1 BEYOND KNOWLEDGE AND TRUE BELIEF: CORRECTING THE VALUE MONISM OF CONTEMPORARY EPISTEMOLOGY While the recent emphasis on the intellectual virtues represents a positive development for contemporary epistemology, it is unfortunate that many proponents of virtue epistemology frame the debate with the primary aim of answering the traditional problems in epistemology. The purpose of this essay is to highlight the narrow focus of contemporary epistemology on the goods of knowledge and true belief, and to utilize that criticism to demonstrate the relevance of the virtues for a broader area of inquiry. In the end, it will be suggested that the intellectual virtues, while perhaps relevant to theories of knowledge and doxastic justification, are fairly under-utilized when developed in this way. On the contrary, the virtues are most relevant for the higher epistemic goods of understanding and wisdom,1 and therefore play a prominent role in the realization of the good life. I. Both internalists and externalists have found the resources of virtue epistemology helpful for advancing their respective projects. But in many cases the virtues are narrowly emphasized to address a particular concern of epistemology, for instance, how knowledge of the physical world is possible.2 Ernest Sosa’s most recent work begins with a detailed treatment of skepticism and concludes that a virtue epistemology is capable of adequately solving this problem.3 Indeed, his most seminal work in the field, developed to satisfy the tension between foundationalism and coherentism, is also 1
By calling understanding and wisdom “higher” epistemic goods, I’m suggesting that they are more desirable intellectual goals to pursue than mere knowledge or true belief. 2 While there are various forms of skepticism regarding the nature and scope of knowledge, this essay will not attempt to distinguish their important features. 3 Ernest Sosa, A Virtue Epistemology, Vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
2 centrally aimed at solving the regress problem in epistemology, and therefore is intimately connected to skeptical concerns.4 John Greco arrives at a similar conclusion in his main work on the subject, when he asserts that “a consideration of various skeptical arguments suggests that empirical knowledge is grounded in the faculties and habits of cognitively virtuous agents, and teaches us something about the nature of the cognitive virtues involved.”5 Greco also makes the revealing claim that the study of skeptical arguments is what “drives positive epistemology,” since it is often the background concern for skepticism which informs the articulation of various theories of knowledge and justification. Indeed, this is true even when the epistemologist is not psychologically convinced that skepticism represents a genuine threat for knowledge claims; the mere presence of skeptical arguments compels one to develop a theory which, at the very least, provides some justification for the commonsense intuition that skepticism is false. Since many virtue epistemologists are interested in utilizing the intellectual virtues to address the same problems as traditional epistemological theories, it is not surprising that skepticism represents an important aspect of their analyses. As Guy Axtell has pointed out in his summary of what motivates virtue epistemology: Questions about how to proceed in the study of core epistemic concepts like justification, knowledge, and understanding are ones that contemporary virtue epistemologists quite often engage. Skeptical arguments are another, and indeed
4 5
Ernest Sosa, “The Raft and the Pyramid,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 5 (1980), 3-25. John Greco, Putting Skeptics in Their Place (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 165.
3 are closely caught up in discussion of the former concepts and the problems that surround them.6 In other words, it is rather tricky to develop a theory of knowledge or justification without paying some attention to the threat of skepticism. The two emphases are intimately connected, and particularly in the field of virtue epistemology, it is widely believed that the intellectual virtues are uniquely suited to address the common difficulties that have plagued epistemologists in recent history. As Jonathan Kvanvig argues, the history of epistemology has been dominated by a concern for answering skepticism, and so it is only natural that contemporary theorists would find the virtues attractive for meeting this challenge: Skepticism provides the impetus for the origin of the discipline and has dominated the efforts of epistemologists throughout the history of epistemology, either in defense of skepticism or by way of rebuttal. The result of this dominance is that the discipline of epistemology has focused on the concept of knowledge and whatever constituents it has, such as truth and justification.7 To be fair, the “dominance” of skeptical concerns has been mitigated in recent decades, perhaps somewhat in response to the influence of commonsense realism. So in reality, there are very few analytic philosophers, in the contemporary scene, who genuinely take skepticism seriously or have sincere concerns that we might be living in “The Matrix.” But it seems clear that the situation is somewhat different in the field of virtue epistemology, as Kvanvig suggests with the following comments: 6
Guy Axtell, “Virtue Theoretic Responses to Skepticism,” Oxford Handbook of Skepticism, ed. John Greco (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 528. 7 Jonathan Kvanvig, The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 186.
4 In spite of this loosening of the shackles fastened on epistemology by skepticism, there is a deeper way in which skepticism still dominates…This point is well instanced by virtue epistemology. Instead of a broad focus on cognitive achievements and excellences in general, virtue epistemologists have usually tried to make a place for the virtues in epistemology by defining knowledge or justification in terms of the virtues.8 Internalists view the intellectual virtues as character traits manifested by the agent for obtaining knowledge, whereas many externalists understand the intellectual virtues as cognitive processes that reliably yield true beliefs. While there are significant differences between these competing theories of justification, in both cases practitioners are typically convinced that the potency of skepticism is diminished to the degree that the intellectual virtues are involved in the formation of beliefs—knowledge and epistemic justification is a product of exercising the intellectual virtues in the appropriate context. As Christopher Hookway has explained this matter, “this role of the virtues in the regulation of inquiries and deliberations may have a fundamental role in our response to skepticism, in our explanation of how knowledge is possible.”9 Virtue epistemologists have also argued that the intellectual virtues are central to an adequate account of knowledge and doxastic justification. While such a conviction does not explicitly cite skepticism as the primary target, it is not difficult to imagine how, along these lines, the failure to properly manifest the virtues would contribute to a lack of knowledge concerning the physical world. And so Paul Bloomfield is naturally quite
8
Ibid. Christopher Hookway, “How to be a Virtue Epistemologist,” Intellectual Virtue, eds. Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 197. 9
5 eager to point out the importance of the intellectual virtues to contemporary epistemology: Virtue epistemologists have staked their claim on the thought that there are certain intellectual virtues which, when developed and effectively operative, are central to our knowledge gathering techniques. The general hope of virtue epistemologists is that we can understand justification, the elusive final goal of epistemology, by understanding the kinds of dispositions that the intellectually virtuous person possesses.10 Although it is probably true that the intellectual virtues, in normal worlds, are conducive for gaining knowledge about the world, and can be viewed as generally reliable for producing true belief, there is the concern that applying the virtues to these traditional problems ignores a more promising line of inquiry, and perhaps even misunderstands the original purpose of a virtue theory.11 And it is precisely through employing the presumption of knowledge12 that the intellectual virtues enjoy their fullest expression, not primarily by explaining how knowledge is possible, but by providing the framework for grasping the greater epistemic goods of understanding and wisdom. As such, this common theme among virtue epistemologists of trying to show how empirical knowledge is possible, while representing an important and necessary part of philosophical reflection, might ultimately be viewed as secondary to the moral dimension
10
Paul Bloomfield, “Virtue Epistemology and the Epistemology of Virtue,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 60: 1 (2000), 34. 11 See G.E.M. Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Philosophy, Vol. 33:124 (1958). 12 The presumption of knowledge is a state of epistemic optimism, in which the agent is warranted in assuming a significant level of cognitive contact with reality, unless there are compelling reasons for thinking otherwise.
6 that emerges when an internalist theory of intellectual virtue is fully articulated and understood.13 II. The emphasis on skepticism is much more explicit in the externalist forms of virtue epistemology, and these models would be subject to a different line of criticism. Of course, these models are better equipped to deal with the threat of skepticism. This is because the cognitive agent has knowledge or justification just in case certain external conditions are satisfied, regardless of whether it is known or grasped that these conditions are satisfied. But exactly because of this particular interest in dealing with skepticism, externalist virtue epistemologists are preoccupied with securing knowledge of the physical world, and are therefore unmotivated to consider other important epistemic goods, such as understanding and wisdom. To be fair, this consequence is not necessitated by these forms of virtue epistemology. But their tendency to utilize the intellectual virtues in developing theories of knowledge and doxastic justification still distracts attention away from a detailed summary and analysis of the higher epistemic goods. What is the relationship between knowledge and these higher epistemic goods? In the classical tradition, the three epistemic states of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom represent the trivium of cognitive success; that is, they are typically viewed as the chief intellectual virtues, with knowledge being the least valuable among them.14 Of course, there have been secular and religious versions of this tradition, particularly in the 13
As a general rule, internalists view the virtues as character traits, whereas externalists prefer to conceive them as cognitive faculties. For a variety of reasons, it seems clear that character traits, as opposed to cognitive faculties, are largely accessible to the purview of the epistemic agent. 14 For the sake of clarity, I prefer to characterize these states as epistemic goods, rather than intellectual virtues. Such an account more clearly distinguishes the goals of intellectual activity (knowledge, understanding, wisdom) from the practices or attitudes which contribute to those goals.
7 work, respectively, of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.15 But the differences between these two philosophers, at least when it comes to this topic, are rather minimal in nature. In short, for a human being to truly flourish, she must have knowledge of the most important subject matters, understand their scope and magnitude, and be capable of applying these truths in the context of practical living. As such, simply knowing a host of true propositions, while perhaps necessary for living the good life, is anything but sufficient for the life of flourishing. In fact, it might be argued that the more someone knows, the more difficult it will be to organize that body of knowledge into a coherent and systematic noetic structure. The wise individual, therefore, will be motivated to limit her exposure to only the most significant areas of inquiry, whatever those may be. This classical emphasis runs contrary to the general theme in contemporary epistemology, in which true belief (and knowledge) is often viewed as the primary and exclusive goal of intellectual activity. Consider how this theme gets articulated by Laurence BonJour, in his most influential work in epistemology: What makes us cognitive beings at all is our capacity for belief, and the goal of our distinctively cognitive endeavors is truth: we want our beliefs to correctly and accurately depict the world‌The basic role of justification is that of a means to truth, a more directly attainable mediating link between our subjective starting point and our objective goal.16 To be sure, there is nothing inappropriate, generally speaking, with having truth as the goal of our cognitive endeavors. But it seems obvious that this goal, at least in 15
See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, trans. W.D. Ross, The Complete Works of Aristotle, Vol. 2 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984); and Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia, IIae, QQ 57, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1981). 16 Laurence BonJour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), 7.
8 some cases, must be balanced by other emphases, and could easily become distorted or extreme in nature. For example, we clearly don’t want to attribute epistemic praise to the individual who, motivated by the goal of truth, takes it upon himself to memorize all the names and numbers in a local phone book. But if true belief (or knowledge) is the primary epistemic goal, then it seems difficult to avoid considering such an individual intellectually virtuous. On the contrary, the reason this obsessive person is not epistemically praiseworthy is exactly because his cognitive endeavors are incompatible with the goals of understanding and wisdom. The point here is not to suggest that the agent must possess all three epistemic goods to warrant the praise of his peers. Such a conclusion would be much too restrictive, with the result that hardly anyone would deserve credit for their intellectual activities. There is a legitimate kind of epistemic praiseworthiness that can be attributed to the agent when he is motivated to believe the truth, and employs attitudes and practices that will generally yield true beliefs. Whatever the subject matter, the agent need not explicitly be motivated, in the course of engaging that area of inquiry, by the goods of understanding and wisdom to deserve our epistemic praise. But at the very least, the process of engaging this subject matter must not be inconsistent with the pursuit of these greater epistemic goods. And clearly in the case of the phonebook memorizer, the goods of understanding and wisdom have no connection to this narrow body of knowledge. The obvious result of this insight is that cognitive agents can enjoy various levels of epistemic praise. Indeed, one can be epistemically praiseworthy even when most of his beliefs turn out to be false. But even when such an individual forms true beliefs, and these beliefs are rooted in widely endorsed attitudes and practices, the epistemic analysis
9 has not reached its culminating point. This is because, once again, the ultimate goal of intellectual activity is not mere knowledge or true belief, but understanding and wisdom. And the individual who possesses these greater epistemic goods is, quite clearly, more worthy of our praise and admiration. IV. Must the cognitive agent have knowledge, regarding a certain subject matter, in order to enjoy understanding and wisdom? It seems we are required to answer in the affirmative. For example, consider the amateur car mechanic who is able to replace a catalytic converter or timing belt. Presumably this individual understands much about the details of the engine, which means that he grasps how the various parts are connected, and is able to explain how the system works properly, and so on. It is difficult to imagine such understanding not entailing a great deal of knowledge. And if the mechanic doesn’t know anything about the relevant parts and processes, then it becomes rather strange to insist that he understands such matters. So it follows that knowledge is a necessary condition for understanding. It also seems clear that knowledge is a necessary condition for wisdom, as commonsense dictates that an ignorant individual cannot be wise about important matters. Consider the young politician, lacking in experience, who is forced by extraordinary circumstances to manage a crisis situation. Unless he has extensive knowledge concerning, say, foreign affairs and rules of diplomacy, he will not be prepared to make the correct decisions and wisely govern his constituents. Of course, it might turn out that his decisions produce the desired outcome, but everyone would recognize that such favorable results obtained in spite of his lack of knowledge. And
10 depending on the situation, nobody would insist that the desired outcome is a direct product of the wisdom of this politician. If a cognitive agent is being deceived by an evil demon and holds mostly false beliefs about his physical surroundings, then he lacks knowledge concerning what he believes and the skeptic is correct. Depending on the details of the scenario, there might still be considerable epistemic praise to attribute to this agent. But because the agent lacks knowledge in this case, it just follows that he also lacks understanding and wisdom, despite whatever efforts he employs to organize his beliefs and apply them to everyday life. For example, it’s difficult to imagine someone who knows nothing about automobile engines also having vast understanding about how the various parts of the engine work together. Likewise, it would be rather strange to suppose that a person who is mostly ignorant of biological processes could grasp how certain lifestyles negatively impact the human body. In other words, it seems that knowledge is a necessary—but not a sufficient—condition for understanding and wisdom. The critical reader might be tempted to argue that the evil demon victim could still enjoy the goods of understanding and wisdom, albeit in some highly qualified sense. But can such a suggestion be taken seriously? It seems that both understanding and wisdom presuppose significant contact with reality, whereas the victim of the standard skeptical scenario is obviously deceived about the facts of his experience. Or consider the mentally deranged individual who proceeds to form a set of wildly fantastic beliefs about the nature of his experiences. Perhaps he is convinced that the federal government has hired him to determine the time and location of a future terrorist attack, when in reality he is a resident at the state mental hospital. Such an individual could produce
11 volumes of literature that outline his predictions, and yet all of his research is based upon fantasy and fabrication. Could such an individual ever be considered wise, or have any kind of understanding concerning this subject matter? And it seems that the evil demon victim, through no fault of his own, is only marginally distinct from this individual. On the other hand, perhaps it is possible to attribute understanding and wisdom, in some highly qualified sense, to agents who lack knowledge concerning a particular subject matter. Imagine the responsible and conscientious scientist who develops an important scientific theory, subjects it to thorough testing and scrutiny in the laboratory, and is able to subsequently predict and explain, via this theory, a number of interesting empirical phenomena. Clearly such an individual is worthy of a considerable amount of epistemic praise. But suppose it turns out the theory is false, and that its endorsement was based upon a minor observational error. While it would be tempting to conclude that the scientist lacks knowledge (and therefore, understanding) concerning the theory, I believe that such a claim is somewhat misleading. Indeed, there are several ways of cashing out this scenario, such that it might be reasonable to attribute knowledge and understanding to this scientist, in spite of the fact that the theory is false. First, while it’s true that the scientist doesn’t enjoy knowledge regarding the theory itself, he does have knowledge regarding certain details of the theory. Even though the theory is false, it consists of various components, most of which are based on sound analysis and observation. And the scientist certainly understands these details better than anyone else. So the scientist does enjoy knowledge and understanding regarding these factors, even if they are part and parcel of a model which, all things considered, turns out to be false. Second, since the scientist doesn’t have
12 knowledge concerning the theory itself, it just follows that he lacks understanding. However, he still has a perfectly consistent noetic structure that is manifested in the ability to outline the implications of the theory, to explain the significance of the theory in the context of the history of scientific ideas, and so on. Because he has a coherent belief set, therefore, he deserves some positive epistemic credit for his efforts. Insofar as the epistemic good of understanding is connected to the notion of coherence, then we still have some resources for attributing some modest amount of understanding to this scientist. Finally, it might be argued that there are two kinds of propositional knowledge: hypothetical and categorical. The scientist, in this case, merely has hypothetical knowledge concerning this theory. He knows that if x were true, then he should expect to observe y and z. But this doesn’t necessitate that he actually knows x. This would be similar to claiming, for instance, that I know that if someone is seven-feet tall, he should be able, all things considered, to dunk a basketball. Of course, it could turn out that nobody is that tall. But this possibility doesn’t repudiate my hypothetical knowledge of the proposition in question. So the scientist has knowledge (and even understanding), but not in the categorical sense. That is, the knowledge and understanding he enjoys is predicated on the truth of what is believed, and this can be enjoyed even when it turns out that some of the propositions he believes are false. As plausible as this seems, however, the sort of understanding that I’m primarily interested in is the categorical kind, since this will entail more cognitive contact with reality, and therefore make the agent all the more worthy of epistemic praise, and also more likely to approximate the good life.
13 At any rate, the application of the presumption of knowledge is rather limited, and should be reserved for the process of considering the relevance of other epistemic goods. But this stance does not assume that we actually possess the goods of understanding and wisdom, at least partially because we can’t be sure that the skeptical arguments are mistaken, but also because we lack certainty concerning the reliability of the character traits that give rise to our various beliefs. Of course, we are naturally inclined to believe that we have knowledge, and we are likely correct in this intuition. My point is simply to highlight the additional epistemic goods that we could possess, were it the case that skepticism is false or that our epistemic practices were generally reliable in putting us in cognitive contact with reality. To narrow the point, in order to possess the goods of understanding and wisdom, the skeptic must be incorrect. But we are not required to show that the skeptic is incorrect in order to justify the present analysis. And more to the point, the attempt to show the falsity of skeptical arguments might very well derail a consideration of these epistemic goods, for reasons I’ve already mentioned. V. At this point, it is necessary to transition into a discussion of these higher epistemic goods, beginning with the notion of understanding. As a first approximation, it is helpful to think of understanding in terms of coherence. Wayne Riggs shares this intuition when he writes that “the epistemological notion of ‘coherence’ and the idea of ‘explanatory coherence’ in particular seems to be getting very close to something characteristic of understanding.”17 Such an insight points us in the direction of a rather surprising role for coherence in contemporary epistemology. In the recent past, a fair 17
Wayne Riggs, “Understanding ‘Virtue’ and the Virtue of Understanding,” Intellectual Virtue. eds. Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 218.
14 number of epistemologists have argued that coherence plays a central role in a theory of justification, and yet few of their peers have been convinced by their efforts. Very roughly, coherence deals with the logical or conceptual relationships that obtain in a particular belief set. As BonJour puts it, “coherence is a matter of how well a body of beliefs ‘hangs together’: how well its component beliefs fit together, agree or dovetail with each other, so as to produce an organized, tightly structured system of beliefs.”18 The basic idea, among coherence theorists, is that a particular belief’s justificatory status is a function of its coherence within a particular noetic structure. The most common objection to coherentism, often referred to as the “Isolation Objection,” takes the following form: since coherence is purely a function of the internal relations between the beliefs in a noetic structure, it follows that a belief’s justification is completely independent from any relationship between the belief and the external world. As such, one might possess a perfectly justified system of empirical beliefs, and yet be completely out of touch with the world they aim to describe. The implication, quite obviously, is that a belief about the physical world must have some basis in that world to be epistemically justified. Clearly a theory of justification has come unglued when it entails, for example, that a clinically insane person, with a wildly unrealistic, yet perfectly consistent, conspiracy theory regarding some event, is epistemically justified in this set of beliefs. As a side note, there is some reason to think this objection is not as paralyzing for coherentism as it seems. For example, a number of coherence theorists have argued that, at least in typical cases, a coherent noetic structure will be firmly grounded in experience, and therefore sensitive to external input. Earl Conee has insisted that coherentism can 18
BonJour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, 93.
15 easily be reconciled to foundationalist themes. He points out that we should naturally expect that if we possess a coherent noetic structure that it will generally demonstrate a responsiveness to experience—just as we should expect that if our beliefs are properly informed through experience, they should therefore manifest some level of coherence among each other: The cases that indicate a role for coherence in the justification of a belief never contain experiences which are clearly unsuited to substantiate the cohering system…Similarly, when an example clearly indicates a crucial role for experiential foundations in justification, it never contains the justified beliefs in plainly incoherent combinations.19 Despite these sorts of arguments, however, most epistemologists have rejected coherentism as a satisfactory account of epistemic justification. I’m inclined to think that coherence plays a rather significant role in the justification of beliefs, but perhaps the common objections to coherentism are generally on target. Even if that were the case, it wouldn’t follow that coherence is completely irrelevant to matters epistemic. In short, while the notion of coherence may not play a role in the justification of beliefs, or in a theory of knowledge, it may be central to the epistemic good of understanding. And if something like coherence is applied to understanding, rather than to knowledge, then contact with empirical reality is already presupposed and therefore the Isolation Objection is no longer relevant. This is because, as already suggested above, one cannot understand a subject matter without also having knowledge about that same subject matter. And knowledge, quite obviously, must be grounded in experience. 19
Earl Conee, “A Basic Account of Justification,” in Evidentialism, eds. Earl Conee and Richard Feldman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 45.
16 At this point, it might prove helpful to offer a more careful definition of understanding. And so consider the following: a person, S, has understanding regarding some area of inquiry, t, when S exhibits awareness of the fundamental facts of t, appreciates the significance of these facts, and grasps the various relations that hold between these facts. As already suggested, this “grasping” has something to do with recognizing the coherence that obtains between ideas or propositions. But I hope to show that the concept of understanding is more robust than mere coherence, and that it is sufficiently flexible to account for a wide variety of intuitions. One of the most interesting features of understanding is its non-propositional nature. To be clear, this is not a necessary component of understanding, but it does seem possible for an individual to understand something without having a propositional attitude about it. This is because the direct object of understanding is not propositions, but rather the logical or conceptual relations among propositions. For example, it is not difficult to imagine a highly skilled detective who, when analyzing a crime scene, is able to accurately draw inferences about the nature and perpetrator of the crime, and yet without forming any conscious beliefs about the facts which give rise to these inferences. Indeed, these facts present themselves to the detective’s mind, but in a highly subconscious manner, completely bypassing any obvious propositional attitudes. To be sure, this is not the typical experience of cognitive agents, but it does seem rather commonplace for individuals in certain professions. This is a rather subtle distinction, since an awareness of these relations will typically take the form of various propositional attitudes. But this need not always be the case—someone can be aware of some fact or state of affairs, without such awareness
17 being propositional in nature.20 What this suggests is that understanding, unlike knowledge, is not a species of belief, and this is the point at which the similarity between understanding and coherentism is slightly undermined. Although since the analogy between understanding and coherence was merely offered as a first approximation, this insight will not prove especially troubling. Coherentism is typically conceived as a doxastic theory of justification, which entails that only beliefs can confer justification on other beliefs, whereas understanding can be either doxastic or non-doxastic in its orientation. But once again, typically the state of understanding will involve a number of propositional attitudes, such as thoughts concerning how a belief may be deduced from prior beliefs, or the cumulative epistemic strength of a particular set of beliefs, and so on. A potential difficulty arises here when I assert that understanding presupposes knowledge, and yet claim that understanding can be non-propositional. The difficulty is that we are discussing propositional knowledge, and so it seems rather strange, at least at first glance, to require knowledge for understanding, but to not require one of its components (belief) for the same understanding. But it might be that insisting on the presence of belief with respect to both epistemic goods is akin to committing the fallacy of division—what is true of the whole is not always true of the parts. In this case, one might argue that what is true of knowledge (that it is necessary for understanding), is not true for belief, without involving any obvious logical inconsistency. So while it’s true that understanding depends on knowledge, understanding should not be characterized as a
20
The same kind of phenomenon often takes place in the act of perception—we are aware of the presence of an object in our visual field, yet such awareness is non-propositional in nature. In fact, certain kinds of foundationalist theories depend on the legitimacy of this concept for grounding our perceptual beliefs.
18 species of knowledge.21 In other words, understanding is not simply a more rigorous form of knowledge; they are conceptually distinct epistemic goods. A further clarification regarding the difference between knowledge and understanding is required here. Although understanding can be either propositional or non-propositional in nature, it will always involve some kind of awareness of the various relations that obtain between members of a belief set. On this point, Kvanvig claims that “understanding requires, and knowledge does not, an internal grasping or appreciation of how the various elements in a body of information are related to each other in terms of explanatory, logical, probabilistic, and other kinds of relations that coherentists have thought constitutive of justification.”22 And it doesn’t seem obvious that this “internal grasping” should always be doxastic or propositional in nature. The result of this factor is that understanding is, necessarily, a strongly internalist epistemic good. Whereas knowledge might be primarily externalist in nature, in which case the factors that contribute to knowledge are beyond the purview of the cognitive agent, understanding must involve a conscious awareness of the factors that contribute to this distinct epistemic state. Indeed, it would be unintelligible to claim of someone who has no holistic grasp of the details of a particular subject matter, that he or she has understanding regarding that topic. This insight provides the externalist with the opportunity to explore the relevance of internalist themes for epistemology, albeit in a somewhat different context. The kind of conceptual parity that would emerge from such considerations would likely point the discipline of epistemology in some surprising 21
On this subject, Jonathan Kvanvig claims that understanding is a species of knowledge, but it’s not clear to me that such a position is required to construct a plausible theory of understanding. See The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding, 190-93. 22 Kvanvig, The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding, 192.
19 directions. But to be clear, this internalist element of understanding can be endorsed independent from any internalist or externalist preferences regarding a theory of justification. In other words, one can maintain a staunch externalism regarding the justification of beliefs, while recognizing the legitimacy of internalist themes for the epistemic good of understanding. This is because doxastic justification is connected to notions like truth and probability, and these factors are external in nature. But coherence is mostly an internalist notion, since agents can typically reflect, to varying degrees, on whether their noetic structure is coherent. Of course, both externalists and internalists should agree, because of the internal access requirement that is fundamental to understanding, that instances of knowledge will be far greater than instances of understanding. To be sure, there is nothing surprising about this admission. Particularly if perceptual beliefs are considered paradigm cases of knowledge, it follows that human beings regularly enjoy knowledge in response to their experiences. On the other hand, there are fewer individuals who employ the effort to adequately understand a certain area of inquiry. This should fit our intuitions, for example, regarding young children and mentally challenged individuals. Surely we want to grant that such persons know many things, but clearly fail to have understanding of virtually every subject matter.23 This last conclusion reveals the fundamental role of the intellectual virtues for understanding. In most cases, the mind of a young child or mentally challenged person will not be developed enough to enjoy these greater epistemic goods. So they simply lack the ability to be open-minded and courageous in their intellectual pursuits, and they 23
I would also resist attributing epistemic praise to such individuals, but that is a separate epistemic state altogether.
