Pragmatic Encroachment

Trent Dougherty has been making the case against pragmatic encroachment, and I must say, I find some of his reasons compelling. It is not entirely clear to me, however, the extent to which the leading VE accounts "on the market" come pragmatically-unencroached. Additionally, I'm curious as to the plausibility of sympathising with Dougherty while at the same time endorsing the view that pragmatic interests can play a *very* small role in determining knowledge ascriptions. Put another way: I wonder the extent to which a hostility to pragmatic encroachment is an all-or-nothing position.

Back from Epistemic Agency conference in Geneva

Hats off to Pascal Engel, Anne Meylan and Julien Dutant for running an outstanding and instructive conference (Epistemic Agency, Geneva) this past weekend, which was preceded by (in my opinion) an equally stimulating three days of the John Greco Lectures. Greco's new book--Knowledge as True Belief Through Ability--promises to be excellent. And additionally, I think the University of Geneva and its Episteme programme (particularly because of Pascal Engel) is developing into a happening place for epistemic normativity; at least, it would be nuts to draw any other conclusion after this past week. Word of warning, however: the Swiss are very much drawn to eating (cheese) fondu. I was cautioned that if too much is consumed, it will give you a nightmare. Skeptical, I binge-dipped from the fondu pot. The result: I dreamed I was being chased by a murderer for what seemed like eternity. (Don't try this to test it).

New Papers on Virtue Epistemology, Epistemic Luck, Value of Knowledge, etc.

My apologies for neglecting my blog! If it were a child, someone would have taken it away from me. I need to get back into the habit. In a feeble effort to make up for some lost time, I have gotten around finally to putting my latest work on VE, epistemic luck, and epistemic value (and other areas of epistemology) up online. You can download them from my homepage at http://jadamcarter.googlepages.com

As most of these are works in progress, please cite only by permission. Also, I am of course very happy to have any comments/feedback on any of this. Feedback is welcome both on this blog or by e-mailing me at j.a.carter@ed.ac.uk

In the meantime, I'm stoked to be leaving tomorrow morning for the star-studded Epistemic Agency conference in Geneva...

Cheers, Adam

Exhibitions of Virtue: what are they?

Suppose I want to figure out whether my true belief was because of my exhibition of intellectual virtue. A prominent recent view claims that I'd need to figure out whether my cognitive abilities are salient in explaining my cognitive success. Now I know what needs explained here-- my getting a true belief--but what exactly would be doing the explaining were it that I was a knower. The physical event that would be whatever I do to 'exhibit' intellectual virtue? Would it be a mental event-- my manifesting virtue? Would it be a combination of both?