1. FILM-330 (FILK-229, FTY-924, FTE345e, FTE340.1e, FTE220), 5 cr
Virtue Epistemology
FILM-330 (FILK-229, FTY-924, FTE345e, FTE340.1e, FTE220), 5 cr
FILM-330 Epistemology, knowledge and justification, specialization, 5 cr 
Tieto-oppi/ Markus Lammenranta

2. instructions
We will discuss a paper or a book chapter at each session. Every participant will write an outline and give a short presentation of the text to be discussed for one session. Send the outline by to the participants one day before each session.
The materials and info on the course page:
The deadline for the final paper (about 2500 words) is January 5, It can be partly based on the abstract and can be written in English, Finnish or Swedish.
Evaluation: Essay (40%) + Outline and presentation (30%) + discussion participation (30%) 
Epistemology of Perception / Markus Lammenranta
14/03/2018

3. The topics The Nature and Value of Knowledge Knowledge as Achievement
1.11. Zagzebski (2009), “What Is Knowledge?”
Knowledge as Achievement
6.11. Sosa (2007) “Virtue Epistemology”
8.11. Greco (2012), “A (Different) Virtue Epistemology”
Epistemic Virtues
Sosa (2010), “How Competence Matters in Epistemology”
Zagzebski (2018), “Intellectual Virtues: Admirable Traits of Character”
Other Versions
Pritchard (2012), “Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology”
Miracchi (2015), “Competence to Know”
Reliabilism versus Responsibilism
Baehr (2011), The Inquiring Mind, Ch. 3 & 4
Sosa (2015) “Virtue Epistemology: Character versus Competence”
Knowledge as Action
4.12. Sosa (2015) “Judgment and Agency”
Sosa, (2015) “Descartes’s Pyrrhonian Virtue Epistemology”
Epistemology workshop (?)
Presentation Name / Firstname Lastname
22/02/2019

4. What is virtue epistemology?
Virtue Epistemology: (1) Epistemology is a normative discipline. (2) Intellectual agents and communities are the primary focus of epistemic evaluation.
Ethics
What actions are right?
What is valuable?
What is a good life?
What is a good or virtuous person?
Which is the most fundamental question?
Deontological theories: 1
Consequentialism: 2
Virtue ethics: 4
A right action is a sort of action that a virtuous person would perform.
A good life is a life that a virtuous person would lead.
Epistemology
What beliefs are justified or rational or constitute knowledge?
What is intellectually valuable?
What is an intellectually good life?
What is an intellectually good or virtuous person?
Which is the most fundamental question?
Epistemic deontologism: 1
Epistemic consequentialism: 2
Virtue epistemology: 4
Presentation Name / Firstname Lastname
22/02/2019

5. The traditional problems of epistemology
Many virtue epistemologists (Greco, Sosa, Pritchard, Zagzebski) think that the motivation for virtue epistemology comes from its capacity to solve the traditional problems of epistemology:
What is knowledge? How does knowledge differ from mere true belief?
The problem of Plato’s Theatetus
The Gettier problem
Why is knowledge valuable? Why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief?
The problem of Plato’s Meno
How is knowledge possible? How should we respond to skeptical arguments?
Agrippa’s problem or the regress problem (Pyrrhonian skepticism)
How is knowledge about the external world possible given that there are the error possibilites that we cannot rule out? (Cartesian skepticism)
Others (Baehr) think that intellectual virtues deserve an independent study that replaces or complements traditional epistemology.
Zagzebski (2009) discusses questions 1 and 2 and argues that only virtue epistemology can answer both of them. (1.11.)
Sosa (2007) discusses questions 1 and 3. He focuses on Cartesian skepticism based on the dream possibility. (6.11.)
Presentation Name / Firstname Lastname
22/02/2019

6. Knowledge as achievement
Virtue epistemologists think typically that knowledge is an achievement. It is a special case of performances that succeed because of the agent’s competence or abilities.
This explains both the nature and value of knowledge.
Sosa (2007) develops first a general account of performance normativity and then applies it to beliefs.
Knowledge is apt belief: It is true belief that is true because competent. Its truth is attributable to the competence of the knower. (6.11.)
Greco (2012) agrees with Sosa that knowledge is a case of a more general normative kind—that of success from ability, or success attributable to ability. But he disagrees with Sosa about the nature of the attribution relation. It is pragmatic rather than metaphysical. (8.11.)
Presentation Name / Firstname Lastname
22/02/2019

7. Epistemic virtues
There are two different ways of understanding virtues in virtue epistemology
Virtue reliabilism: Virtues are competences or abilities to form trúe beliefs, such as perception, introspection, memory and reason.
Sosa, Greco, Pritchard, (Miracchi: competences to know)
Virtue responsibilism: Virtues are admirable traits of character that include a motivational component, such as open-mindedness, intellectual courage and intellectual modesty.
Zagzebski, Battaly, Baehr
Sosa (2010) develops a theory of competence and applies it to different problem cases. (13.11.)
Zagzebski (2018) defends a conception of virtue as a deep and enduring acquired trait that we admire and which includes a motivational component. (15.11.)
Presentation Name / Firstname Lastname
22/02/2019

8. Other versions of virtue epistemology
Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology
Pritchard (2012) argues that robust virtue epistemology (à la Sosa and Greco) fails, because knowledge must satisfy two independent conditions: an ability condition and an anti-luck (safety) condition. (20.11.)
Knowledge-First Virtue Epistemology
Miracchi (2015) argues that indirect virtue epistemology (à la Sosa and Greco) fail to solve the Gettier Problem. She develops a direct virtue epistemology, which takes intellectual virtues to be abilities to know rather than to believe what is true.
Knowledge is here understood in terms of virtues, and virtues are understood in terms of knowledge. Miracchi thinks that this sort of circularity is not vicious, because it illuminates interesting epistemic phenomena.
Presentation Name / Firstname Lastname
22/02/2019

9. Reliabilism versus Responsibilism
Baehr (2011) understands intellectual virtues as intellectual character traits and, argues that they cannot form the basis of an adequate analysis of knowledge, but that they merit a secondary role in both reliabilist and evidentialist accounts of knowledge. (27.11.)
Baehr thinks that there are counterexamples to Zagzebski’s analysis of knowledge.
He criticizes virtue reliabilists, such as Sosa and Greco, for overlooking character virtues in their epistemology. This makes them unable to account for high-grade knowledge, such as philosophical, historical, scientific and moral knowledge.
Sosa (2015) responds that there has always been a place for character virtues in his epistemology. He develops a competence-based epistemology that takes into account both character virtues and the volitional and intentional nature of epistemic agency. (29.11.)
Presentation Name / Firstname Lastname
22/02/2019

10. Knowledge as action
In ”Judgment and Agency”, Sosa (2015) gives an account of a fully apt performance – the fully desirable status for perfomances in general.
Then he develops an account of apt judgment as a special case. Judgment is a conscious and intentional act, an affirmation of a proposition in the endeavor to affirm correctly and aptly. Judgmental belief is a disposition to so judge. And knowledge (full well) is apt judgmental belief. (4.12.)
Here, it is clear that Sosa’s comptense-based virtue epistemology does not rule our volitional and intentional agency (emphasized by virtue responsibilists).
Indeed, it is able to give an illuminating account of ancient Pyrrhonism and Descartes’s epistemology, which both focus on judgment rather than involuntary (functional) belief.
The last session is about Sosa’s interpretation of Descartes’ project (but we could take his interpretation of Pyrrhonism instead). (11.12.)
Presentation Name / Firstname Lastname
22/02/2019