20 don’t have the intellectual stamina to work through conceptual difficulties and trace the connections between ideas. These intellectual virtues, I’m arguing, serve primarily as an instrument to the realization of these higher goods. The development of understanding requires effort on the part of the cognitive agent; it represents an active process. As such, only an intellectually virtuous person will be capable of enjoying this epistemic good. This is precisely why the agent who has understanding, unlike the agent who has mere knowledge, is more worthy of our epistemic praise. And quite obviously, a person who has understanding and wisdom is closer to living the good life than those who do not. The latter epistemic good, wisdom, points to an obvious moral element in epistemology, and I wish to close this discussion with some brief comments on wisdom, and allow those insights to pave the way for further work in this area. VI. Given the etymological roots of the word ‘philosophy’, it is rather odd that the concept of wisdom has been virtually ignored in the contemporary scene. Presumably philosophers are supposed to be lovers of wisdom, and yet it is difficult to find professionals who have bothered to analyze this important concept. Earlier it was suggested that the failure to consider these higher epistemic goods was partly the result of a narrow focus on skeptical challenges, and the related pressure to develop theories of knowledge and justification which, at least indirectly, take such challenges into account. To be fair, this connection could easily be exaggerated, as there are probably numerous exceptions in contemporary epistemology. But whatever influence skepticism has made on the tone of the contemporary discussion, it is perfectly clear that a kind of atomism with respect to the epistemic goods has dominated in recent years. This phenomenon is
21 what Michael DePaul has termed “value monism,” with the emphasis being almost exclusively on true belief as the chief goal of our intellectual activities.24 It is difficult to determine exactly why this sort of monism has emerged in recent decades. One possible explanation is that the concept of truth involves an element of objectivity that is lacking in other concepts. A proposition, for example, is either true or false, depending on whether its content reflects the facts of reality. But the notion of wisdom is, quite obviously, less objective in nature. To attribute wisdom to a cognitive agent is to introduce a moral element that seems more difficult to analyze and categorize. Indeed, notions of the good life, which are intimately connected to the good of wisdom, might even seem pretentious to some philosophers, as if there were an indisputable telos or purpose to human activity. While these concerns are understandable, this narrow focus on true belief has precluded the exploration of an important element in cognitive activity. In short, the problem of epistemic value has emerged directly out of this atomistic emphasis on true belief and knowledge. To explain briefly, if truth is the primary goal of all epistemic activity, then it is difficult to imagine why knowledge is better than true belief.25 And yet intuitively, knowledge does have more value than mere true belief. As DePaul has explained: When one has a true belief, one has already attained the only thing of epistemic value—one’s belief is as epistemically good as beliefs get. No matter what other characteristics one’s true belief might have, these characteristics cannot add any 24
Michael DePaul, “Value Monism in Epistemology,” in Knowledge, Truth, and Duty, ed. Matthias Steup (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 170-83. 25 For a more detailed synopsis of the value problem, see Duncan Pritchard, “Recent Work on Epistemic Value,” American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 44: 2 (2007), 85-110.
22 additional epistemic value, for we are supposing that truth is the only epistemic good, and the belief in question is a belief that is true.26 DePaul’s suggestion, which I’m naturally inclined to endorse, is that we become “value pluralists” in our approach to epistemology. This involves recognizing that truth is not the only—or even the most important—epistemic good that humans can pursue in their cognitive activities. This would provide the resources for explaining why knowledge is better than mere true belief, but it would also supply the foundation for exploring the higher epistemic goods: understanding and wisdom. But what exactly is wisdom, and how does it relate to the good life? Robert Nozick has helpfully commented on this topic, concluding that “wisdom is what you need to understand in order to live well and cope with the central problems and avoid the dangers in the predicaments human beings find themselves in.”27 If this is generally correct, then wisdom has a practical element that is absent in the other epistemic goods. But of course, the significance of wisdom runs much deeper than mere practicality, as Nozick continues on the matter: Wisdom is not simply knowing how to steer one’s way through life, cope with difficulties, etc. It also is knowing the deepest story, being able to see and appreciate the deepest significance of whatever occurs; this includes appreciating the ramifications of each thing or event for the various dimensions of reality, knowing and understanding not merely the approximate goods but the ultimate ones, and seeing the world in this light.28
26
Michael DePaul, “Value Monism in Epistemology,” 175. Robert Nozick, The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations (New York: Touchstone, 1989), 267. 28 Nozick, The Examined Life, 276. 27
23 The vagueness of this passage makes it difficult to unpack, and yet it seems that Nozick has profoundly hit the target. A person of wisdom is not only knowledgeable, and able to categorize her thoughts and beliefs into a coherent system, but has the distinct ability to properly orient her life in response to these factors. What is more, this person has learned to interpret life’s experiences through a particular lens, one that allows her to act rightly and justly, and thereby realize the good life. Consider the young father who is struggling to balance the pressures of career with the expectations of parenthood, and who regularly finds himself depleted and unwilling to properly invest in the lives of his children. And yet he realizes the significance of his role and the sacred nature of every moment, and therefore actively searches for opportunities to model character and integrity to his children. Surely we would praise such a parent, in spite of his many flaws and shortcomings, for his desire and ability to redeem the interactions with his family. Indeed, we would insist that it was this man’s wisdom that enabled him to act in this laudable manner. Is it not clear how wisdom is intimately connected to morality? As such, the wise individual is, necessarily, both epistemically and morally praiseworthy. This is because wisdom, being the chief epistemic good, requires both knowledge and understanding. If a knowledgeable agent with an understanding of some subject matter is worthy of epistemic praise, then it’s certainly the case that a wise agent is worthy of such praise. And the person of wisdom is, intuitively, morally laudable because of his ability to properly orient his life around the facts of reality. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a wise person who is also immoral, all things considered, in his attitudes and behavior.
24 This points to an interesting insight about immorality—it essentially involves a disassociation from reality. From the bank robber to the serial rapist, all such individuals are, for whatever reasons, deluding themselves about the truth. And it is only through such self-delusion that the relevant acts are capable of being performed in the first place. It would be profoundly understated to put it this way, but the bank robber and serial rapist are, in fact, unwise in their respective actions. On this connection between wisdom and morality, Linda Zagzebski notes the following: The unifying feature of wisdom explains another distinctive mark of wisdom, namely, that it cannot be misused, whereas knowledge surely can be misused. Wisdom not only unifies the knowledge of the wise person but unifies her desires and values as well. There is nothing incoherent or even surprising about a knowledgeable person who is immoral, but it is at least surprising, perhaps incoherent, to say that a wise person is immoral.29 For example, surely it would be unintelligible to claim that a morally suspect politician, like Hitler or Stalin, manifested wisdom in his governing and policy-making. This is not to discount that such an individual could employ real creativity and intelligence in his various activities. But if most of his political actions are directed towards immoral ends, then it just strains credibility to insist that he is, all things considered, a wise individual. One of the more interesting qualities of wisdom is the fact that it represents a particular skill or ability. It seems inappropriate to label the other epistemic goods in this manner, perhaps because these are more correctly states of being. Whatever the exact difference, it seems clear that wisdom contains a necessary practical element that knowledge and understanding are mostly lacking. To be sure, these epistemic goods can, 29
Linda Zagzebski, Virtues of the Mind (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 22.
25 at times, manifest themselves in the form of practical behavior. The point is simply that such applicability is not necessary to knowledge and understanding—one can have profound understanding of the most abstract and theoretical matters, for instance, without such understanding having any tangible impact in the real world. It is hardly worth stating that the intellectual virtues, as I conceive them, are uniquely relevant for the pursuit of wisdom. Quite simply, anyone who disputes this fact doesn’t understand the real import of an intellectual virtue. To explain this connection, at the level of intuition, Wayne Riggs has explained in rather simple terms: 1. Wisdom is the highest epistemic good for humans 2. Whatever contributes to a life of wisdom is good by virtue of that fact 3. The members of the standard list of intellectual virtues contribute to the achievement of wisdom 4. So, the intellectual virtues are good because they contribute to a life of wisdom30 The basic idea here is that the intellectual virtues are dispositions or activities which are intrinsically directed towards a good end, and are therefore valuable for all humans to possess. And most significantly, these virtues are best suited when directed towards the goal of wisdom. Someone could have a vast store of true beliefs and a profound understanding of the relevant subject matter, and still fall short of highest form of intellectual virtuosity. In spite of these other positive factors, such an individual would lack wisdom, and would therefore be missing out on the pinnacle of human flourishing. At the very least, I hope this essay has suggested some new paths for considering the relevance of the intellectual virtues for epistemic matters. It should be obvious, by 30
See Riggs, “Understanding ‘Virtue’ and the Virtue of Understanding,” 215.
26 this point, that several other epistemologists are presently considering these themes, and for that I’m profoundly encouraged. But once again, I sense that many of these individuals have failed to properly distance the virtues from the traditional problems of epistemology, such as skepticism and the like. The intellectual virtues are best suited, not as the centerpiece of a theory of knowledge or justification, but rather in the context of a robustly moral understanding of cognitive activity. Indeed, if this is precisely where the virtues belong, then it will be difficult to avoid the conclusion that epistemology and ethics are more connected than we ever imagined.