosopher’s Annual (2018) and Peritia (2019).
Colin Klein is Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University. He is the author of What the Body Commands: The Imperative Theory of Pain (MIT Press, 2015).
Jeroen de Ridder is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Professor by special appointment of Christian Philosophy at the University of Groningen. His research is in social and political epistemology, and in 2021 he co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology.